A fellow football junkie and I compare our weekly power rankings. If you missed last week’s, catch up here. Changes are marked by +/- the number of rankings. These are real emails back and forth.
Josh Kam
1. Michigan State 1. Michigan State
2. Wisconsin 2. Ohio State +1
3. Ohio State +1 3. Wisconsin -1
J – With two of the top three team idle, I didn’t have to do too much. Sure OSU’s 66-0 beat down looked good but Kent State is a terrible team through three weeks and if you didn’t notice the Buck’s loss a week ago was made even more ridiculous by Virginia Tech losing at home to a good (not great) East Carolina team. I couldn’t put OSU back in the top two spots as a result
K – I could. Frankly, this league is so wide-open, I have no problem with moving teams winning their games over idle teams in this league. That being said, I still don’t think OSU is better than MSU yet.
J – By wide open you mean complete and utter crap?
K – …..yes
4. Penn State -1 4. Nebraska +1
5. Nebraska +1 5. Penn State -1
6. Michigan +2 6. Pick ’em top half MAC team……Maryland?
J – 1 through 5 was easy for me. 6 to 14 was nearly impossible. All the teams have at least one loss. All the teams also have at least one shitty performance. Some of them have multiples of both. I gave Michigan a little bit of the benefit of the doubt since I think Notre Dame is a lot better than we realized (or wanted) but they are on shaky ground for me still…How did they not obliterate Miami?
K – Nebraska’s high powered offense is solid enough that I think they are just a tad bit better than PSU. PSU has a conference win and are now eligible for post season play. That’s pretty neat right?
J – Penn State has started to scare me a bit, but I’m a defensive guy so what they did to Rutgers stood out to me.
K – Maryland is just so back and forth…..I love it, I give them more points for being fun because, at this point in the standings, who cares?
J – Our faithful reader(s)? Speaking of those Terps, I have them sniffing around:
7. Maryland +2 7. Michigan +1
8. Rutgers +3 8. Rutgers +2
9. Iowa -4 9. Iowa -2
J – I do want to circle back to PSU for a second though as it connects to Rutgers. Is the OL that bad or is Rutgers’ defense that good? If it is the former, PSU’s time at the top half of the standings might not be for long. If it’s the latter, can RU make waves by beating a shaky Michigan team, a strange Nebraska team, a disappointing Indiana team and the up-and-down Terps? That would get them to 4-4 in league play, combined with the WSU/Howard wins and possibly knocking off Navy and Tulane to get them to 8 wins. Who would have guessed that?
K – Not me. I don’t see that happening, even in a crazy hypothetical. I don’t like RU much. The WSU win looks less impressive each week. The win over Howard was far from overwhelming as well. As for Michigan, I would have moved them ahead of Maryland had they been a little bit better against horrid Miami OH.
J – If we can make it to late October, the RedHawks will have gone 2 calendar years since a win. At that point the AD has to schedule a d-2 team, right?
K – Maybe they can jump down to the MVFC. Michigan is gonna be shaky all year because it is evident that Gardner hasn’t improved much.
J – Gardner has been an enigma so far. I wrote in that diagnosis piece about how he was pretty good down the stretch individually as everything else crashed around him. It could just be Michigan isn’t that good and never will be this season.
K – That very well could be.
J – Well if people haven’t noticed already we are big Iowa fans so let’s do the post-mortem. This team is dreadful. It’s tough to see how they win again but thankfully they are in the Big Ten. Rudock refuses to throw down field. Play-calling is abhorrent. Defense has no depth so by the second half there is no pass rush (not that there was much in the first half…0 sacks). I think I broke it down best on the phone to my dad…based on starting talent we are a 7 or 8 win team. Based on the joke of a schedule we would eclipse that and win 9 or 10. Sadly our coaching is at a 4 win coaching level. Greg Davis needs to be gone immediately and Ferentz is clearly just cashing checks now. No hunger in him. I was a KF defender for a pretty long time since he was so good during that glorious run in the late 2000s but he looks like Lloyd Carr at the end of his run now but doesn’t have the talent LC had.
K – The defense will keep us in some of the lower level games in the big ten, but if they want to contend, CJ Beathard needs to get a look. He needed to get more reps against UNI and Ball St. He seems to have a little bit more gun-slinger in him. When Iowa was at it’s best, Tate and Stanzi were flinging the ball around. When Iowa is at it’s worst they have game-manager quarterbacks. Even Tate and Stanzi fell off as the staff made them play more conservative and cut down on turnovers.
J – I’m worried there isn’t a quick fix or a magic pill. One thing that could help is getting Gary Barta out of town. He was the architect behind that contract that is now KILLING the program. Barta might not be serious about the huge buy out but that could send a message to KF and staff that their golden parachute is cut. Next AD might realize the money spent in the short-term buying Ferentz out is less than the money lost in the long term by having a terrible team.
K – Thankfully it’s one loss, i’m not calling for Ferentz’s head yet.
J – Well when Pitt kills us by 3 TDs i’ll get your opinion then.
K – It’s not that easy. You can’t force out a 16 year coach at Iowa because of last second FG loss. Maybe back to back non-bowl seasons. It’s simply too early. If the whole year goes poorly, then Davis should be gone.
J – Kam, its been 2 years and 3 games with Greg Davis. He isn’t magically going to get better down the stretch! Fire him today, see if anyone on the staff can make things look better. 17 points against Iowa State is awful.
