Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

1) Penn State (1)
2) Ohio State (2)
3) Michigan (3)
4) Iowa (5)
5) Michigan State (7)
6) Wisconsin (4)
7) Maryland (6)
8) Rutgers (8)
9) Nebraska (12)
10) Minnesota (10)
11) Indiana (9)
12) Purdue (11)
13) Illinois (13)
14) Northwestern (14)

1.  Ohio State - Even though the "quality loss" against Oregon isn't as quality as it once was, OSU's defense continues to improve dramatically from game to game.  I'd pick them over every other B1G team on a neutral site.

2.  Iowa - The defense has always been scary, but it reached an entirely new level against Maryland.  I'm still not a full believer in their offense, I think their defense has made life easy for their offense.

3.  Michigan - I think they match up perfectly against PSU, and I would pick them on a neutral field.

4.  Penn State - Very similar to Iowa, but the PSU defense isn't quite as dominating, and the PSU running game is significantly worse.  If Clifford continues to play at a high level, they have a chance to beat anyone in the league. 

5.  Michigan State - They are undefeated, but I can't imagine them staying this high for long.

6.  Maryland - Worst coaching in the B1G, and perhaps the power 5.  If this was a well coached team they could compete with anyone in the league.

7.  Nebraska

8.  Wisconsin  - ???? 
9. Rutgers
10. Minnesota
11. Indiana - I think they have 3 losses to top 5 teams?  Maybe this team is better than we think?
12. Purdue
13. Illinois
14. Northwestern

1.  Ohio State - offense looks to be clicking with a healthy Stroud. The defense has looked much improved last 2 weeks in a row. They have so much fire-power on offense, they just need a good, above average defense to be #1. And it looks like they are rounding into form there on defense. They have best talent on offense by far in the league and can put up points on anyone in this leauge.

2.  Penn State - just a solid team top to bottom on both sides of ball, keep handling business, Clifford is a really good QB that just keeps leading them to W's. 

3.  Iowa - super impressive win vs Maryland. Defense is nasty, but still have ?'s about the offense and maybe Maryland had us all fooled a little bit and they suck??? I've got them basically tied with PSU. 

4.  Michigan - emergence of David Ojabo could make them scary on defense. Aidan Hutchinson has been literally unblockable, if he has a book-end partner terrorizing offensive lines as well- makes Michigan defense a lot scarier. QB and CB still their biggest ? mark. I feel like they are an elite QB and an elite #1 CB away from being #1 on this list and real playoff contenders. CB is just a weak spot on the roster and still not a believer in McNamara. At some point they will have to turn this thing over to JJ McCarthy at some point this year if they want a shot to ascend to #1 in the league imo. 

5.  Michigan State - undefeated, playing solid football and that whole team has bought in. They just keep winning, and I think they'll smoke Rutgers & beat Indiana and head into what will be a huge match-up at home vs Michigan.

6.  Nebraska - better than their record indicates. They played OU tough, took MSU into OT and just drilled Northwestern at home. Very good, underrated front 7 on defense. That loss to Illinois in week 0 looms large. If they replayed that game now, they'd smoke Illinois. 

7.  Maryland - here by default really. they might actually be worse than this ranking.

8.  Wisconsin  - they have an elite defense. unfortunately their special teams and offense are total friggin' mess right now.
 
9. Minnesota - row that boat to 3rd place in the west, i guess?

10. Purdue - Brohm getting paid big bucks to put up only 13 pts for 3 weeks in a row kinda head scratching. Totally expected them to put up more points this year.

11. Rutger - they still suck. Michigan should've been up 28-3 on them at half and then blown them out last week but shit the bed 2nd half. Ohio State exposed them- these guys still suck.

12. Indiana - tough schedule, but Penix has been pretty bad this year and last year looking more and more like it was probably a fluke year for them. 

13. Illinois - meh.

14. Northwestern - worst team in the league by far imo.

How come you gave Wiconin its S's back?

Fourth quarter Wisconsin is not worthy of their S's.  Seems kinda unfair to punish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarter Wisconsin...

Weirdly, I can still see Wisconsin winning out....

Rankings preview with votes through mine, 14 voters:

• tOSU and Iowa are tied for 1/2 not far ahead of
• PSU is 3rd not far ahead of
• M is 4th then a HUGE gap then
• MSU is 5th then an even bigger gap then
• UNL is 6th barely ahead of
• UW is 7th not far ahead of
• UMD is 8th then a bit of a space then
• MN is 9th just barely ahead of
• RU is 10th then a HUGE gap then
• IU is 11th barely ahead of their arch-rival
• PU is 12th then a large gap then
• IL is 13th relatively comfortably over
• NU is last.  

Waiting for @ELA 's vote because he usually votes right after I post results and right now I have a tie (tOSU and IA for 1/2) and several really close (MN/RU within one vote for 9/10, IU/PU within 2 votes for 11/12).  

