Big Ten Preview - 5 Games to Decide the Title

Submitted by xtramelanin on

Mates,

Oldest brother played at Northwestern and forwarded me a fairly short and succinct article about the 5 biggest games out of the 63 total B10 games this year.  Michigan is in 3 of the 5 marquee match ups, and there is also an interview with Jake Butt in the video portion.  

The link is here: http://www.csnchicago.com/big-ten/big-ten-preview-five-games-will-decid…

The 5 big games include 

NW v. Iowa

Mich @. state

Mich @ Iowa

ohio v. state

Mich @ ohio

College football season is really here.  You can start to feel it now.

XM

 

grumbler

August 30th, 2016 at 1:34 PM ^

Yeah. if the Ohio thing wasn't so stupid, the OSU band wouldn't take the trouble to spell out State in Script ohio State, the university wouldn't have been so picky about forcing people to call it THE Ohio State Stadium, and their alma mater's title would probably have been shortened tfrom Carmen Ohio State.  But, of course, leaving off the "State" is totally stupid and so none of those things will ever happen.

UM Fan from Sydney

August 30th, 2016 at 12:03 PM ^

That's different. Calling them Ohio just reminds us of three awful seasons with Hoke as the coach. Much like the legends jerseys, calling OSU Ohio was just a stupid ploy to get attention.

grumbler

August 30th, 2016 at 1:42 PM ^

Those of us with more experience know that Hoke didn't introduce the concept of calling them Ohio.  Bo sometimes did it, Canham often did it, Ufer sometimes did it.

I understand how newcomers could associate the term with Hoke and so not want to use it themselves, but they really shouldn't assume that we all have the same associations, and so they (= you) should just eschew gettiing triggered by people doing it.  

When you whine about it, your complaint is just a stupid ploy to get attention, just like all of your whining,, but we don't complain about your whining... much

xtramelanin

August 30th, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^

to some degree.  i haven't analyzed other schedules, but maybe there's a wisconsin v. iowa match-up this year and that would be about the only other western conf foe that iowa needs to worry about.  

would love to see northwestern win that game.  for obvious reasons northwestern has been my second favorite school since oldest brother started there in '73. 

grumbler

August 30th, 2016 at 1:45 PM ^

Nothing particularly "strange" about the blog's pro-Northwestern stance.  Northwestern has a number of admirable traits, and their teams are clean and, for the last decade and a half,  generally well-coached.

Being biased in favor of admrable things is an attractive feature of this blog.

reshp1

August 30th, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^

Does the West really matter? I mean, I guess Iowa made a game of the Championship last year, but I think any of the top 2-3 teams in the East could spot whoever wins the East 2 touchdowns this year.

Perkis-Size Me

August 30th, 2016 at 1:06 PM ^

The West could be decent this year, but honestly, the best team in that division could be 8-4 this year. Iowa always, ALWAYS craps the bed when they have any kind of preseason expectations. Nebraska had a lot of bad luck last year, but they still have Mike Riley as their coach, so I'm not convinced he'll ever be the guy to bring Nebraska back. Or let's put it this way: he's not the guy that will take down Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh, or Mark Dantonio on a regular basis. 

Northwestern is just Northwestern. They could make some noise, but the nature/culture of their program will never allow them to compete on a year in, year out basis with the East. Not a knock on them, but Northwestern just doesn't emphasize football enough to ever make them a real threat. 

Wisconsin is probably the best team in the division if Clement is healthy, and the talent level is pretty good. But given their brutal schedule, they could still be a good team, but finish the year 7-5. Minnesota will never be a threat until they can pass the ball, and then Purdue and Illinois are just...well...Purdue and Illinois. 

So the West COULD be decent, but they will likely lose to whoever wins the East. 

 

Perkis-Size Me

August 30th, 2016 at 10:51 AM ^

Normally I'd swap NW-Iowa for Wisc-Iowa, but I think Wisconsin is going to be so beat to hell by the time they get past the first 5-6 games on their schedule, they could very well be out of the divisional race by the start of October.

I think Nebraska-Iowa will be a big decider of who wins the West, if not the biggest one. If Nebraska can learn to finish games this year, they could be a 9-10 win team. Their schedule is fairly manageable (only real difficult games, OSU and Oregon, have no bearing on them getting to Indy), and they probably have the most raw talent of anyone in the West. Iowa might have a bit more, but it's relatively neck and neck.




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