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1. Oregon
2. Indiana
3. Penn State
4. Ohio State
5. Illinois 
6. Iowa
7. Washington 
8. Michigan 
9. Nebraska
10. Wisconsin
11. Michigan State
12. USC
13. Minnesota 
14. Rutgers
15. Maryland 
16. UCLA
17. Northwestern 
18. Purdue

Purdue and Northwestern? 

Does either even know how to play? 

1. Penn State
2. Oregon
3. Ohio State
4. Indiana
5. Illinois
6. Iowa
7. Wisconsin
8. Washington
9. Minnesota
10. Nebraska
11. Michigan
12. Michigan State
13. USC
14. Rutgers
15. Maryland
16. UCLA
17. Northwestern
18. Purdue

For years I did a chart of schedule/performance and I missed my chart so I made it for this year:


As per usual, some results just don't make sense.  

1) Oregon: yes, I've been giving OSU the benefit of the cross-country travel doubt, and the same thing applies to beating Illinois at home, but...
2) PSU: a complete team that doesn't appear flashy, but their quarterbacks are strong and their defense is legit. They will be in every game they play, even against the best teams in the country.
3) Ohio State: not a great result against Nebraska in the Horse Shoe. Sure, teams have bad days, but teams already with a loss get punished for another not-so-great performance, even if it's a win.
4) Indiana: obviously.
5) Iowa: because this is where Iowa lives. And that was a quality win over Northwestern.
6) Illinois: can't punish them too much for a loss on the other side of the country against a really good team.
7) Wisconsin: with a clear gap between #4 and #5, I'm not overly disturbed by the loss to Penn State. But I do want to see fewer Locke interceptions.
8) Michigan: it wasn't a blowout, but it was a win.
9) Michigan State: the question is whether to move USC up with its win. Not with the losses to Maryland and Minnesota, and a similar score line against Michigan.
10) USC: hard to play in Los Angeles. Not as hard to play in Big Ten territory.
11) Washington: lost to a team several steps above it. Doesn't move it down.
12) Nebraska: moving them up following a loss over a team that just won? That was a tough effort in Columbus. Showed some grit.
13) Minnesota: moving them down after a win? They were playing Maryland.
14) Northwestern: lost, but I'm not moving UCLA up for sitting on the couch.
15) UCLA: still might be better than the record indicates. 
16) Rutgers: traveling across the country is hard, yes, but the bloom is off the rose.
17) Maryland: just not very good, even with the win against USC.
18) Purdue: just happy to have the week off.

I agree that all the teams seem to have a WTH game. So assuming that one shouldn't read too much into that one game, what else do we know about them?

For Wisconsin, we know that the Badgers suck in the second half against helmet teams. 
To me the struggle comes with the three helmet teams at the bottom: how bad are Michigan, Washington, and USC, really? How much of their seasons so far is bad luck, too much travel, etc.

Any time (with the exception of the RichRod years) that I have Wisconsin above Michigan on these things, I think to myself: would I really favor Wisconsin in that matchup at a neutral site? (Irony alert, one of the worst RR Michigan teams ever still somehow beat a decent Wisconsin team. I'm literally shaking my head over that one right now.) The answer is usually "no." Michigan just has too many good athletes. I assume the same thing is true about Washington and USC, but I don't know them as well. USC surely always has a bunch of glitz and glamor around it.

Also, that 2008 Wisconsin team is still such a puzzle. That team was loaded defensivley as Badger talent goes. And it massively underperformed.