So while I'm waiting the top-4 are interesting.  At this point nobody is voting for anyone other than tOSU/IA/PSU/M for the top-4 and everybody is voting those four teams in the top-4 but the order within the top-4 is definitely up for grabs.  Votes:

• tOSU 7, IA 4, PSU 2, M 1
• IA 7, PSU 4, M 2, tOSU 1
• PSU 5, tOSU 4, M 4, IA 1
• M 7, PSU 3, tOSU 2, IA 2

There is some agreement (half of us each) on tOSU #1, IA #2, and M #4 but there is no agreement on PSU and #3.  When you add it all up and average it you get:

• 29, 2.07 tOSU
• tie 29, 2.07 IA
• 37, 2.64 PSU
• 45, 3.21 M

Taking out the high and low for each doesn't really change anything because each teams' high is #1 and each teams' low is #4:

• 24, 2, tOSU
• tie 24, 2, IA
• 32, 2.67 PSU
• 40, 3.33 M

Only @Hawkinole thinks that Michigan is #1; only @iahawk15 thinks that tOSU is #2; only @Mdot21 thinks that IA is #3.  Other than that each team has at least two votes for each spot between #1 and #4.  

I get it, I think there is a realistic argument for each team at any of the four spots:

• Ohio State:  The good is that they have a LOT of talent on the roster and they've looked pretty sharp the last two weeks.  The bad is that they've played Akron and Rutgers the last two weeks.  Akron sucks and maybe Rutgers isn't so good afterall?  Have they really figured things out or have they just played lightweight opponents?  
• Iowa:  The good is that their resume looks phenomenal based on preseason rankings, their offense seems to be improving, and they've been solid pretty much every week with their weakest performance being against CSU in a two-score win.  The bad is that the Indiana and Iowa State wins seem to get weaker every week and how did they struggle so much with a CSU team that got blown out by SoDak ST and lost to Vandy?  
• Penn State:  The good is that they have played easily the toughest schedule of the bunch and won them all.  The bad is that their 6-point win in Madison doesn't look nearly so good now that the Badgers got blown out by both Michigan and Notre Dame and even their shutout of the Hoosiers didn't feel nearly as dominant as Iowa's win over the same opponent.  
• Michigan:  The good is basically everything except the second half of the Rutgers game and the bad is obviously the aforementioned second half of the Rutgers game.  We probably shouldn't knock a team too much for one half of ugly football but it was REALLY ugly.  Michigan led Rutgers 20-3 at the half and looked to be on their way to an easy win at home, then in the second half they had 47 yards of offense and one first down.  Rutgers had more yards on each of three separate drives in the second half than Michigan had in the entire half and the Scarlet Knights scored 10 points to convert what looked to be on it's way to a blowout win by the Wolverines into a seven point home escape.  Initially I thought (and I think most people here thought) that maybe Rutgers was just that good.  Ok, no problem.  Then Rutgers played Ohio State.  The Buckeyes scored a TD on their second play from scrimmage and never looked back.  The Buckeyes scored on their first seven possessions against Rutgers and added a pick-6 defensively to take a 52-6 lead early in the second half then coasted to a 52-13 win.  Ohio State's absolute demolition of the Scarlet Knights makes Michigan's second half against them look abysmal and even brings the first half into question.  If Michigan had led 45-6 at the half like the Buckeyes did then doing absolutely nothing in the second half wouldn't raise any red flags but they didn't, they only led 20-3.  Why?  It is fairly likely that either Rutgers just had a REALLY good or Michigan had a REALLY bad half and it doesn't mean much going forward but we don't know that yet.  

• Wisconsin - 7,4,3,3,2 I think the people dropping UW to very low rankings are overreacting and missing some context.  Yes, the Badgers are 0-2 in the league and 1-3 overall but the three teams they lost to are ranked #4, #9, and #14 nationally and two of the three losses were competitive well into the second half.  Wisconsin isn't a bad team they just aren't as good as we expected and they've played a brutal schedule. 
• Michigan State - 8,7,9,9,11 Everybody (until me) has them #5 basically by default but I think we are overrating them.  The Spartans are undefeated but their best wins are over a sub.500 Miami team and a Nebraska team that lost to Illinois.  Maybe they are a decent team but I don't think we know yet and their next two games are RU and IU so I don't think we are going to know until they host Michigan the day before Halloween.

MSU might wind up being overrated, but I don't think it's by "default" now.  Massey has 62 computers in his composite.  MSU is #13.  Wisconsin is #59.

To that point, the computers aren't even judging it as MSU vs. Wisconsin.  MSU is #5, as most here have them, but it's not even though Wisconsin is #6.  Wisconsin is #11.  The computers, who if anything understand context, have Maryland, Rutgers, Nebraska, Purdue, and Minnesota all between MSU and Wisconsin