18 B1G Things
- UMass gave Rutgers the 0-12 curse. Clearly.
- Michigan is the new Iowa
- Why did any of us expect CyHawk to do anything other than what they did?
- Texas and Ohio State played the perfect "if you take away X" hypothetical game.
- James Franklin had the decency to at least wait for conference play.
- Jesus Purdue, 4th and 15?!
- A two-point conversion away from prophecy.
- When you do the absolute minimum, you get boat raced, part 7658
- Bronco is still alive!
- Nebraska can score now!
The Rundown
Thank god for FCS teams! Boston College 28, Rutgers 21
The Scarlet Knights would be starting at 0-12 if not for Howard being on the schedule in two weeks. This is about as much as I'm willing to say about this team.
RUReady4Brazil: Rutgers and Boston College are both horrendous football teams. Both head coaches are on the hot seat because they struggle to recruit and have simply lost the edge. Both teams did everything they could to lose this game but someone had to win. The silver lining for Rutgers is that barring a major upset (the Knights have not beaten a ranked team since 2009), the Greg Schiano era will be over and we can move on.
Death Star death starred, moving on. Indiana 55, Howard 0.
IUinVA: A stupid result in a stupid game. Indiana receivers had 6 TDs on 9 receptions. Total yardage was 510-57. The 4th quarter was shortened by 5 minutes. Professionals versus amateurs. Just stupid.
BuffKomodo: Writing at almost halftime. Indiana wipes FCS Howard off the windshield. Not a ton to learn in this other than Cig is pretty pissed with his team’s performance to this point in the season. While not a bad showing, I doubt this gives him the warm and fuzzies. Good thing Indiana gets 4 cupcakes in 5 games to start the season and get things rolling.
MICHIGAN WITH THE OVERREACTION SPECIAL! Michigan 17, Oklahoma 10.
Be real, we all saw this coming, right? Of course, a week after needing the overlords to give them extra time to beat Western Michigan, they shut down Oklahoma to come away with he win. Not all is well, though, that offense still needs lots of work.
Brian Gillis: Michigan bounced back from a disappointing week one performance with hard a fought victory over Oklahoma. Michigan’s offense is still very much a work in progress but its defense was dominant in the 17-10 victory. The Wolverines have a long way to go and a difficult road ahead, but spirits are a lot higher in Arbor than they were a week ago.
RockymtnBlue: Good news: vast improvement over last week. Bad news: It's still pretty bad. THAT'S how bad week 1 was. The defense is gonna get got from time to time, but it's pretty good as long as it's not making boneheaded penalties (which it did all damned game). The offense is pretty rough. Okie LBs were crashing the line on every play. It's pretty tough to run into that. You have to be able to make a team pay over the top when they do that, and Underwood's vision and decision making simply isn't up to the task. He made a couple nice throws, and certainly progressed from week 1. But as a passer, he's nowhere close to a D1 quarterback yet, much less a P-4 one. There's not much depth behind him, so he's gonna get a lot of chances, but the situation is not ideal.
It's Oregon's turn to fall apart after bringing everybody back to "win a national title." Oklahoma State 39, Oregon 31.
I've been telling anyone who will listen that Dan Lanning is just white James Franklin with a sugar daddy, but noooo, he's soooo much better! He:
- Beat Ohio State on a fluke that one time
- Lost to every team at or above his level
- Brought whole bunch of players back to "win a national title" after getting bounced in the semi-finals
...I guess the only difference is Franklin never got boat raced in those "matchup" games, while Dan Lanning couldn't help but shit the bed? Oh and Franklin waited 12 years for his faceplant.
A near mirror score. Penn State 27, Temple 9.
On that fateful day in 2015, Temple beat Penn State 27-10. On Saturday, Penn State beat Temple 27-9. In fairness to the latter team, the early season mistakes we expected in game 1 showed up in game 2, and three redone trips with 3 points to show for it in the first half turned a would be blowout into a dogfight, until the team decided to wake up.
Purdue lets Wake Forest off the hook. Wake Forest 38, Purdue 36 (2OT)
They came back from every deficit to force over time. They had 'em dead to rights on 4th and 15. They lost anyway.
glass: Two bad teams played a stupid and mostly entertaining game in front of a 2/3rds full stadium. While it was nice to see Ryan Browne not embarrass himself, we lost a winneable game because that is what Purdue does. 49 days until basketball.
BoilerUp89: oh Boilers! Our defense stinks. The O-line is merely mediocre and the QB just okay. Shame because the RBs/WRs/TEs seem to be solid. Plenty of opportunities to win this game. Negative plays, a missed FG, and swiss cheese defense undermined the team. 1-11 here we come!
