CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: ManHawk on October 19, 2025, 08:12:42 AM
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What does everybody think?
The Big Ten now has 9 teams with a 3-1 conference record or better. And PSU, ILL, and Neb are not included in those 9 teams. My rankings are in a post below.
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- Indiana: Another dominant victory
- Ohio State: They might have a real problem running the ball. And the special teams aren't great. But everything else is great.
- Oregon: Took out their frustration on Oregon.
- Illinois: I guess. It gets real tough after the top 3.
- USC: Couldn't contain ND
- Iowa: Good ole Iowa
- Michigan: Great win. Feels like a different team at home verses the road.
- Penn State: Really have no idea how to rank them
- Washington: Couldn't do much against Michigan
- Minnesota: Pretty strong win against the Huskers
- Northwestern: Quietly looking very solid
- UCLA: They keep on winning
- Nebraska: They have a QB can't stop taking sacks problem
- Maryland: Can't get out of their own way
- Rutgers: No defense
- MSU: No defense
- Purdue: No defense
- Wisconsin: No offense
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1. Ohio St - has dominated every conference game
2. Indiana - does well dominating Mich St in potential trap game.
3. Oregon - bounces back strong with blow out win at Rutgers
4. USC - lost again on road at Notre Dame. But still has dominating win over Michigan
5. Iowa - gets close win at home over PSU, despite making many dumb mistakes that normally gets Iowa beat.
6. Michigan - impressive win at home over Washington
7. Illinois - only 2 losses (but both were bad losses) are to Ind and OSU and ILL also beat USC at home.
8. Washington - only 2 losses are to OSU and Mich
9. Northwestern - shuts out Purdue
10. UCLA - survives with last second FG to beat MD at home.
11. Penn St - loses close one on road at Iowa. PSU may be 0-4 but has lost to Ore in 2OT, lost @UCLA by 5, lost to NW by 1 and lost @Iowa by 1.
12. Minnesota - dominates Nebraska at home
13. Nebraska - loses on road to Minn
14. Maryland - loses in last second @UCLA. MD just can't seem to finish games.
15. Rutgers- just got pummeled by Oregon at home.
16. Purdue - shutout out by NW. Purdue has not come close to winning except for 1 close loss to Minn
17. Mich St - lost to Indiana
18. Wisconsin - shutout 34-0 at home one week after being shutout 37-0 at home. Is that progress?
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Ohio State: They might have a real problem running the ball. And the special teams aren't great. But everything else is great.
You're not wrong there
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1. Ohio State
2. Indiana
3. Oregon
4. USC
5. Michigan
6. Iowa
7. Washington
8. Northwestern
9. UCLA
10. Illinois
11. Minnesota
12. Penn State
13. Nebraska
14. Maryland
15. Purdue
16. Rutgers
17. Michigan State
18. Wisconsin
Q: If Wisconsin and another team finish 0-9 in the conference, can they play in a conference sucking championship game?
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Q: If Wisconsin and another team finish 0-9 in the conference, can they play in a conference sucking championship game?
A: No, the tiebreaker is SoS so the other team would be regarded as sucking more because Wisconsin has the toughest schedule.
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Q: If Wisconsin and another team finish 0-9 in the conference, can they play in a conference sucking championship game?
Bring back Champions Week!
Remember that idea the Big Ten had during that weird COVID 2020 season. Where during the last week of the season, #1 would play #2. #3 would play #4, etc. Of course you could throw in some tweaks like no rematches, no long cross-country trips, etc.
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1)Indiana - undefeated the Hoosiers proved to be an elite team with a Week 7 win in Oregon. And this week might end up being when quarterback Fernando Mendoza emerged as the clear Heisman front-runner. It's hard to see them losing from here on out in the regular season.
