Ever have one of those days where you want to write a few thousand words about mediocre football? Well, climb onboard, good reader! Let's take a look at the conference. I'll lay my biases and foundations on the table as well, pointing out how many games I have watched for each of the teams, so you can point out where I am being ignorant. Good? Good!

Indiana + Minnesota

Indiana - 1-4 (0-1), Sagarin SOS 104, Yards Per Play differential -0.5
Minnesota - 1-4 (0-1), Sagarin SOS 81, YPP differential -1.3

Games watched: Indiana - 2 (Ball State, North Texas); Minnesota - 2 (USC, New Mexico State)

I'm lumping these teams together because no one really wants to read two separate sections on these teams, but also because there are some important similarities. Both teams are switching between a pair of mostly-ineffective quarterbacks. Both teams just changed quarterbacks. Both teams are awful and have no chance whatsoever of making a bowl game. And both teams have a chance to ruin someone's season.

Only one team in the past five season's has finished 0-8 in Big Ten play (Minnesota 2007). Because Indiana and Minnesota do not play this season, there are lots of people thinking that we could have not one, but two winless conference teams this season. That seems unlikely. Even if you assume that these teams have only a 5% chance of winning each game from here on out, it's pretty much a coin flip (.95^14) as to whether one of them wins a game. A couple of those games are perhaps lower than 5% (Indiana vs Wisconsin, for example), but many are much higher; going off the Vegas line, Minnesota has about a 20% of beating Purdue this weekend.

What that means is that although each individual game would be an upset, in total, Minnesota or Indiana is likely to win a game somewhere. Against who is anyone's guess. But a loss to one of those teams by a nominal division contender will absolutely destroy that team's chances of getting to Indianapolis in December.

As for the team's themselves: this has the feel of a wasted season for Indiana, as everyone waits for Gunner Kiel to arrive on campus next year. Bad teams often hope that the development of youth during the awful seasons can provide a silver lining, but the player in most need of development is still in high school. Minnesota is a younger team and so might develop more overall, but Jerry Kill also hasn't hit the ground running in recruiting quite as well as Kevin Wilson. I have no clue as to which coach can get their program turned around first. Both are likely to be hazmat zones both this year and next.

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Fire Phil Emery

Indiana will win a game this year. They are competing hard. They were overmatched personnel wise this weekend and still played PSU pretty even for about 3/4 of that game. (Not that PSU is any great shakes).

There is a lot of concern out there whether he ever gets there.

I have a feeling I know which team of yours is next up.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Penn State

Penn State - 4-1 (1-0), Sagarin SOS 77, YPP +1.4
Games watched - 2 (Alabama, Temple)

The Bolden/McGloin battle is the most intriguing in the Big Ten. Braxton Miller is eventually going to take over at Ohio State; both Ed Wright-Baker and Dusty Kiel are going to step aside for Kiel the Younger next year, as is Caleb Terbush for Rob Henry at Purdue next season. But Bolden vs McGloin is still an open battle, the assumption being that coaches know when the winner is eventually declared, the loser is going to pout their way to Youngstown State.

One problem has been that as soon as one quarterback seems to pull away, he follows up the performance with a stinker. McGloin looked much the better against awful Indiana State, then went 1-10 against Alabama. As soon as fans began calling for Bolden, McGloin once again outperformed the sophomore against Temple and Indiana. Statistically, McGloin has been better, but he's also being asked to do simpler things. Bolden still seems to have the higher upside.

I can't be the only person to realize that there's a pretty simple pattern to both QB's performance. Bolden is the smart kid that sucks at taking multiple choice tests. No matter how easy the test, he will always miss some questions because he's rushing too fast or didn't read the question correctly. McGloin is the kid that nails the simple questions but has no chance of ever learning higher-level material. He'll excel against Eastern Michigan and then get pummeled by the Alabama or Florida. And while there are no Alabamas in the Big Ten, there are Ohio States, Wisconsins, and Illinoises.

