Sitting Inside In Conference Play: Big Ten Review

Per my note last week, I have switched this over to focus more on the in-conference play now, so if the numbers seem wildly different, it is because everyone only has one or two conference games under their belt at this point, so at least for now, the meaningful analysis might be somewhat limited. All the same, this is your Monday opportunity to see how everyone in the conference is doing right now.  

It should be noted that the divide here is not perfect – last week, a few teams already had one conference game in the books, so this is rather a reset because I think there might be more interest in this part of the schedule.

SCORING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

We’ll just shoot right to the bottom here – Minnesota and Purdue share the dubious honor of the worst scoring performances to date.  They are also a comfortable 8^thand 11^threspectively in scoring defense as well, which goes a long way towards their "0-fer" starts in the Big Ten part of the schedule. The differential chart is sort of self-explanatory in that a few of the negatives are in fact the losers from this past weekend.

TOTAL OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

Here again, you see the rocky start of Minnesota and Purdue, but the top of the offensive yardage chart probably is not a shock to anyone. Nebraska, Indiana and Wisconsin have not had much trouble moving the ball all years, with the difference being Wisconsin is much better at not giving those yards right back, if you will.  The differential chart clearly denotes the in-conference progress of Boilerquest.

RUSHING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

There’s not a whole lot to glean from these stats until we’re deeper into the conference schedule. One thing that is at least consistent here is the top rushing teams on offense are more or less the same from the non-conference schedule. Also, Boilerquest.

PASSING OFFENSE AND DEFENSE:

Perhaps thankfully, here’s something Purdue can be proud of – they do not have the worst passing defense in the conference. They also don’t throw it a lot, at least not with any consistent success, so there is also that. Indiana and Penn State threw it a lot over the weekend, but then by at least Penn State standards (but in line with Indiana standards), they gave up a lot of yards in the air too.

THIRD DOWNS:

As we’ve discussed in other diaries, if you lose this battle, you’ll have enormous trouble winning the game, and you can see that here. The team with the worst performance in conference play overall, as you can see on the differential chart, is questing to be a terrible Boiler.

SPECIAL TEAMS:

These may not mean much until later on either. Still, here is what it looks like.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Turnovers will appear next week as well, and probably first down differentials.