College Football Conference Predictions - BIG TEN
Now that Terrell Pryor has finally made his decision, I am making my Big Ten football predictions for next season. I will divulge the fact that I am a Penn State alum, for those who didn’t know that already. Fellow Times-Democrat coworker and Big Ten grad, Chris Burke (Michigan) is simultaneously making his own Big Ten predictions this week. We will be having ‘Dualing Big Ten Predictions’, so to speak, so see how our picks for the conference next season compare.BIG TEN
1. Ohio State
2. Penn State
3. Illinois
4. Wisconsin
5. Iowa
6. Michigan
7. Purdue
8. Michigan State
9. Northwestern
10. Indiana
11. Minnesota
Ohio State lost DE Vernon Gholston to the NFL, but still has both LB James Laurinaitis and CB Malcolm Jenkins for one more year. They should have one of the best defenses in the Big Ten, and also the country. (…OK, pipe down all you SEC fans, I don’t want to hear it.) The offense will have a solid line, and strong running game with RB Chris ‘Beanie’ Wells and will pound the rock to finish out quite a few 4th quarters this season. The big question is how much will they use star recruit Terrell Pryor? Will it be a Florida or LSU type of platoon with Todd Boeckman and Pryor both playing in most games, or will Pryor take over at some point and run more of a hybrid spread type offense than OSU’s traditional power running offense. No matter how they use Pryor, they will have more talent on both sides of the ball than any other team in the Big Ten, so anything less than winning the conference would be considered underachieving this year.
Other than Ohio State, Penn State will be the only other team in the conference with a comparable defense. Penn State’s defensive line and linebackers will be as good as any team in the country. Linebacker Sean Lee will take over right where Dan Connor and Paul Posluszny left off and could be the fourth Penn State LB in four years to win the Bednarik Award at seasons end. Rising junior DE Maurice Evans had a break out year last season with 12.5 sacks, 21.5 tackles for a loss, and 3 forced fumbles. Their secondary will not be as good as Ohio State, because of CB Justin King leaving early for the NFL and speedy sophomore A.J. Wallace not yet reaching his full potential as a CB. A big QB battle will play our between senior Darryl Clark, a Michael Robinson type dual threat who has proved to be a talented runner, but not a very accurate passer over the past couple years and highly recruited sophomore Pat Devlin. The best thing for the team would be Devlin, the younger, more accurate passer, with NFL drop back passer potential, but if the coaching staff reacts similarly to Michael Robinson’s senior season, then they will be loyal to the senior, Clark. …By the way Chris, if ever there’s a year that Penn State will beat Michigan, it’s this year. The fact that the game is at Beaver Stadium and Michigan will be having a rough rebuilding year should finally set the stage for a PSU win.
Illinois is obviously the team on the upswing in the Big Ten. They proved they were ‘for real’ last year by beating both Ohio State and Penn State. Other than losing RB Rashard Mendenhall, they return a lot of players on both offense and defense. New Coach Ron Zook had an amazing freshman recruiting class last year and has another great one coming in this year. The days of Illinois hanging out at the bottom of the Big Ten standings with Northwestern and Indiana are over.
I had a tough time placing Wisconsin. They should have a strong team and be just as good as Penn State, but lack the talent of Ohio State. I easily could have placed them 3rd, just behind Penn State. I think Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa will all have 2 or 3 losses, so second through fifth place in the conference will be very close and almost interchangeable other than the head to head games that will be played. Wisconsin plays at Michigan, then Ohio State, and Penn State in weeks 5 through 7. They could win or lose the Michigan game, then will likely lose against OSU, and then be worn down from the previous two weeks and lose again to PSU. They also have a tough game against Illinois later in the season that could easily be a third loss.
Iowa has good talent in their freshman and sophomore classes and QB Jake Christensen has a year under his belt. They have the good fortune of not having to play Ohio State or Michigan this year, and it’s a great year to not have to play Ohio State. I don’t think they’ll be able to take advantage of it, though. There’s actually a chance Iowa could start the season out 6-1 (only losing to Pitt), but then could lose four in a row to Wisconsin, Illinois, Penn State, and Purdue and end up a meager 7-6 overall. (Or, if they beat Purdue, which is a winnable game for them, they would finish 5-3 in the Big Ten and 8-5 overall.)
Michigan needed Terrell Pryor. Had Michigan landed Pryor, I would have picked them to finish 2nd or 3rd in the Big Ten this year. Rich Rodriguez might find out that the spread offense doesn’t work as well when he doesn’t have a world class athlete like Pat White running it. Pryor would have been the extremely fast, athletic, Vince Young type, to run RRod’s new offense at Michigan for the next four years. However, the lack of a top notch athlete to run the show is just another problem for a team who lost their best lineman, starting RB, and best two WRs to the Draft. Not to mention also losing a transfer to Arkansas, a QB who could be the next Peyton Manning, Ryan Mallett, because of the change in offensive philosophy. Overall, Michigan could easily lose 4 games, maybe 5 this year.
Purdue has the best quarterback in the conference in senior Curtis Painter. Unfortunately, their defense won’t be good enough to win games against the teams in the top half of the conference. They don’t have to play Illinois or Wisconsin, which both should be very good this year, but OSU, PSU, Michigan, and Iowa should all be losses for the Boilermakers.
Michigan State will probably only win 2 or 3 games in the conference and there’s a chance Northwestern could edge by them in the final conference standings.
Unfortunately for Indiana and Northwestern, they will both still be hanging out at the bottom of the pack, even though their former buddy Illinois has ascended to the category of ‘contender’.
It’s hard to believe that only a few years ago Minnesota had one of the best running games in the whole country for two or three years. But then again, they had two NFL running backs during those years, the Cowboys Marion Barber III and the Patriots Laurence Maroney. Now the Golden Gophers not only have one of the ugliest uniforms in the country, but they somehow have also turned into the Duke of the Big Ten.