This was an awesome week of football with several overtime games, two coaches fired, and a DC canned, yet none of it happened in the Big Ten. Yes, the Wisconsin upset was really fun for Badger fans to watch but pretty much everything played out as expected, except what our two Indiana schools did.
Team of the Week – Purdue – A – You thought I was going to be a faithful UW alum and give this award to Wisconsin for the second time this season, wrong! Going with Purdue because the trendy pick was to take Nevada and instead the Boilermakers had one of their most impressive games under embattled coach Darrell Hazell.
Purdue entered with a struggling rush defense and had to face a Wolf Pack team with a solid ground attack. PU responded with only allowing 68 yards on 33 carries. As for the offense QB David Blough and RB Markell Jones each looked great. All too often for Purdue only one or the other has a good day – on Saturday both were on fire. Two other side notes about this game, Purdue was great on third down (11/15) and aggressive on fourth (2/3) but the fumble bug bit them with 3 lost fumbles and a pick to be -4 in turnover differential. This team showed some fortitude against Nevada but being that sloppy with the ball in league play will be a back breaker. Still, really nice game plan and posting the second half shut out was sweet. Way to go, Boilers!
Illinois – Idle
Indiana – D+ – On the TV show Myth Busters when something would go wrong for an extremely obvious reason the co-hosts would say “Well, there’s your problem!” This game was like that for the Hoosiers. The five interceptions were the problem. IU put up 496 passing yards and 611 of offense in total but the picks kept Indiana’s high octane offense on the side line: right where Wake wanted it. This allowed the Demon Deacons to rack up eight more minutes in possession in their winning effort. Worse, one of the picks was housed so take that off the board, and maybe Wake only scores their other 26 points, allowing the Hoosiers to narrowly win 28-26, a great what-if on Saturday for this club.
Iowa – D – 7 punts, horrible pass protection, uninspiring offense, mediocre defense, and just a total crap storm out against Rutgers. A week ago RU gave up 462 yards and 28 points to New Mexico. This week they gave up 355 yards and just 14 points. That is all on Iowa because Rutgers didn’t magically get better in a week. This is shaping up to be a long season. Oh, and special demerit for the end of first half turtle act. After scoring a touchdown, RU roughed the kicker so Iowa is kicking at the 50 with just 30 seconds left. Rutgers has zero points and zero timeouts and shown little potential. So why not onside kick it, no? Of course Iowa just kicks it long. Setting the tone, yet again, that this coaching staff would rather coach not to lose than grab the bull by the horns.
Maryland – Idle
Michigan – A – What did I pinpoint in the preview as one of Michigan’s biggest hurdles to making Indianapolis? The running game. What did they do against Penn State? 326 yards on a 6.7 average. Outstanding. I am not ready to declare this issue 100% sorted out seeing that they still have to go against stout UW, OSU, and MSU defenses but they struggled to put up stats like that last year against anybody, so this was an extremely encouraging sign.
Michigan State – F – This game boiled down to three things. The first was the Badger defense rattling Tyler O’Connor and leading to some horrible decisions factoring into his three interceptions. The second is about the Badger offensive game plan (see the UW grade) and the third is a little bit of luck. Lj Scott is going to fumble, that’s just a fact of football. Punters are going to mishandle snaps, that’s just a fact of football. What you don’t count on is both happening in the same game when so many other things are going wrong. You don’t factor in the opponent scooping and scoring a 60+ yard return for a touchdown. You don’t expect the snap to give the opponent first and goal and gift a touchdown. I will say this though, you make your own luck and the Scott fumble happened with a massive (clean) hit and the return happened because of athleticism and awareness, but still, a botched punt snap against Furman – not a big deal. Against Wisconsin? Rotten deal.
Minnesota – B – The Gophers were very efficient in this one, racking up 417 yards, and a bruising 243 rushing yards. QB Mitch Leidner was on target going 16/20 in the passing attack with just one pick as a blemish. He added 50 more yards and a score on his ten rushes. Defensively UM had 2 takeaways but it wasn’t a flawless effort as Colorado State was basically able to match score for score in the 31-24 final. One area to polish up are the penalties. Gophers were flagged 9 times for 68 yards. This is a frightening trend as against Indiana State, UM had 10 penalties for 82 yards and in the Oregon State opener they racked up 70 penalty yards on 8 flags. In the OSU game they also lost several players to targeting calls. Those hidden yards will bite them at some point if they can’t correct this in league play.
