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College Teams Mon Oct 17 2011
Big Ten Football: All Falls Down
Two more Big Ten undefeateds went down this week. Both Michigan and Illinois had their house-of-cards offenses blown over, leaving just three teams with undefeated conference resumes.
The Badgers are ranked the highest of them, and will play both of the other two before the season is over. Those other two, Penn State and Michigan State, would not play each other unless they meet in the Big Ten championship game.
But with the level of parity as it is in the Big Ten, you have to figure it's far too early for that kind of guesswork. After a rough showing in big non-conference contests, the big losers have become winners against the allegedly superior teams. As a result, the Big Ten's stock is especially low, and no team controls its own destiny in the race to the BCS championship.
Scoring 59 points against Indiana is easy. But 52 points in three quarters? Now we're cookin' with gas.
Our new friend Russell Wilson helped his Heisman candidacy by matching Andrew Luck's receiving touchdown, but it didn't help that he left again before the fourth quarter when the slaughter rule kicked in.
Michigan State 28, Michigan 14
The tortoise beat the hare. Despite winning the turnover battle, the Denard Robinsons were completely overmatched against one of the nation's best scoring defenses. Michigan's star quarterback finished the day 9-of-24 passing, and averaged 2.3 yards per rush.
Meanwhile, Kirk Cousins had a similarly ho-hum afternoon, throwing for 120 yards on 13-of-24 passing. But the big difference was in game management, where Cousins racked up two touchdowns and did not throw an interception.
Cousins hasn't been the flashy or dominant quarterback many expected him to be in his final go-around, but he's proving his maturity by working the ball around and letting his stellar defense dictate the rest. Next week's showdown with the Badgers in East Lansing is going to be some kind of slugfest.
For winning the game, Ohio State got a turtle trophy. That is both awesome and an apt metaphor for this game.
Ohio State's offense was miserable. Braxton Miller completed just 1 of 4 passes in the entire game: a 17-yard touchdown pass with 13 minutes left.
Illinois' offense was also finally neutralized -- by an aggressive, oversized defensive front, a wind of more than 40 mph, and a coach who doesn't understand football. Nathan Scheelhaase managed to complete 20 of 34 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown, but his two interceptions might not have been enough to doom them if not for some late-game incompetency.
With the ball in the red zone, down 10 points with just over two minutes left, Ron Zook opted to go for it instead of kicking the field goal. It was Illinois' first loss all season, and we probably should've seen this kind of lapse in coaching coming.
You sort of expect Penn State to do worse than this. Purdue racked up 344 yards of offense, but the Nittany Lions managed a bend-don't-break approach that held Purdue to nothing but field goals. They're still undefeated and control their own destiny in the Leaders Division.
I've been pretty hard on Iowa and quick to forgive Northwestern this season, and now it's really turned around on me. Northwestern dominated the third quarter, but negated all of their late-game progress by giving up 24 points in the fourth quarter. It's been that kind of story for the Wildcats this year too, giving up late-game scores in all four of their losses.
Iowa, on the other hand, only has one loss in conference play, and their passing attack is dangerous enough that they could become major players in a conference with this much parity.
Next Week
The Badgers travel to East Lansing in a matchup of the Leaders Division's two unbeaten teams. Hold on to your hats, everybody.
