B1G Football Survivor 2026 - Week 2

64 entered in week 1, 34 remain.

In the prophetic words of Broated Nutcrackle - provider of this week's lead image - "I’ll take your bait and play on hard mode. Give me Rutgers."

If you missed week 1 (or forgot to submit a pick), I'm letting players join the competition this year up to a week late. You will need to play catchup and submit an extra pick in week 2 though. No reentries though. If you lost in week 1, it's time to participate in the losers' pool. It's more fun anyway and the rest of us will be joining you very soon. After all - we've still got to pick Rutgers.

The Rules

I'm not typing all of that out again. Click the week 0/week 1 article and read all the way through. If you picked Rutgers last week, welcome to the losers' pool. Feel comforted in the fact that you are not alone.

B1G Football Survivor 2026 - Week 0/Week 1

The goal of B1G survivor is simple: be the last one standing in the survivor pool.

Off Tackle RepublicBoilerUp89

Four Legends left - shoutout to redbear for the suggested group name (I'll be using this, but not the Leaders) - remain after picking games in week 1. Will any of these players succumb to the temptation to join the cowards? Or will they stay true to themselves and attempt to complete the perfect season with zero FCS opponents?

Legends*

*for now

As for the Cowards, more of them remain. Many followed my lead and selected the Purdue/Maryland combination but there were a smattering of Sparty picks and one Northwestern selection.

Cowards

Week 2 picks made previously: NU06er (MSU), Wacker Era Survivor (MSU), LTW_O_MI (MSU). Any of these may be changed up until MSU's kickoff.

Players that need to make an additional pick sometime between now and week 4: BoilerUp89's nephew, HuskersFirst, NU06er (currently making a double pick in week 4), Rubber_Duck, LTW_O_MI, tech01, Tralfaz, and Whipples.

Oh, Rutgers? How could you betray your believers in the survivor pool so early?

Special shoutout to NUDave - the only participant to take the free USC week 0 victory. Despite taking the auto win, he still ended up in the Loser's Pool after just week 1. Tough luck, NUDave.

Iron Monkee and BoilerUp81 were paying attention and retracted their Purdue picks after Rutgers lost. Remember you can change your picks at anytime before a game kicks off. Iron Monkee & BoilerUp81 ensured they can pick Purdue to lose in a future week. That's smart. But it's not quite expert mode. Expert mode would have been replacing their Purdue picks with OSU or Indiana. You can only lose once in a week. Sure would be nice not having to take OSU or Indiana to lose moving forward.

To be fair to IronMonkee, I'm not sure they recognized that they could only lose once in a week as they commented something about taking Northwestern to lose after retracting their Purdue pick. IronMonkee, that wasn't a valid option for you in week 1, so I'm going to ignore it.

To our 10 legendary losers, we salute you!

Good luck moving forward in the losers' pool. Remember you are now picking Big Ten teams to lose. You may not pick any teams you've previously picked to win.

Players that need to make an additional pick sometime between now and week 4: BoilerUp81, allthegoodnamesrgone, Broated Nutcrackle, Hachigi2, IronMonkee.

Week 2 Games

All times ET

Friday, September 11
Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Boston College Eagles, 7:30 PM

Saturday, September 12
Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Purdue Boilermakers, Noon
Howard Bison (FCS) at Indiana Hoosiers, Noon
Oregon Ducks at Oklahoma State Cowboys, Noon
Oklahoma Sooners at Michigan Wolverines, Noon
Penn State Nittany Lions at Temple Owls, Noon
Utah State Aggies at Washington, 3:30 PM
Mississippi State Bulldogs at Minnesota Golden Gophers, 3:30 PM
Duke Blue Devils at Illinois Fighting Illini, 3:30 PM
Eastern Michigan Emus Eagles at Michigan State Spartans, 3:30 PM
Maryland Terrapins at UConn Huskies, 3:30 PM
Bowling Green Falcons at Nebraska Cornhuskers, 7 PM
San Diego State Aztecs at UCLA Bruins, 7:15 PM
Western Illinois Leathernecks (FCS) at Wisconsin Badgers, 7:15 PM
The Ohio State Buckeyes at Texas Longhorns, 7:30 PM
Iowa State Cyclones at Iowa Hawkeyes, 7:30 PM
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns at USC Trojans, 11 PM

BoilerUp89's pick for week 2: Rutgers is tempting - BC looked awful against Cincinnati on Saturday - but I have a better spot to gamble on the Scarlet Knights later in the season. I'm going to go with Michigan State this week. There's other options for Sparty later in the season (road dates with Rutgers, UCLA, and wisconsin or a home date with Northwestern), but I don't trust road teams and I'm not picking Fitz over Northwestern. Plus we have plenty of data on EMU already (they played Week 0 and Week 1) and while I'm unconvinced MSU is any good, I feel confident saying that EMU is not.

Good luck everyone. As always, please let me know of any mistakes in the comments.