This is still a more solid team than they are currently getting credit for. The Penn State defense, while depleted, is one of the top five units on either side of the ball in the conference this season. There's an open question how long that can hold up, but it's solid right now. The close score against Indiana was a bit deceiving--poorly-timed turnovers kept that game from becoming the blowout it should have been--and Temple isn't LOLTemple like most years.

Still, the defense is depleted, and is going to be asked to do quite a bit for the rest of the season. The coaching staff is 1.) extremely old, even outside of Paterno, and 2.) seemingly clueless on offense. The game at Northwestern is probably the key to their season (and probably Northwestern's as well); without that win, 7-5 feels like the absolute ceiling. The final four games (Illinois, Nebraska, at Ohio State, at Wisconsin) are a bear, and the calls for Paterno to step down might be ferocious come the end of November. Given the handling of the QB controversy, frankly, it's probably time.

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Fire Phil Emery

I guess this isn't in order of who sucks more.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The order is "order Irish Boy feels like writing about them."

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Fire Phil Emery

Michigan

Michigan - 5-0 (1-0), Sagarin SOS 85, YPP differential +2.3
Games watched - 2.4 (Notre Dame, San Diego State. Also, parts of Western Michigan)

Michigan is 5-0 again, which is a yearly ritual now. The schedule looks worse than it actually has been: Western Michigan and San Diego State are both solidly middle class teams, while Notre Dame is capable of beating all but about 8-10 teams in the country (capable of losing to most too). The Notre Dame win was a little fluky, but the San Diego State game was dominant, and any 59-0 defeat of a Big Ten team is impressive, regardless of just how shitty that opponent is.

Now, once again, the meat of the schedule is coming. Four of the next five games are on the road, and the final two games are at home against Nebraska and Ohio State. Michigan could lose all of those games.

But they won't. Denard Robinson has regressed as a passer from last year but the defense is so much stronger than the last two years (that is, they are average now) that the decline of the offense won't be very noticeable. They could really use a solid running back--Michael Shaw isn't quite as good as his stats--but the offense could unload 42 points on just about any team.

At the same time, it will be curious to see what happens when Michigan gets into close games in the heart of the Big Ten schedule. They have been atrocious in power situations, and Brady Hoke seems somewhat insistent on including this in the offense (though they did almost none against Minnesota). The defense is probably too complicated, and the linebackers are often out of position.

Any one of four teams can come out of the wash in the Legends division, and lots of people are now giving Michigan the edge after Wisconsin's bludgeoning of Nebraska. I'm not so sure--once again, At Northwestern, at Michigan State, at Iowa, and at Illinois is a tough row to how in the next five games; two losses before they get Nebraska at home will probably end their chances. I don't think all that much of Brady Hoke, but I do think this is going to be a normal Lloyd Carr-ish 8-9 win team, and that feels like a sweet, sweet security blanket after the past three years.

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Fire Phil Emery

If it was, Purdue would have been first up.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Michigan = Most overrated team in the country

Northwestern

Northwestern - 2-2 (0-1), Sagaran SOS 88, YPP Differential -0.8
Games watched - 3 (Boston College, Army, Illinois)

I’ve long been a Pat Fitzgerald skeptic. I think he’s a hindrance to the program. Let me lay out my full case. I admit that I definitely have a strong point of view but I don’t think I’m being unfair.

Northwestern hasn’t been a bad program for a *long* time. Even if the 95-96 years were a bit fluky (not that NU didn’t deserve the wins, just that they would never be able to continue at that very high level), Randy Walker had the team running quite well before his passing with three straight .500 or better years in conference.

2006 was going to be a rebuilding year no matter what, and with the awful circumstances in which Fitzgerald took over, I don’t hold anything that happened that year against him. So I’ll just skip that.

Since then, Fitzgerald is under .500 in conference play since then. He’ll need to win four conference games to be .500 in the last five seasons in conference play, after Walker had NU above .500 in his final three seasons. The program is regressing, not progressing. I know NU made three straight bowls for the first time, but Walker would have done that too if there were as many bowls in 2003-2005 as there are now.

