18 B1G Things
- Holy shit!
- HOLY SHIT!
- Your eyes do not deceive you
- Ohio State has lost three games in the regular season!
- THREE!
- Also Michigan lost to Michigan State. Yep. That Michigan State.
Before I keep on keeping on, allow me to underscore this historical meaning of this weekend for a moment. This is the first time since Penn State joined the Big Ten that neither the aforementioned Penn State, Ohio State, nor Michigan are in the top 3 of the conference standings this late into the season. Furthermore, if USC, Oregon, and Ohio State win out, the Buckeyes can only finish 5th in the conference, making it the only time in that 33-year period where all three teams finished outside of the top 3 in the conference standings.
Furthermore, only once were all three teams knocked out of conference contention this early into November, the fated 1999 season. We are witnessing history folks!
Pray for Ryan Day and his family. Seriously.
The Rundown
Nebraska's Woes Continues, lose 24-13 to Illinois
Presumably, losing by 11 is a sigh of relief for Nebraska fans. Another 5-0 start seems to be going down the drain for the Huskers. Lucky for them, they do get Rutgers, who are themselves going through their own struggles.
BRT: Well, we didn't lose by a single score this time.
He was a high school qb: So, Lars Rau’s fake reminded me of this for some reason https://share.google/sKEPEqWeo4GLjEAli
Narrator: People still use Facebook?
DeadRead: I think they did it. I think the Huskers finally broke me.
thumpasaurus: Never in a million years did I think this team would go bowling when we ate shit against Purdue. Somehow Bret Bielema has salvaged a defense out of Bobby hauck’s beautiful mess and they've not only won three straight but all against teams that now have conference wins. Build the statue. Three bowl seasons in a row at Illinois is unthinkable.
UCLA 34, Minnesota 20: He went for a field goal
Yes, allowing two big touchdown plays back to back didn't help, but when you're deep in UCLA territory, you go for it.
WhiteSpeedReceiver: The two youngest children having diarrhea yesterday was less infuriating than giving up 75 yard touchdowns on back-to-back plays.
Maryland's dead cat bounce waited for Purdue, 34-29
Yes, Purdue's chances at a bowl game were thin as it is, but they absolutely needed to beat Maryland to have a prayer. Pulling two upsets was already a tall order, pulling three in a row is basically impossible.
BoilerUp89: Fire Kevin kane
And fire the new president of the university. Absolutely awful, awful pick. Fire the board of trustees while we are axing people
BuffKomodo: Rough weekend?
BoilerUp89: Im fine with basketball. Everyone else on this site made me second guess my preseason prediction of 9-11 in B1G play and I expected a home upset. This year is going to have growing pains. Jacobsen looks good enough to give me promise for next year (and not good enough to go pro). Need more pieces around him to develop.
glass: Purdue football is the Dewey Wilkerson dot gif
I said this in the gamethread, but Id be absolutely thrilled if we didnt lose our last 3 games by more than 100 points combined
HoustonBoiler: Well, that makes three games in a row where Purdue faced a team with zero B1G wins (Washington (0-3), Penn State (0-4), and now Maryland (0-5). All three soundly beat Purdue. Illinois and Minnesota, both of whom Purdue beat, are better than these three. WTF!!! The only bright spots recently have been the place kicking and punting. Everything else has been shit. Offense, defense. Fucking shit!
Oregon 41, Ohio State 28
Buckeyes went up 14-0, and we all thought it would be business as usual. The Ducks scored the next 38 points, and Ohio State wouldn't score again until garbage time.
Transient Buckeye: Woody Hayes once said that nothing cleanses the soul like getting the hell kicked out of you. If that’s true, Ohio State’s souls should’ve just gotten a full colonic. No second-guessing, no regrets, this was just a full-on beatdown. Which does, at least, save on the “what-ifs.”
HoustonBoiler: I think the past few seasons have provided me with enough soul cleanses for a decade or two.
Narrator: This was a response to Transient Buckeye, so clearly I missed the narrative.
MaximumSam: Hey at least it’s basketball season.
Sees Jake Diebler
Goddammit.
Wisconsin will go bowling, beats Rutgers 31-10
The Scarlet Knights made it a game, but didn't have the depth to close it out. This may be the beginning of the end for Greg Schiano 2.0.
