CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: ManHawk on September 07, 2025, 10:30:17 AM
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What does everybody think? I will post my own rankings in a separate post below.
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It's so tough to tell after two weeks. And it's really hard with 18 schools - half of which I didn't see play.
When it was 12, I could have every game on a TV. I'd have to buy two more now - not going to happen.
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It's so tough to tell after two weeks. And it's really hard with 18 schools - half of which I didn't see play.
When it was 12, I could have every game on a TV. I'd have to buy two more now - not going to happen.
Yes, if the Big Ten played more conference games in the first 2 weeks, that would help. It seems like the Big Ten has completely abandoned the idea of playing any conference games early. I wish they would require at least 4 conference games be played every single week.
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Not a great week for the Big Ten but Oregon and Illinios were impressive.
1. Ohio St
2. Oregon -wow! Beat Ok St 69-3 !
3. Penn St
4. Illinois - won at Duke 45-19. Looks like Illinois is a contender
5. Indiana
6. Michigan - Lost on road to SEC Oklahoma. Not bumping them down for that.
7. Iowa - lost by 3 on road to Big12 school Iowa St. Iowa looks the same as always. Good defense and special teams. Awful passing game
8. USC
9. Minnesota
10. Nebraska
11. Washington
12. Wisconsin
13. Rutgers - they may be better than the average MAC team
14. Mich St - needs OT to beat ACC school Boston College.
15. Purdue
16. Maryland
17. UCLA - lost to G6 school UNLV. Could be long year for UCLA but they started slow last year too
18. Northwestern
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- Ducks - beat OSU2 like they were Grambling
- Buckeyes
- Nittany Lions
- Trojans
- Fighting Illini
- Huskies
- Hoosiers
- Wolverines
- Cornhuskers - trying to conquer Ohio
- Gophers
- Spartans
- Hawkeyes
- Scarlet Knights - outperformed Wisconsin vs common opponent M(OH).
- Badgers
- Terrapins
- Boilermakers
- Wildcats
- Bruins
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(https://i.imgur.com/4Cg0SMW.png)
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1)Ducks - what Brutus said, they should be right back in the mix in the Big Ten and national title race.
2)tOSU - Julian Sayin threw for over 300 yards and four touchdowns and the D thru a shutout
3) Penn St appeared convincing this week
4) Illini rising maybe Bert has found a home
5) Huskies scored touchdowns on every one of its offensive drives :o
6) USC - QB Jayden Maiava has thrown for 707 yards and six touchdowns & 132 combined points through two weeks
7) 'Skers - find out in 2 weeks when they play M
8) Ann Arbor Astros ,tough loss on the road in Norman
9)Goophs
10) Hawks
11)Hoosiers will no more when they play the Illini in 2 weeks
12)Badgers,just win baby
13)MSU 2-0
14) Fighting Schianos 2-0
15)Terps 2-0
16)Boilers 2-0
17) Cats
18) Bruins WTH happened to that program? Need a new HC IMHO
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(https://i.imgur.com/PJ8bXcX.png)
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1. Penn State
2. Oregon
3. Ohio State
4. Washington
5. Illinois
6. USC
7. Nebraska
8. Michigan
9. Indiana
10. Wisconsin
11. Iowa
12. Minnesota
13. Michigan State
14. Rutgers
15. Maryland
16. Purdue
17. Northwestern
18. UCLA
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Not a lot of changes in mine this week--most teams are still playing patsies...
CFB Contenders:
1) Ohio State: another week, another stop atop my rankings.
2) Oregon: kicked the snot out of a team they should kick the snot out of.
3) Penn State: Slow start, but Clemson struggled with Troy, too. These things happen. No reason to panic.
Top-25-ish:
4) Michigan: how much to punish a road loss against a team that is likely top 15, especially in comparison to teams that won big? I'm sticking with Big Blue at #4, but I have questions...
5) USC: scoring a ton of points against bad teams. Curious to see how things go in conference.
6) Illinois: good news, great score line; bad news, most teams won't turn the ball over five times. Score probably looked better than the actual performance.
7) Iowa: let's assume Iowa State really is a solid team and is headed for the CFP. In that world, the Iowa result shows a solid team that will be a tough out.
