Big 10 Overrated?
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by Sparty
I have been a die-hard Big 10 fan my whole life, but this season is pretty outrageous given the rankings of attention that the Big 10 has received. In the aftermath of Illinois' "upset" of the Buckeyes yesterday.
So was it really that big of an upset? Illinois is not that bad of a team from the games I've seen of them this year. The combination of Juice Williams and Rashard Mendenhall is pretty potent. It's as great a QB/RB threat as I've seen in the Big Ten in a long time. Ron Zook's incoming freshman class is going to compliment the pieces he already has in place so we're witnessing the rise of the Fighting Illini and the Ohio State game yesterday was as good a party for them as any they could have imagined.
Ohio State was holding onto a pretty flimsy 1st place in the BCS rankings in my estimation because they haven't played anyone that good all season! Their quality wins were Penn State & Purdue. Now that Purdue has lost to Michigan State and the fact that Ohio State hasn't blown anyone out of the water this season really poses a lot more questions than answers about Ohio State in terms of bowl readiness.
It is not a forgone conclusion that Ohio State will beat Michigan next week. In fact, it's hard for me to believe that if Michigan has a healthy Chad Henne that Ohio State can beat Michigan given what I saw yesterday. That would create a situation where Michigan has sole ownership of the Big Ten title and ties Ohio State with Illinois for a share of 2nd place.
Considering Michigan Started the season in 5th, it's hard to believe who made those predictions (App. State loss aside). They were absolutely dominated by Oregon and have never looked that great requiring inspired poor play and on-field decision making by the Spartans in the 4th quarter last week to win that game.
Wisconsin has had similar consistency struggles all year long. Again, they haven't played the part of the only Big 10 team to ever win back to back Rose Bowls. At least they are a team in transition and seem to be putting the right pieces in place and they definitely looked more comfortable as the season wore on. I predict Wisconsin will be great next season.
I would guess that Ohio State now falls past 2nd place in the BCS despite posting a 1 loss season like others in contention and this gives the pollsters an opportunity to the right the ship with LSU putting them back in 1st place. If I had to predict the Monday BCS top 5 I'd have to guess...
- LSU
- Kansas
- Oregon
- Ohio State
- Oklahoma
Ultimately I believe in the strength of the Big 10, but this season really hasn't seen a team as a standout dominant team. Similarly, most teams seem to be playing pretty inconsistent football and aren't characteristically strong on at least 1 side of the ball. I understand that a lot of the Big 10's top players have graduated and there are a few new head coaches, etc. but this season the Big 10 really got a lot of undue attention and preference in the rankings. Hopefully with the Ohio State loss things will start to correct themselves.