A lot has been made of NU’s extremely weak non-conference schedules (Robert at Alioneye points out that Northwestern has had the 120th out of 120 strongest OOC schedule the past three years. Four years ago wasn’t all that hot either, and that’s not going to improve much this year). But the conference schedules have been weak too. Nine teams won portions of Big Ten titles over the past five years. Northwestern has missed four of those teams. That’s not anyone’s “fault,” but it does suggest NU’s record is a little inflated even in conference because they missed so many top teams.

Even apart from that, NU has done a tremendous job of winning close games. That’s a good thing–I wish Illinois had done a better job of this before last year–but in both college and the pros it’s been shown that pulling out close victories isn’t really a replicable skill. Teams that do really well or really poorly one year don’t tend to regress to the mean. NU has been one of the exceptions to that. Again, great! I’d always rather win than lose. But we’re seeing this year that eventually the law of averages catches up.

What about the non-close games? As I said above, NU has played five conference champions since 2006. The average score of those games is 52-15, or 262-77 total. The only close game was the MSU game last year; none of the other four was even close to competitive. There’s no shame in losing to top teams, but these games have been embarrassments each time.

I read a lot above about all the adjustments Fitzgerald should make, but how is he expected to do that? He has no experience as a coordinator at any level of play. His responsibilities have always been primarily recruiting at every stop. Xs and Os isn’t as simple as just saying “blitz more.”

You can make that CEO-type coach work. Illinois is doing it (for now), as is Michigan. But it helps if you have the finances to pay SEC money for coordinators, as Illinois and Michigan do. Northwestern will always have to play “moneyball” with hires, and for the foreseeable future, NU is going to have a lot of their coaching resources tied up in their head coach. They simply can’t go out and pay 750k for a Malzahn or a Borges or a Petrino.

Finally, there’s some reason to think that this might be the last hurrah. I’m sure you guys know better than me, but there are a lot of seniors graduating this year. Next year is going to be a bit of a rebuilding year no matter what; no team can absorb those kinds of losses without a decline. And after a decade of awful non-conference schedules, NU is jumping in with both feet in 2013, not to mention that they are trading Penn State for Ohio State and Indiana for Wisconsin. Eleven BCS teams, none of which are Indiana are Purdue.

Like I said, I’d like nothing better than for Northwestern to turn it around, both for their own sake and because it will make Illinois’s win look better this year. I just don’t see it though. The next three games are tough. None are automatic losses, but Northwestern will be underdogs in at least two of the three, and probably against Penn State as well. Winning one will let them slip into a bowl game (which could be a blessing in disguise, especially if they win it), but losing all three probably knocks them out. The biggest game of the season for both teams, in my opinion, is the night game against Penn State.

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Fire Phil Emery

They're probably not the 12th best team in the country, but they are a legit top 25 team. There are several much more overvalued teams.

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Fire Phil Emery

Take the Cats +7.5 this weekend

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I don't have much to add yet but good stuff so far. Interesting and good read.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Ohio State

Ohio State - 3-2 (0-1), Sagarin SOS 78, YPP Differential 0.1
Games watched - 3 (Toledo, Miami, Michigan State)

After five games--including one against Akron (perhaps the worst team in the FBS)--Ohio State has averaged one-tenth of a yard more per play than their opposition. The most talented team in the conference, even once taking suspensions into account, has barely outgained a middling ACC program, an awful PAC-12 team, two MAC teams, and the fourth or fifth best team in the Big Ten.

The Ohio State offense has never really been potent, at least not since 2007, but the group that took the field against Miami and Michigan State was sub-Indianan (seriously: Bethune-Cookman outscored Ohio State at Miami). Part of this is the Curse of the Top QB, where a major recruit at the position scares away recruits in subsequent years since they know they'll be riding pine. Braxton Miller will probably be fine eventually, but this was supposed to be a redshirt year, after which Terrelle Pryor would hand over the program. Joe Bauserman is the only alternative because no other QBs could be convinced to sit on their ass in Columbus for four years. The backup QB at Miami of Ohio turned down an Ohio State offer. Think about that.