Also-rans:
8) Nebraska: who-ee, that's a lot of points.
9) Minnesota: no reason to demote when they took the 4th quarter off because they were up 66.
10) Indiana: looked more like the team that went to the CFB last year--against a patsy.
11) Washington: UC-Davis has a football team? Learn something new every day (ok, I did know that, but it wouldn't have surprised me if it was DIII).
12) Michigan State: beating Boston College isn't nothing. At least I don't think it's nothing. We'll see.
13) Wisconsin: I bumped the Badgers down to the bottom of the also-rans because the offensive line looks terrible. I know they were dinged up, and Fickell was probably going easy with Alabama next week, but it's a rare day that beating a 28.5 point spread feels so bad.
Someone has to be the first rung on the ladder:
14) Purdue: 2-0, let's go!
15) Rutgers: gave up 17 more points to the Redhawks than the Badgers did, but put up 28 more. Possible also-ran? Sure, but will need to prove it.
16) Maryland: meh, NIU's probably not a pushover, but it's also not especially good.
17) Northwestern: winning is nice.
18) UCLA: seriously, UNLV?
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I will say that if you only look at the final score--and of course you're only looking at the final score because why would ANYONE watch Southern Illinois @ Purdue--you'd see that Purdue allowed 17 points from an FCS team. And that probably makes them look, well, weak.
To an extent I of course agree. However, if you look at the game in total, it's a little bit different.
SIU gained a total of 283 offensive yards. They scored a total of 17 points.
However, 150 of those yards and 14 of those points occurred on the first two drives of the game. The second of those drives was spurred by one big play, such that it was a 3-play, 75 yard scoring drive.
In the final three quarters, Purdue held them to 3 points (garbage time FG when Purdue was up 20 in the 4th), 2.9 yards per play, and generally just strangled them.
Nothing of course can excuse giving up those first two touchdowns... Purdue sleptwalk into the 1st quarter defensively. But once Purdue actually woke up, they dominated.
Purdue "only" scored 34. But this was clearly a conservative game plan to grind clock and establish the run. They ran it a lot better (4.0 per), against a team that I think was expecting a lot of run because Purdue rushed the ball 53 times vs 23 attempted passes. That led to Purdue holding the ball for over 36 minutes of clock time, a very big reversal from the much bigger win they had vs Ball State last week.
Is this team good? Nah. But a mere 34-17 win over the FCS Salukis is not quite as bad as it looks. They took care of business once the defense arrived at the stadium.
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If it makes you feel any better, I moved Purdue up (I think). Still has work to do to get out of the cellar, but we're still working on a lot of ancient data points.
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If it makes you feel any better, I moved Purdue up (I think). Still has work to do to get out of the cellar, but we're still working on a lot of ancient data points.
It doesn't matter to me where anyone ranks Purdue. I haven't seen many of the other teams. For all I know, even after what I've said in the two threads, Purdue should still be 18th in the power rankings. There's a reason USC is traveling across the country to play a road game in West Lafayette and yet, they're 21.5 point favorites...
For last week and this week, I've just offered some context based on what I've seen, since I don't think others were putting their own eyeballs on either game. BSU@PU and SIU@PU are eye bleach to anyone not already a Purdue fan...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B25K9-Ly6ko
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4. Illinois - won at Duke 45-19. Looks like Illinois is a contender
10) Indiana: looked more like the team that went to the CFB last year--against a patsy.
I think that the Illinois/Indiana game in Bloomington on September 20 may well be for a CFP spot. We'll see, there is a lot of football to be played but, my view from here is:
Illinois:
Currently 2-0:
- WMU is awful, 3-0
- at Indiana
- vs USC, lean loss but not impossible
- at Purdue, should be a win
- vs Ohio State, probable loss
- at Washington, maybe a toss-up?
- vs Rutgers, probable win
- vs Maryland, probable win
- at Wisconsin, maybe a toss-up?
- vs Northwestern, should be a win.
Winning the games they definitely should win (WMU, PU, RU, UMD, NU) gets them to seven wins. Split the toss-ups (at UDub, at UW) gets them to 8-1. Probable losses (tOSU, USC) gets them to 8-3. Beat IU and it is 9-3, CFP. Lose to IU and it is 8-4 and probably out.