K – Just not how Iowa operates.
10. Indiana -3 10. Minnesota -1
11. Minnesota -1 11. Indiana
12. Illinois 12. Illinois
13. Northwestern 13. Northwestern +1
14. Purdue 14. Purdue -1
J – Gophers got exposed…that defense was never as good as the stats said and you cannot be that one-dimensional offensively. I’m writing them off. Also writing off Kevin Wilson. This team is terrible too. Don’t know why I thought the Hoosiers would be any different this year. The only team that has any chance of doing anything might be Northwestern just because Pat Fitzgerald (as much as I have berated him) called his players out and still seems to have some fire in him. The rest of these sorry clubs are going through the motions waiting for basketball season (Indiana/Illinois), hockey season (Minnesota) and train season.
K – Gonna be a great train season!
J – Let’s play a fun game. All these teams finish 3-9 (not sure that is possible with playing each other) but this a hypothetical…How many of the 5 get canned- I think Beckman and Wilson would be locks at that.
K – Well that would be an improvement for Purdue….
J – I know, that’s what makes this fun. I think Kill and Fitzy have enough good-will built up. Fitzy more than Kill.
K – Exactly, if they go 3-9, they are on the hot seat for the following year, in which if they didn’t make a bowl, fired.
J – So only 2 of the 5? That’s disappointing. There is a chance that if the wheels fall of several of these teams…Iowa, Michigan, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska and Maryland could all be looking for new coaches. I would love to see that mayhem. I wonder if Rutgers has any buyers remorse with Kyle Flood after 10 points and 800 turnovers. I was shocked when I saw he had received an extension.
K – Michigan and Nebraska could be upper level candidates if they don’t win 9 games.
J – If Nebraska lost last night, would Bo have been Kiffined – aka fired at the airport?
K – Would’ve been very close. One point to make about coaching and the Big Ten standing nationally. With the conference in flux, the only teams that look ok at this point are MSU and OSU (and even they aren’t dominate). If you aren’t comfortable with your program, wouldn’t you make an overhaul now?? Also, how soon before the nation calls it the power 4 conferences?
J – I think you need to do what is right by your program regardless of how good or bad the league is. If you are Purdue and struggling during a down time, even more reason. As for the league rankings, I think there’s a saying about glass houses and casting stones. ACC hasn’t done too much (ranked UL and Tech losing, Ga Tech needing miracle to beat Georgia Southern) and the Big 12 has just two teams of note (apologies to Kansas State) – Texas is bad again, Tech just lost at home to Arkansas by 21. That ain’t good.
K – USC went down to BC…does that ding the Pac 12 more than raises the ACC?
J – Hmm, I think it depends on the end season records of the two teams. That was a strange game though. 452 to 20 in rushing yards.
K – All of these bad results equals 7 SEC schools in the AP top 15.
J – Even the all mighty SEC though has some trouble brewing. Vandy, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee looks like same crap new year. Arkansas and Miss State don’t impress me too much and Georgia, the top DAWG of the east, can’t make chip shot field goals or play defense? Feels like the east is Missouri’s to lose again.
K – Florida is a disappointment but Tennessee is playing a ton of freshman and Vandy and UK are Vandy and UK.
J – I think if anything we are seeing why the four team tournament is a bad bad bad bad awful GOD AWFUL idea.
K – 12 team it!!
J – As parity grows, having such a small tournament is asinine. The fact is that this country produces so many football players, most teams can find a decent amount of starters. Then it becomes a question of depth vs system, by that I mean Indiana should have greater depth than Bowling Green but if BGSU’s coaching and system can overcome that, they will win. I bet if you were to stack up the starters from both IU and BGSU, they are pretty equal. Another example, that Kentucky Florida game…dead even (multiple OTs shows that), whens the last time that has happened? UF still has better depth but Kentucky’s coaching was better than Muschamp so it was a game. As a side note the ref gifted that game to Florida. Must be nice to be a terrible team but have a big name on your helmet so you still get garbage calls. It’s not a power five it should be a power 15 that teams just form their own top-end league who is good every year and always will be.
K – Whoa now you are talkin’ soccer relegation style divisions.
J – Well i may hate soccer but they do at least get that right. What do we accomplish by seeing a Georgia-Vanderbilt game every year? What’s the purpose of Kansas playing Oklahoma? I’d rather see OU-Alabama in the power-15.
K -Who would’ve been been in your power 15 at the beginning of the year? You pretty much have to reward last year’s top finishers for this year.
J – So this is obviously fluid and teams can be relegated but my 2014-2015 power 15 would have been: Oregon, Stanford, Baylor, Oregon, Oklahoma, Mizzou, LSU, Bama, Auburn, Uga, Scar, FSU, Clemmy, Ohio State…i’m trying to think of a 15th team worthwhile…USC is but based on last year’s standings it would be UCLA. As a stretch, ASU. I’d lean towards UCLA.
K – Yeah it would probably be ucla.
J – It’s funny MSU didn’t crack this, what a silly mistake. I suppose they should go in for South Carolina…and we call our selves a Big Ten blog. Ooops!
K -Maybe for Mizzou or Clemson.
J – With that oversight I think we should wrap it up. We have fried our brains. Iowa’s coaching staff has made us stupider from watching their games. That’s an accomplishment.
K – We knew it would happen, just didn’t think it would be this soon.
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