State’s got a new fools-hurdler. [NBC Sports]

The Question:

Now that we're entering conference play, let's recalibrate. Which Big Ten teams are significantly better/worse than we thought they'd be?

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The Responses:

Ace: I’ll start this by saying it’s college football, and it’s still early: if we were posed this question last week I would’ve said Iowa had surpassed my expectations. One week later...

…they are who we thought they were. I also had serious doubts about Wisconsin entering the season; they beat LSU, which is a feat no matter how much coaching malpractice Cam Cameron is allowed to commit, destroyed Akron, and then, uh, put up a 12th-percentile performance to eke out a victory over a bad Georgia State squad. Now they’re changing QBs. I still have my doubts. In fact, pending more contextualizing info on MSU’s win over Notre Dame, the Big Ten has mostly held to form, at least in relation my preseason expectations.

The exception, I hate to say, is Ohio State; I thought there would be a few more hiccups on both sides of the ball after the exodus of NFL talent. Instead, the Death Star appears fully operational. Other than the interior D-line, which looks a little shaky, every major question has been answered: the run game hasn’t missed a beat with Mike Weber and Curtis Samuel taking over for Zeke Elliott, Noah Brown looks like a legit #1 receiver, JT Barrett has been very good, and a secondary that looked like a potential sore spot in the preseason has been one of their most reliable sources of big plays.

Ugh.

[Hit THE JUMP for WMU, NDSU, and other better ideas than Rutgers]

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David: Stock down: Probably Northwestern.  The Wildcats lost to (an improved?) Western Michigan team to start the season.  Then, they followed that up with a second home non-conference loss in a row to lowly Illinois State, only scoring 7 points.  Woof.  They did, however, defeat Duke in Quiz Bowl 2016 after initially struggling.  Duke, unfortunately, lost to Wake Forest the previous week.  So, take that with a grain of salt.  Northwestern had a nice 10-win season in 2015, but sitting 1-2 with Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State looming on the schedule, I think Northwestern would sign up for a bowl game, right now.

Stock up: Ohio State.  Sigh.  See what Ace wrote if you are a masochist.

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Adam: Stock up: Ohio State's the clear-cut correct answer, but there are ways to justify including Michigan State and Nebraska here. We need to see more from each to figure out whether they've defeated quality teams or overranked pretenders, but each has a win over a team that was ranked when they played them without a slip-up to a directional Michigan school or a state institution from one of the Dakotas or Illinois State, which is a school that exists. The bar for inclusion here is pretty BIG TENNNNNN. Nebraska's three most difficult remaining games are at Wisconsin, at Ohio State, and at Iowa. Two of those three seem significantly easier than a week ago; Nebraska's a good contender to be the Iowa 2015 of this year.

Stock down: I know David already mentioned them, but for me the biggest disappointment is Northwestern. I thought Thorson and the offensive line would get better--incrementally better, but better none the less--but they look like they've somehow gotten worse; the line is ranked 119th in opportunity rate (generating 5+ yards for the RB), while Thorson's completing 49% of his passes for 5.8 yards per attempt. The O-line can't block anybody (runs are being stopped in the backfield 24.2% of the time, which ranks 110th nationally) and the defense can't prop up the team all season. They're now favored to win just three more games, and none of the projected win margins is more than six points. There's something that looks a lot like a 2014 Michigan storm brewing (minus the AD saga), and it's headed for Evanston.

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Seth: The rivals look better. The Chris Ash Era is 2-0 in their last two games after two fierce comebacks, flipping a 14-0 halftime deficit to Howard into a 52-14 blowout, and storming back from down 21-0 to New Mexico to win 37-28. As long as Janarion Grant can keep running around high school players Ash is going to win a lot of games in Piscataway.

Clearly we didn't think Michigan State would beat Notre Dame, but for the most part they were what we thought they were. They'll stop the run at any cost, and the cost was 10.9 YPA (sack-adjusted) to DeShone Kizer despite the Irish declining to test them deep as often as they should. LJ Scott is a rushing offense despite the offensive line; the apparent improvement against Notre Dame turned out to be a very conservative gameplan, and getting away with a ton of holding. Malik McDowell is a defensive line unto himself, and State seemed to have learned their lesson about flipping him to end. Madaris and Corley can play.

I thought this was an upset. State gave up a TD on the opening kickoff that got called back for a hold I'm not sure was one. The Spartans' opening score came off a shorted punt hitting the back leg of an Irish player and Donnie Corley ripping a long interception out of the Domer CB's hands. It was also a coaching mismatch. Dantonio went for it on 4th and 1, called a timely quick 2-point conversion, covered up O'Connor's deficiencies with max pro and rub routes that get his primary read open, and picked on the Domers' iffy secondary. Kelly punted down 8 in the 4th quarter and didn't test MSU deep until he was down 29-7.

Of those we haven’t covered, Minnesota is exactly what we thought they were, Maryland has a long way to go, and Purdue is so bad the fact that two of their playing time transfer quarterbacks are starting for SEC powers is exactly as hilarious as that sounds. Penn State got all of their linebackers injured already somehow, but remain 14th in S&P defense. Nebraska is Penn State in reverse. Illinois is surprisingly bad or just bad depending on if you were trying to justify an Illini defender on your Draftageddon squad.

Other than Iowa, the Big Ten got out of non-conference season pretty okay, with victories over Notre Dame, LSU, Oregon, and Oklahoma to buoy a hypothetical 1-loss champion into the playoffs.

I'm not surprised about Wisconsin: LSU was just as responsible for that upset, and Georgia State is one of those teams like Air Force whom nobody should ever schedule [I got them confused with GA Southern]. Ohio State, well, they're never the same team you see in the beginning of the season, so if they're rolling now perhaps that means they'll come apart late this time. That's the ticket!