Kind of...: Wisconsin only led a bad--and absolutely injury-riddled--Rutgers squad by three at halftime before pulling away in the second half. Ryan Hopkins wowed most Badgers fans in his first career start. And 10 YPA is impressive even adjusting for opponent. With PSU showing signs for life, Wisconsin might actually register multiple wins over bowl bound teams this year. Hooray. Are they really any good? Hard to say.
Is Northwestern going to lose out?
Of course not! They play Ohio State next week.
LincolnParkWildcat: If only Aidan Chiles was healthy, maybe this game would have came out different. The chess match between Phil Parker and Chip Kelly came out in Parker’s favor, with backup QB Nicco Marchiol and the Wildcat offense having a down night.
Well, so much for an outside chance at a CFP berth. Let's keep on fighting hard to get into a decent bowl game. This season has definitely been weird.
MinnesotaWildcat: Meh. No Chiles meant Northwestern was gonna need to be inch-perfect, and they just aren’t as a team — even thinking about the College Football Playoff was, at best, just willfully deluding yourself. Northwestern has an above-average offense and a severely-flawed, bend-don’t-break-oriented defense that was made to compete against Iowa only if they were competing on level terms the whole way. When Iowa went up 14-0, this was a death march.
There are a couple “what ifs” for me:
- What if Chip would’ve gone to a 4-wide spread offense sooner? You could see the ‘Cats abandon the Wing-T concepts (which, I mean…Kirk Ferentz is built to demolish that whether it’s Nicco Marchiol or Aidan Chiles) and start to find some running lanes for Marchiol, a textbook-definition Big XII backup (complimentary) who can take off with it and can make a few throws but just wasn’t going to win you the game.
- What if Northwestern would’ve recovered that onside kick? Nothing, but Henry Helms (backup K) can hit a fuckin’ onside. This one and the one against Indiana…he should really be 2/2 now this season.
That said: Northwestern wasn’t winning this game. I called it 27-7 for Iowa. I made it my Cold Brew pick of the week. Iowa was winning this game, as they are (1) better and (2) built to beat this iteration of Northwestern football.
Moving on. Ohio State’s flawed, maybe this week’s our week.
Mr. Grizz: Welcome to November Iowa. Score some points and let the defense, fully formed by now, clog the flow of the other team’s offense. Sometimes barely, but this is what Iowa does. Minus 3 in turnovers? Didn’t matter, though it made things interesting late. Interesting, that is, for a two-touchdown margin.
This game was essentially over when Iowa responded to a Northwestern field goal with a kickoff return for touchdown. With one exception, Iowa played like it, too. A flea flicker variant to a bad drop by a tight end with acres of open Northwestern territory in front of him was Iowa’s last real bit of aggression on offense. Northwestern returned the favor with an end zone drop by Wilde, though he was fighting off a defender. Northwestern could move the ball, but not much past Iowa’s 25. Again, November Iowa. Parker gives you some yards but makes you prove you can move the ball consistently, all the way down the field. Northwestern couldn’t.
Hank Brown has been a different player the past two games. He’s been good, and good enough to think about Iowa running the table. I had feared this game for weeks, and obviously the loss of Chiles was significant, but Iowa has really developed on the defensive side. Purdue, which how-did-you-lose-to-Maryland?, is next. Bert knows how to play Iowa. Who knows what Nebraska will be in three weeks. A short but long way to go.
Penn State avoids disaster, beats Washington 28-25
They led 28-6 at halftime. They got outscored 19-0 in the second half. Then, almost out of character, they used the running game to close out the win. It's almost like they went into the bye, saw what wasn't working, accepted that Koby Howard maybe isn't coming back, and adjusted.
Michigan State 15, Michigan 6
Speaking of teams looking in the mirror, Michigan seems to be going in the wrong direction. Three weeks ago they looked like they were turning things around after they made a quarterback switch to come back and beat my own team. They've since barely escaped with a win at Rutgers and just lost to arguably the worst team in the conference.
Ouch.
Ardichoke: HahahahaHAHAHAHAhaHHAahahaHAhaHahaaaaaaaha.
Okay, now that I got that out of my system. I said this game was gonna be a dumb throwback to 1926 and pretty much got what I expected. For once, however, MSU didn’t let the refs beat them and the dumb broke their way. I’ll take it. I’m never going to turn down a win over (sc)UM. This game did nothing to change my outlook on the season though, I still think the most likely outcome from here on is that they lose out. I still want Fitz gone from East Lansing ASAP and think he never should have been hired.
Brian: Rival fanbases love to bring up App State, but that very well might have been the worst loss in program history. Not much else I can say.