Nebraska – B+ – Another incredibly impressive day statistically that to casual observers, who only look at the finals, wasn’t quite reflected in the score. One reason the score didn’t match the 556 yards Nebraska had was a goal line fumble by Devine Ozigbo as he stretched out to try and score. The much maligned defense from a year ago continued their improvement holding the Cats to just 13 points. 388 yards, 251 through the air, isn’t great but they did make up for it with two takeaways and as mentioned, kept Northwestern off the board (mostly).
Northwestern – D+ – One of the things that made Northwestern able to scratch out 10 wins last year was dominating the turnover margin. With each team having two giveaways there was no advantage for the Wildcats. Until they can start improving in this facet of the game, their lack of talent will continue to let them down.
Ohio State – Idle
Penn State – F – But, but, but injuries. You know who has had a rash of injuries? Wisconsin. Hell, before the season their best offensive lineman retired, and yet they found a way. Fully healthy, Penn State would have still been routed because of awful coaching, awful defense, awful rushing plan, awful third down percentage (2 of 12), and losing the turnover margin -2. Injuries play a part for everyone, but so does development and depth. After three top 25 recruiting classes, how can a team just implode with some adversity? 49-10, honestly. This Franklin experience is probably going to get worse before it gets better.
Rutgers – D – A tough to pill to swallow for Rutgers fans as the defense was night and day better than they were against New Mexico but the offense failed to capitalize and once Janarion Grant went down with injury, the O bogged down even more. Still, they out played Iowa in many facets of the game and showed a lot of fight, especially in the pass rush. Perhaps the rebuild won’t be as rough as expected.
Western Michigan – A – Georgia Southern has a great shot to win the Sun Belt again so we know they’re talented and a week to prepare for the option is never easy but the Broncos responded well. While they gave up 200 rushing yards they did force the Eagles to grind it out on a 4.0 average on 50 carries. That is certainly below what Southern is used to. Another huge factor was the defense had four takeaways. Finally, the offense put up 49 points thanks to Zach Terrell’s throwing Abe Lincoln.
Wisconsin – A+ – As stated in the MSU grade, there were three big themes from this game. The first was the outstanding defense of the Badgers. The third was some unusual bounces that, although not unexpected, certainly assisted Wisconsin. The second point that I wanted address here was a brilliant offensive game plan. 41 carries for 122 yards (3.0 average) looks awful, but it was that commitment to the ground game that kept MSU honest, prevented them from pinning their ears back to crunch the quarterback, allowed play action to have some success, and let the clock run in crunch time. A lot of teams would have abandoned that game plan after a grinding first half, but the staff knew that despite showing a lot of promise, having a young kid in Alex Hornibrook throw it 40 some times was going to be a disaster. Outstanding patience and game prep by Chryst and his staff.
Game of the Week – All the hard hitting in the defensive gem Wisconsin pitched made that the best game of the day in my opinion. Minnesota was a close second as Colorado State matched up with them pretty well in UM’s one possession win.
Why Did I Watch This? Award – Iowa at Rutgers combined for 13 punts in their 14-7 garbage fest. Beer was consumed.
Gambling Report Card:
- Indiana vs Wake Forest, IU (-7), Over (45)
Take a split on this one as Indiana’s offense just had too many turnovers to battle back against a vastly improved Wake squad in their five point loss but, the two combined for 61 points, smashing that over.
- Iowa at Rutgers, UI (-13)
Everything about this game was awful…including losing at the sportsbook.
- Michigan vs Penn State, UM (-18), Over (56.5)
Cha-ching, great double up as Michigan smoked the struggling Lions, 49-10. After a rough couple of weeks, this was a nice confidence booster.
- Michigan State vs Wisconsin, MSU (-4.5)
Oops. But as a Badger graduate, I’d rather lose the bet than the game.
- Minnesota vs Colorado State, Points (UM, -17)
I don’t think people realized how much the Rams had improved since their week one shelling at the hands of Colorado – a team I might add that just knocked off Oregon – so when I saw that spread, I gladly scooped up those points.
- Nebraska at Northwestern, Neb (-8.5), Over (48)
Broke even in this one (barely) as the Huskers did win by nine but the two teams combined for just 37 points. Not that it would have mattered but that Husker fumble as he stretched for the goal line would have gotten the score to 44 and maybe with a bigger lead, Northwestern wouldn’t have been putting in much effort. Who knows.
- Purdue vs Nevada, Points (PU, -5.5)
The moment I figure out how to gamble on Boilermaker football is the day I buy a lotto ticket. Man they’re hard to pin down this year.
- Western Michigan vs Georgia State, WMU (-7)
So the honorary Big Ten team gets me a win this week as they blasted the Sun Belt power Georgia Southern, 49-31. Thanks, Broncos!
Week Record: 6-5-0
Season Record: 31-35-1
Big Ten and Counting 