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I think one of the hardest things about these rankings right now is where to put Wisconsin relative to the top-3 in the B1G-E.  While PSU and MSU have each played both Iowa and Michigan, the Badgers and Buckeyes haven't played any decent teams in the conference yet.  The best team played by either Wisconsin or Ohio State is probably Maryland or one of the Indiana schools.  For now I have Penn State at #1 and Michigan State at #4 because I think those two have looked the most and least impressive of the four.  I think that Ohio State and Wisconsin fall in between.  

FWIW:  By the end of the season Wisconsin will have six common opponents with each of the Buckeyes, Nittany Lions, and Spartans but right now they only have two with tOSU, one with PSU, and none with MSU.  

I know everyone's throwing Purdue under the bus as a terrible team, but I think that there might be some overreaction to the loss to Rutgers.

Below stats. Italics = bad.

Purdue:
Offensive Yards: 474
Offensive Plays Run: 85
Yards per carry: 6.8
Yards per play: 5.58
Players logging a rush with ypc average below 5: 0
First downs: 25
3rd down conversion: 3 of 15
4th down conversion: 1 of 4
Turnovers: 2

Rutgers:
Offensive Yards: 217
Offensive Yards on 2 scoring plays: 109
Offensive Yards on 53 non-scoring plays: 108
Offensive yards per play on non-scoring plays: 2.03
First downs: 8
3rd down conversion: 3 of 15
Turnovers: 0

In all honesty, Purdue dominated Rutgers on Saturday. 

Rutgers had two big plays that went for 14 points, but otherwise was completely bottled up.

Purdue had its way with Rutgers' defense, driving on them with huge 1st and 2nd down plays to move the chains, but failed to finish drives in Rutgers territory with poor 3rd down percentage. 

And much of what Purdue did was get in its own way, with receivers dropping balls and with questionable playcalling in crucial situations (like QB sneak on 4th and 2 or going empty backfield on 4th and 1 when they were ripping of 6.8 ypc). 

So I know many of you are dropping Purdue back down to the B1G cellar, but they played a FAR better game than the final score showed.

Agree there are not any good choices, but Mich is also not a good choice either.  Mich needed OT to beat Indy and got blown out by PSU.  Early victories over Florida and Purdue don't look so great now.

A case can be made for both NW and Iowa.  Agree NW looked awful early, but its only 2 conference losses were to PSU and Wisc.
Iowa's early OT win against Iowa State is looking better every week.  They have close losses to PSU, MSU, and NW.  But in the end, Iowa is just 1-3 in conference.

So those are not the strongest arguments, but that's the group that Mich belongs in, when discussing power rankings.  NW/Iowa/Mich are in the same group.

I think Indiana should be in this discussion.  Here are #5 - #8 per the votes cast so far:
 

Rank	.	5	6	7	8	.	Rank
.	Team	M	NU	Iowa	IU	Team	.
1	PSU	L by 29, A	L by 24, H	L by 2, H	L by 31, A	PSU	1
2	tOSU	11/25, H	miss	11/4, H	L by 28, H	tOSU	2
3	UW	11/18, A	L by 9, A	11/11, A	11/4, H	UW	3
4	MSU	L by 4, H	10/28, H	L by 7, A	L by 8, A	MSU	4
5	M	n/a	miss	miss	L in OT, H	M	5
6	NU	miss	n/a	L in OT, A	miss	NU	6
7	Iowa	miss	W in OT, H	n/a	miss	Iowa	7
8	IU	W in OT, A	miss	miss	n/a	IU	8
9	MD	11/11, A	W by 16, A	miss	10/28, A	MD	9
10	UNL	miss	11/4, A	11/24, A	miss	UNL	10
11	PU	W by 18, A	11/11, H	11/18, H	11/25, A	PU	11
12	MN	11/4, H	11/18, H	10/28, H	miss	MN	12
13	RU	10/28, H	miss	miss	11/18, H	RU	13
14	ILL	miss	11/25, A	W by 29, H	11/11, A	ILL	14
.	Team	M	NU	Iowa	IU	Team	.
Rank	.	5	6	7	8	.	Rank

They all played PSU and Iowa did a LOT better than the others but that is just one game.  Three of the four have played MSU and they all lost by one score.  We'll see what happens with NU/MSU this weekend.  Within the group Indiana and Iowa lost in OT to Michigan and Northwestern respectively.  In games against teams ranked below #8, these four are perfect but there isn't much information there.  

I don't think it is just the loss to Rutgers that is hurting Purdue in this week's rankings.  Upsets are a part of the game and we all understand that but Purdue's not-terribly-competitive loss to Michigan also took a hit this weekend.  I think we'll learn a lot about Purdue over the next three weeks.  They have Nebraska this weekend, then Illinois, then Northwestern.  Currently those teams are ranked #10, #14, and #6 while Purdue checks in at #11.  

Agreed. I just think the people dropping Purdue to 12th/13th in the power ranking after the loss to Rutgers are overreacting. "You just lost to freakin' Rutgers!" is an easy reason to drop someone, but nobody outside of Purdue or Rutgers fans watched that game or probably realized that Purdue statistically dominated the game. 
Clearly we're not ~7th, as some people were placing Purdue that high after the Michigan loss / Minnesota win. I think 9th/10th/11th is probably around fair. While we only lost 17-9 against Wisconsin, they dominated the game, and as you point out, Michigan is looking worse than we thought, and Minnesota is 1-3 in conference with only a win over Illinois, so it's not like that was a huge scalp to get. 
But based on what I've seen so far, I think Minnesota, Rutgers, and Illinois are clearly worse teams than Purdue. I think we're in the next tier up, where Maryland and Iowa are...

Next week I think that pretty much everyone will rank the tOSU/PSU winner #1.  

I'll go on record right now saying that I will rank the loser #2.  

I think the reasonable  contenders for #2 are the tOSU/PSU loser, Wisconsin, and MSU.  So to compare:

Assuming Penn State wins:

• Ohio State and Wisconsin have two common opponents (UNL and UMD) and Ohio State did much better against both.  
• Ohio State and Michigan State have one common opponent (IU) and Ohio State did much better against them.  

Assuming Ohio State wins:

• Penn State and Wisconsin have one common opponent (NU) and Penn State did much better against them.  
• Penn State and Michigan State will have four common opponents (M, NU, IA, and IU).  Penn State did much better against Michigan and Indiana and about the same against Iowa.  

Things may change by Saturday night, but the way I feel right now, if OSU beats PSU in a close game,  and Wisc dominates its game as expected, I will probably vote Wisc #1.

If Rutgers beats Michigan the way that Georgia Tech beat Cumberland...

Things may change by Saturday night, but the way I feel right now, if OSU beats PSU in a close game,  and Wisc dominates its game as expected, I will probably vote Wisc #1.

I just don't see any justification for this.  After this weekend, Ohio State will have played:

• Oklahoma
• Penn State
• A bunch of crap

While Wisconsin will have played:

• A bunch of crap.  

No matter what happens with tOSU/PSU, the only thing comparable between Ohio State and Wisconsin is the crap and Ohio State has handled their crap better than Wisconsin.  

if PSU dominates OSU like they did Michigan, I'll vote Wisconsin #2

I could see that happening.  As I said upthread, I am not yet confident in Ohio State's offense.  However, I haven't yet seen anything out of Wisconsin to make me think they are any better.  Even with two blowout losses, Ohio State still would look better to me simply because Wisconsin's schedule has been so bad.