The running game has been relatively strong at times, especially before the Michigan State game. But that can only last so long, and the Buckeyes haven't shown they can pass against anyone except lowly Akron this season.

Still, the talent is there. Braxton Miller can only improve as the year goes on, and the team that plays Michigan on the final weekend of the season will probably be much better than the one that took the field against Michigan State. But will it matter? Michigan State is a decent team this year, but they also lost by three scores at Notre Dame, and frankly that game wasn't even as close as the scoreboard showed. Miami followed up their dominating victory over Ohio State with a loss to Kansas State, and the Hurricanes had already lost to a Maryland team that later got blown out by Temple.

It's tough to recondition your brain after years of watching the scarlet and gray devastate all within it's path, but if the same performances were put forth by players in black and gold, or orange and blue, no one would hesitate to call them what they are: bad. With Purdue and Indiana on the schedule, there is still an easy path to five wins. But unless they can steal a game against Penn State(!) or at Illinois(!!) or at Michigan(!!!), the players on the field might do what the NCAA has refused to do and impose a bowl ban on themselves. And even if they take one of those three, how funny will it look to see Ohio State playing some MAC team in Detroit this winter?

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Fire Phil Emery

You are talking about Northwestern here, which I would argue is a distinctly different team than the rest in the conference. The fact that they are playing an easy schedule is probably not a negative -- the interest in the program is not very high when they hang a 2-9 record up. They played BC this year, which is a reasonably good school. Army is a reasonably good school. The fact that they can beat reasonably good schools is probably good enough for Northwestern at this point. I don't really mind what Fitzgerald has done so far, I think he has been as good as any average coach would be. One benefit of having him as head coach is that you can fire up your supporters since he is "one of their own" and has been doing at least an average job since taking over.

Honestly, do we ever think Northwestern will challenge for a NCAA championship? Unless they greatly reduce their academic standards, I don't see this happening. You talk about Northwestern as if they were the same as a Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, or a Nebraska. Fact is they aren't. They are not the major state school, so they'll never have the same cache that Illinois has in that regard. You play down the fact that they've been to three straight bowls due to bowl dilution... fine, they are diluted, but that lets look at teams that were worse than .500 at bowl time over the last three years -- Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Purdue. That is nearly half of the conference.

Your claim that NU is losing on average of 52-15 is correct however, let's compare it to some other teams. How about Minnesota? They lost on an average of 40-11. What about Michigan? 35-16. This should not be surprising since the #1 team in the Big Ten is always going to be ranked in the top 10 in the country by any standard. Also, your analysis is based on 5 games in 5 years -- small sample size. For someone who hates the playoffs, I would imagine that would carry over to any sort of analysis based on a small sample size. Of course, that is the problem when applying game performance to football -- there aren't enough events to generate as meaningful a statistical analysis as baseball or even basketball.

I will tell you now that Northwestern football will not be a national champion as long as the system stays as it currently is. I hope and believe that NU can be competitive in football without sacrificing their academic and athletic ideals. Maybe every once in 20 years they will win the Big Ten, but at least they won't have to deal with the fallout of trying to game the system as most teams in the conference have.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

There are some structural reasons why Northwestern will be different than the power conference teams. We can either complain about it or embrace it. Frankly, I'm glad Fitzgerald chose to embrace it. Personally, I'm happy to do a bit more with less... frankly, it's the opposite of Notre Dame, a school that has similar structural problems. In short, I'd rather be a NU fan and enjoy be a spoiler than be a ND fan and feel depressed every year we aren't in a BCS bowl. Call it lower expectations or call it just enjoying watching the kids develope. And FWIW, I absolutely LOVE live football. Of I was a ND fan I would get to watch one shitty game a year in bad seats. As a NU fan, I get to watch similar quality football on the 40 yard line and share a burger with the players after the game. And my kids love it to... primarily because they don't comprehend the difference between pro and college. My wallet likes this distinction.