Because of largely wimpy scheduling this was a pretty bad week for the Big 10. Ill show you why.
Big winners: USC. Only conference team that went on the road to face a ranked Big conference. SEC team. And won. In thrilling fashion. This didn't look like a typical sloppy and error prone first game. This played like a nationally televised bowl or Championship matchup. Vegas, raucous crowd. Nationally televised. Game you are thrilled to win and agonize if you lose. I personally hate to see USC play them, but they won, and to the victors go the spoils. All love and respect for them to schedule it, play it and win it. They deserve all the accolades for it until they bomb out somewhere.
Little winners: Rutgers 44-7 over Howard. Illinois 45-0 over Eastern Illinois, Moo U 16-10over FAU, Whiskey 28-14 over Western Michigan. Purdue 49-0 over Indiana State. Maryland 50-7 over Uconn Iowa 40-0 over Illinois State State Penn 34-12 over WVA. Northwestern 13-6 over Miami OH. Indiana over FIU 31-7 NEB over UTEP 40-7 and Washington 35-3 over Weber State. Most teams are here because they are nothing teams who beat "I have never heard of them" teams. Western Michigan, Uconn, WVA Miami OH and UTEP are all legit opening day wins. So those victories by real teams deserve inclusion. The others easily could have been put in the little losers category. Howard, Eastern Illinois, Weber State, Indiana State, Illinois State don't belong on ANY Big 10 team's schedule. Shame on you, I don't care how much you have traditionally sucked. Yes Purdue, that means you.
Little losers: Michigan 30-10 over Fresno. at home. Game was a 1 score game in the 4th. Fresno is plucky. Michigan is defending National Champion. you embarrassed the conference while Georgia is out there pounding Clemson. Don't expect USC to have to lead this thing from Day 1. Man up Wolverines. Ohio State 52-6 over Akron. Why didn't I list them above? Because Akron is as bad as that nobody team list and you're Ohio FREAKING State. You have no business playing them and I don't care the score. You shouldn't. So you gain no points from me this week. Minnesota becomes the first and only conference team to lose. 19-17 to Carolina. Last minute, but at home and while NC is legit, it's a loss and if you want to row that boat, need to get out of the second division and beat teams like this.
Big losers: UCLA 16-Hawaii 13. Playing a road game to get a check from 10,000 people getting suntans is bad. Trailing all game is worse. Winning on a walk off FG against Hawaii is just sad. There's nowhere to go but up. Oregon 24-14 over Idaho. Again. Why are we scheduling this and if you bought yourselves the best roster in the country? This is no way to introduce yourself to a new conference. I don't know if you were holding back but this was a 3 point game in the 4th midway. Booo. Putrescence. Boo for scheduling it. Booo for having NC aspirations and playing it. Boo for your performance. Booo that it was at home. And boo that this is the first look the conference gets at you.
All in all the conference went 17-1 but played 1 ranked team. 0 top 10 teams. And only USC, UCLA and State Penn played road games. Weak schedule and only one team shone out this weekend. Glad they did. Most other conferences were hit and miss with the top teams shining.
Remember, Ducks joined big ten out of necessity. Wanted the PAC to survive. But once the LA market was gone, it was not sustainable.
Now they are in a horrible situation.
Great post. Good read.
Good summary.
USC gets a huge opportunity to grab the B10 spotlight when we play Michigan in two weeks ✌️
Very nice, and I love the Princess Bride reference.
Nice write up and analysis, well done Java. That took a good time to do. Enjoyed it.