HoustonBoiler: Purdue dropped a heartbreaker in double OT. What I liked: 1) Fame Ijeboi was great, picking up 114 yards on 27 carries and scored 3 TDs, 2) WRs continue to catch the ball which is a huge step up from last season, 3) Ryan Browne played a good game, completed 32 of 42 passes for 329 yards and 1 TD, 4) Purdue never gave up and came back from a 10 point deficit with 4 minutes remaining in the game to tie it up at the end of regulation, and 5) zero turnovers. What I didn't like: 1) the defense struggled overall, couldn't get stops in general and failed miserably in stopping an opposing QB running the ball, 2) the OL play was mediocre at best, 3) no take aways, 4) missed FG (49 yards) in the first quarter made a difference, and 5) several stupid penalties, several offsides and false starts, a couple of personal fouls, a roughing the passer, and a holding penalty on 1st down that caused a 3 and out on Purdue's 3rd drive. Purdue needs to play better, particularly on defense, and greatly reduce the penalties if they want to win another game this season. Sadly, Purdue let a winnable game slip away. On to LA.
So that defense switch ain't going all that well, right? Duke 31, Illinois 27.
You knew coming into this game that Duke could only do one thing, and, that's exactly the thing they did, and still beat Illinois.
AlmaOtter: Sigh. I want to live forever on a boat out in the sea, as the Big Ten map commercial goes. And then I'd like to light the boat on fire.
Michigan and Iowa won, Illinois and Ohio State lost. Not a great day in the Otter household.
The Illini defense is far worse than last year. The offense is decent, but Houser just doesn't have whatever horseshoe that Luke Altmeyer had tucked away. In the last few years, Illinois has become remarkably adept at keeping close games close and then just barely winning them. It takes a lot of execution and a few good breaks to make that a calling card. Illinois didn't force a turnover today, didn't look crisp on offense in the second half, and treated every Duke offensive player as if they were a greased-up watermelon in a swimming pool.
A day full of losses like today feels like getting hit in the head with a hammer. It feels like going all in at a poker table and losing. "I invested time and energy in this and I got less than nothing out of it."
And that's sports.
We usually invest time and usually get nothing out of it. Until we do. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Your teams can actually lose forever. There's no rule that says that they will eventually win anything at all. But we keep sticking around for that potential payoff, no matter how absurd the proposition is. It's a collective delusion. It's a communal fucking gas leak.
It's sports.
thumpasaurus: Illinois is bad and it feels like home. But maybe we can still bullshit our way to 6 wins. Looking less likely now
He was a high school QB: 2023 was the last time we lost a close game so it’s hard to be too mad about this, but it still sucks.
Oh hey there Michigan State didn't play with their food this time! Michigan State 35, Eastern Michigan 7.
It's still September. Maryland 38, UConn 14.
Thus Maryland has no reason to lose, unless it's to a Big Ten team or something.
Maaaaybe Minnesota is not going to be a dark horse this season. Mississippi State 38, Minnesota 13.
Mississippi State jumped on them early, and Minnesota could do jack all.
Biff: We were in our driveway about to head to the Gopher game when my wife and I were both called in to work. Lucky for us the game was cancelled and will never be played as far as I need to know.
And neither is Washington. Washington 16, Utah State 14.
Utah State didn't get two tries, like Michigan did, but they nearly pulled it off either way. Washington might be in trouble.
Nebraska, on the other hand, might be a little better than expected. Nebraska 56, Bowling Green 7.
Did it take an extra season this time around? Are we destined for 10-2? Probably not, that schedule is brutal.
BigRedTwice: I mean, given how this weekend went for the Big Ten overall, I have nothing to complain about with Nebraska. Bowling Green is quite bad, but the Huskers dismissed them quickly and emphatically. If we're going to quibble, we could point out that the third quarter was sloppy and scoreless. But overall, the performance that was expected and needed.
UCLA 28, San Diego State 10
Maybe they'll get more than just a bowl?
Wisconsin 36, Western Illinois 9
I was hoping for 50, but 36 will do.
Kind of...: Wisconsin was thoroughly unimpressive in beating a mediocre FCS team. But given what happened elsewhere in the conference this weekend, nobody's going to rip on them too much. But, right now I would pick them to be 2-6/0-5 on Nov. 1. The DL got pushed around a bit; Colton Joseph has "accuracy issues" and the OL can't get much of a push. They're not a good team, and it they can't beat Michigan State in Madison, I don't see Fickell surviving October.
Iowa 16, Iowa State 13
Same old Iowa!
Texas 24, Ohio State 23
I fell asleep on the couch with them up 23-10. I woke up with them about to lose. I thought NFL coaches were good at in-game adjustments?
Transient Buckeye: It's the hope that kills you. I'd had this pegged as a loss since the preseason, so if you'd told me before the game that OSU would take a 1-point loss, I'd have been annoyed, but been willing to roll with it. But then the actual game happened. Ohio State jumped out to a 20-3 halftime lead, tacked on 3 more in the third quarter, and was one play away from putting the Longhorns down probably a half-dozen times. They couldn't get it done. This one stings. They'll take out their frustrations on Kent State next week (Big Nood!). Then Big Ten season will start, and we'll see what this team is really made of.
MaximumSam: Ryan Day needs to access his inner teenager. When you have the opportunity to score, nothing else matters.
Ok so Fresno State sucks, right? USC 49, Louisiana 30
San Jose State managed 27, Louisiana 30, so clearly people can score on the USC defense. And, unlike week 0, Louisiana got theirs throughout the game.
