Well the league gave us PSU-OSU last week and like a frightened groundhog seeing its shadow, the schedule has scurried back underground and given us a wretched week of football. Oh sure, the games will end up becoming fun and interesting but there are zero ranked teams facing each other. On the surface this week is complete and utter blah. All times are central.
Game of the Week:
- Northwestern at Maryland
A 5-2 team versus a 3-4 team, is this really what it has come to? Normally this wouldn’t be a GOTW…fair…but it does stand out this week. Maryland has lost two straight – Ohio State is understandable but Illinois? This a club that could win eight or nine games if they didn’t turn into dreaded October Maryland. Well guess what, they may have turned into that pumpkin. Their crisp looking offense…no longer crips. Their improved defense…no longer looking improved over last year. Northwestern has been a frisky outfit and getting to 4-4 with four manageable games left puts bowl aspirations clearly on the table over the final month. Two hungry teams…that’s always fun!
- Saturday, 11:00 AM, BTN
Sleeper GOTW:
- Nebraska at Purdue
With that win over Northwestern, the Huskers are 4-3 and looking great for a bowl – not to mention very alive in the Western race – but they can’t let off the gas. In previous coaching regimes the moment NU looks to have turned the corner…they would have a massive let down. Taking care of a struggling Purdue team at home would show that growth. As for Purdue, it is panic time. They are 2-5 and still have Michigan left on the schedule. They have to win all their other games to get to 6-6 and make a bowl. This is a must-win if this young Boiler squad will see a 13th game. With that in mind, expect them to throw everything they have at the Huskers – now’s the time for trick plays, now’s the time for emptying anything you can because the coaches have to know next week’s Michigan game is all but guaranteed to be a loss.
- Saturday, 2:30 PM, FS1
Don’t Forget:
- Wisconsin at Ohio State
Admitted this isn’t a vintage Badger team…and its in the Shoe…but one could argue that Luke Fickell has extra juice to try and knock off the Buckeyes. Who knows if that’s true or not. This is probably one of those games to check the score periodically and see if the Badgers are in any sort of upset position in the second half.
- Saturday, 6:30 PM, NBC
Snoozer:
- Penn State at Indiana
I’m not sure even Michael Penix still playing for Indiana could make this game compelling.
- Saturday, 11:00 AM, CBS – Don’t worry Hoosier fans, the basketball season is finally here.
Upset Watch:
- Nebraska at Purdue
Fan fact…Purdue is favored in this game by 1.5 points. Sure they have the worse record and will have no home field advantage because of how well the Husker fans travel, but why not make them favorites? I know I’ll never know as much as the Vegas folks…who after all set these things to maximize their profits, not indicate anything true about the game…but even this one seems silly by those standards. Nebraska seems head and shoulders above PU right now.
Elsewhere (Alphabetical Order):
Minnesota at Michigan State – Fresh off the win over Iowa, UM looks to keep their momentum going against the worst team in the league. Knocking off struggling Sparty will get the Gophers to five wins and to 3-2 in league…which weirdly makes them a factor in the putrid Big Ten West. As for MSU they are just playing for pride now. At 2-5 with Ohio State and Penn State still left on the schedule a bowl seems impossible. But play for pride, get some younger players into the mix and try and prepare the team for next year. Interim coach Harlon Burnett is a MSU alum and lifer, he doesn’t want to set the next admin up to fail. He’ll keep fighting hard and so should those players.
Bye Week:
Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Rutgers
Random Musing:
Okay, so what do I think of the punt fair catch as an Iowa fan…I’ll just bullet point this from most rational to irrational emotions I had:
- It was the correct call. He did move his left arm and his arm did not go above his head…textbook invalid fair catch call.
- There is the spirit of a rule versus the letter of the rule. The letter of the rule was correctly carried out, but the spirit of the rule is to prevent chicanery by the returning team AND to protect the returner. Neither of those were in play. The punt was nowhere near Coop so his safety wasn’t at risk and no Gopher was fooled by his gesture since they all tried to tackle him. This type of scenario happens all the time in bad punts and normally the ref lets the play play out…just like the Iowa crew did.
- If we are to believe Kirk, and I have no reason for him to lie on this because there are so many players and refs and officials around…but according to Kirk, the crew said they were reviewing if he went out of bounds and then came back with the new call. I understand officials can spot advancing the ball in tons of scenarios, including an invalid fair catch call scenario, but this also seems like something that needs to be addressed. If a review is for a fumble recovery and on reply they see a massive facemask that caused the fumble because the player is getting their head spun around like an owl, they can’t magically comeback and call a facemask penalty…either newly discovered penalties can be added (which opens up a huge can of worms) OR action unrelated to the stated review can’t be added to an existing review (which seems to be the best way to keep reviews consistent).
- Iowa was favored by 3.5. The punt return put Iowa up 16-12 pending the field goal. Does anyone do oversight on refs and gambling? Seriously, I’ve never known any governing body to do it. Is that an NCAA compliance thing? Who checks? Who knows?
And last, but not least, my most honest take…the call didn’t cost Iowa the game. Their offense was awful. They had turnovers galore. They had 2 yards of offense for most of the second half. This loss is clearly on Brian and Kirk for completely ignoring any sense of rational coaching for an entire phase of the game. The Ferentzes say you want complimentary football…well having the defense out on the field for 75% of the game and special teams bailing you out with long punts isn’t complementary. Complementary football would be the offense wins time of possession, has long drives to give the defense rest, puts together at least one scoring drive per quarter to average a semi-respectable 21 points per game. They can’t even do that. The call robbed Coop of an all time great moment in his career and I feel bad for him as an individual, but as an Iowa die hard I don’t hate the refs, I don’t feel like we got robbed or cheated. We robbed and cheated ourselves with the worst offense in the whole freaking nation. The coaches OK with the offense is who needs to be blamed.
Big Ten and Counting 