College Teams Mon Nov 07 2011

Big Ten Football: Rebound Games

By Kyle Sparks

A week ago, Iowa was the Big Ten's ugly stepchild after losing to the football laugh factory known as Minnesota. Nebraska was the conference's new favorite after crushing Michigan State. Wisconsin was a crumpled mess that seemed unable to put together a full four quarters of football.

But what a difference a week can make.

Despite humbling losses to both Iowa State and Minnesota, the Hawkeyes (6-3, 3-2 Big Ten) now control their own destiny in the conference with just three games left after Saturday's 24-16 victory over Michigan.

The Wolverines (7-2, 3-2) had a good chance to take the game back, driving to the 3-yard line for a first-and-goal on their last possession. But Denard Robinson missed on four straight throws, and the Hawkeyes survived to remain in a three-way tie for second place in the Legends Division. Their remaining games include home matchups with both Nebraska (7-2, 3-2) and Michigan State (7-2, 4-1), giving them the opportunity to win out and seal any potential tiebreakers in the Legends Division.

And boy, you have to expect there will be tiebreakers.

If the home/road splits hold to form, that would make Iowa the favorite to come out on top. But that kind of voodoo logic didn't do anything to help Nebraska on Saturday. Just a week after shellacking Michigan State and claiming the inside track to the Big Ten championship game, the Cornhuskers were overmatched by Northwestern, 28-25.

Playing once again without injured quarterback Dan Persa, Kain Colter again stepped up to lead the Wildcats (4-5, 2-4) in an impressive showing. He's probably not going to be able to propel Northwestern into any legitimate contention, but he is only a sophomore and they expect to hold these football games next year as well.

After toppling Iowa at home last week, Minnesota (2-7, 1-4) flirted with another upset victory Saturday, too. Fresh off a humbling loss of their own last week in Lincoln, the Spartans needed 10 fourth-quarter points to take down the visiting Gophers, 31-24.

For most of the Big Ten this year, there's no such thing as sexy results. The lone exceptions are when teams go in to Madison and the Badgers (7-2, 3-2) do as they do, including this week's 62-17 beat down against Purdue (4-5, 2-3).

And for all the praise heaped upon quarterback Russell Wilson, his Wisconsin teammate Montee Ball is quietly compiling the best season of any running back this side of Alabama's Trent Richardson. He's already rushed for 1,076 yards and an FBS-best 21 touchdowns.

But the Badgers still have their backs against the wall, relying on the cooperation of Penn State to rekindle their Big Ten championship hopes. But the bigger hurdle might be Ohio State (6-3, 3-2), who were methodical in their deconstruction of Indiana (1-9, 0-6), 34-20.

While Ohio State and Wisconsin are both tied for second place, two games behind the Nittany Lions, the Buckeyes hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Badgers, and Penn State has a nearly impossible stretch of games, hosting Nebraska before traveling to Columbus and Madison over the next three weeks.

The B1G championship game was meant to instill a new level of clarity to choosing the proper conference champion, but now we've got just three weeks left to sort out two teams from a pool of seven qualified candidates. And heck, this time next week the prerequisites for being "qualified" might look completely different.