2)Bucks - For the fourth time this season, the Buckeyes defense kept the opposition out of the end zone, and they now have an average margin of victory of 30.6 points during their 7-0 start. Julian Sayin (36-of-42, 394 yards, 4 TD) was nearly perfect under center,this time having the second-best completion percentage for an Ohio State quarterback ever (85.7%)
3)Ducks - dogwalking poor Rutgers does not erase getting worked at home by the Hoosiers.The Ducks will have to root for someone to knock off the Buckeyes and Hoosiers, though, to get to Indy and defend their Big Ten title.
4)USC - goes above the Wolverines -- at least for now. After dominating the trenches in Week 7 against Michigan, the opposite happened against Notre Dame last nite.
5)M* dominant win over visiting Huskies - this was the type of response that the Wolverines needed. With the 24-7 win. The killer instinct is still missing, however. This could have been an epic blowout, but Michigan missed a ton of opportunities.
6)Illini - hard to tell where they should land.The only losses are to arguably the two best teams in the Big Ten Indiana & tOSU
7)Huskies - it was a difficult for them to travel 2,000 miles and play at 9 a.m. PDT. Even so,Washington's offense made far too many mistakes on the road to have a real shot at beating Michigan, the offense struggled. And struggled. And struggled.
8)Iowa - it's hard to know with the teams they are beating. Only loses to Indiana and state rival Cyclones. But Iowa is hanging in there and should make things interesting down the stretch. They have the Goophs at home next week
9)Goophs - Didn’t see this one coming. Even entering the game at 4-2, Minnesota appeared to be somewhat on the ropes, but they eked out a convincing, ugly win over Nebraska.They should have a great chance to go to a decent bowl game.
10)Northwestern - while Purdue wasn’t exactly a top-tier opponent, the Wildcats shut the Boilermakers out, and thrived defensively.Don’t look now, but Northwestern is 5-2.
11)'Skers - If you want to be a contender in the Big Ten, you don't let the Gophers give you a wedgie. At no point did Nebraska find the end zone against a Minnesota
12)UCLA - having rattled off three straight wins now. The overall record is still a losing one, but there aren't many teams that want to play the Bruins and quarterback Nico Iamaleava right now
13)Maryland
14)Rutgers
15)Penn St
16)MSU
17)Purdue
18)Badgers
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Q: If Wisconsin and another team finish 0-9 in the conference, can they play in a conference sucking championship game?
Interesting question because it looks like it is still mathematically possible for at least 3 schools to finish winless. Of the 5 current winless teams:
Wisconsin - does not play any other winless team on its schedule.
Purdue - still has to play Rutgers
Mich St - still has to play PSU
Rutgers- still has to play Purdue and PSU
PSU - still has to play Mich St and Rutgers
So if each team goes winless in all their other games and if PSU beats MSU and Rutgers, then you would end up with 3 winless teams:
Wisc, Mich St and the loser of Purdue/Rutgers.
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1) Ohio State
2) Indiana
these are clearly the class of the conference and maybe even the entire nation...
Slight Gap
3) Oregon
Big Gap
5 teams in the same boat- USC, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Washington - all very similar teams not quite ready for prime time- decent B1G teams, nothing special.
And then the rest of the conference is pretty meh.
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(https://i.imgur.com/SYdGJl7.png)
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Bring back Champions Week!
Remember that idea the Big Ten had during that weird COVID 2020 season. Where during the last week of the season, #1 would play #2. #3 would play #4, etc. Of course you could throw in some tweaks like no rematches, no long cross-country trips, etc.
My guess is that we'll end up doing this when we have 24 members in four six-team "pods".
Eight scheduled conference games:
- 5 "pod" games, playing each pod-mate
- 3 one from each of the other three pods on a rotating basis so that you play each team every six years and host/visit each every dozen years.
Then the ninth conference game would serve the purpose of balancing SoS with performance. Pods would host/visit each other on a rotating basis with:
The two #1 vs #1 games would serve as semi-finals with the two winners meeting a week later in the CG.
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(https://i.imgur.com/z4HqwuY.jpeg)