Indiana:
Currently 2-0:
- IndianaSt is FCS, 3-0
- vs Illinois
- at Iowa, lean loss but not impossible
- at Oregon, probable loss
- vs MSU, probable win
- vs UCLA, probable win
- at Maryland, probable win
- at Penn State, probable loss
- vs Wisconsin, lean win but not impossible to lose
- at Purdue, probable win
Winning the games they definitely should win (IndianaSt, MSU, UCLA, UMD, PU) gets them to seven wins. Splitting at Iowa and vs Wisconsin gets them to 8-1. Probable losses (at Oregon, at Penn State) gets them to 8-3. Beat IL and it is 9-3, CFP. Lost to IU and it is 8-4 and probably out.
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Good lord, seeing schedules like those makes this Wisconsin fan sad.
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Good lord, seeing schedules like those makes this Wisconsin fan sad.
Yeah, no favors were done for the boys in red.
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1. fOregon
2. Ohio State
3. Penn State
4. USC
5. Nebraska
6. Indiana
7. Iowa
8. Illinois
9. Washington
10. Michigan
11. Minnesota
12. Wisconsin
13. Michigan State
14. Rutgers
15. Purdue
16. Maryland
17. Northwestern
18. UCLA
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Good lord, seeing schedules like those makes this Wisconsin fan sad.
You guys got to dominate the B1G West for a decade, while Indiana had to play OSU, M and PSU every year, and now you are going to complain about the scheduling being unfair?
King Berry, is that you?
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(https://i.imgur.com/lK5cpKl.png)
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(https://i.imgur.com/BZPBrhB.jpeg)
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Last week in parentheses
- OHIO STATE (1) - apparently SOME cupcakes allowed
- OREGON (3) - I would be happy if MSU did that to Northern Oklahoma A&M Tech
- PENN STATE (2) - haven't really had a chance to prove anything one way or the other
- USC (5) - avoid a Lincoln Riley standard trip up and get to Illinois 4-0
- ILLINOIS (8) - not super clean, but an impressive road win
- MICHIGAN (4) - result was fine, how the offense looked is concerning
- INDIANA (7) - go play someone
- IOWA (6) - Iowa is always Iowa
- NEBRASKA (9) - only goal for the first few weeks is to stay healthy
- MINNESOTA (10) - sneaky cross country trap game upcoming?
- WASHINGTON (11) - even against a blah WSU, Apple Cup on the road is always tricky
- WISCONSIN (12) - wish they had Rutgers' offense
- RUTGERS (13) - wish they had Wisconsin's defense
- MICHIGAN STATE (16) - that was a must win for bowl hopes
- MARYLAND (15) - Terps might actually have a defense this year
- PURDUE (18) - look more competent than I expect
- UCLA (14) - pillow fight upcoming September 27...
- NORTHWESTERN (17) - and it might be Northwestern's only remaining shot at a win
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[img width=500 height=280.996]https://i.imgur.com/BZPBrhB.jpeg[/img]
Turnovers at the 1 foot line, and missing 2 point conversions will do that
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[img width=218.784 height=281]https://i.imgur.com/BZPBrhB.jpeg[/img]
I have to admit, I had to Google "Net Success Rate in College Football", since I am not familiar with that term. I could be wrong, but I would guess that defenses that play a bend but don't break defense don't do very in this category.
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- WISCONSIN (12) - wish they had Rutgers' offense
- RUTGERS (13) - wish they had Wisconsin's defense
Rutgers' Offense with Wisconsin's Defense would be a pretty good team . . .
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I have to admit, I had to Google "Net Success Rate in College Football", since I am not familiar with that term. I could be wrong, but I would guess that defenses that play a bend but don't break defense don't do very in this category.
I think it also lessens the impact of turnovers and special teams. Which is why MSU probably rated so poorly in a win. BC fumbled at the 1. BC missed a 2 pt conversion. And MSU had several punts where they pinned them inside the 5. You need more successful plays when you are starting at your own 3 than your own 33. I think it tries to remove some of the stuff that is less predictable. BC had 6.53 ypp, MSU had 5.94 ypp
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(https://i.imgur.com/QlNBSnm.jpeg)