Initial 2017 Big Ten Power Rankings, from Bill Connelly
After profiling every Big Ten team, Bill Connelly has released his first round of Big Ten Power Rankings, and he sees the conference as a four tiered beast.
Tier 1 (in order): Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan
Tier 2: Wisconsin
Tier 3 (in order): Northwestern, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Maryland, Indiana, Michigan State
Tier 4 (in order): Purdue, Illinois, Rutgers
Connelly sees Northwestern as having the highest floor of the non-Wisconsin West contenders, and the best chance to unseat the Badgers. Since the East/West divisions were formed, the Wildcats actually lead the Badgers 2-1 in head to head play, although UW beat them last year. The September 30th matchup in Madison could be a big time game.
In terms of the East, Connelly predicts the following projected finish, which is very similar to what happened last year, with the differences being one-position flips between OSU/PSU and Maryland/MSU:
- Ohio State
- Penn State
- Michigan
- Indiana
- Michigan State
- Maryland
- Rutgers
Michigan behind Penn State? I'm not buying it.
His margin between the two teams is very small. He has PSU at 6.8 projected conference wins and Michigan at 6.5. Ohio State is at 7.6, statistically.
Wisconsin is at 7.1, in large part due to their easier schedule.
After those four schools, no Big Ten team is even above 5, with the next highest being Northwestern at 4.9.
As for the Michigan/PSU 2nd vs. 3rd issue, I think it's close to a true toss up, but I do think it does make logical sense to give PSU the edge. They finished higher than us last year, return a much higher percentage of their production and the head-to-head game is in Happy Valley this year.
Agreed. If the game was at the Big House i'd give us the slight edge.
Tough sledding being one of their white out games.
I'm fine if Penn St is overrated going into our game. We've delivered Happy Valley ass-kickings in previous years. Caveats for our relative inexperience apply here.
I'm mystified at how the Pennskies can lose so many personnel to jail and penalties and still even compete. What is the short version of an answer to this question? Would love to hear from someone with insight. . . or hell, from anyone just talking out of their behind.
Sandusky and Spanier, sure --- but they're not on-the-field personnel of course.
Anyway, the PSU NCAA penalties were more a 2012-2015 thing. Numbers were back to the normal 85 in 2016, though given smaller classes previously, PSU definitely skewed younger-than-your-normal-FBS-team in 2016 (also skewed young in 2015).
PSU put some relatively average teams on the field in 2013-2015 ---- the sanctions did have an effect. But they're basically a non-factor moving forward. PSU is just back to a typical 85-man-team that isn't disproportionaly young or old.
but this isn't difficult. They return almost everyone from a team that was ranked 8th in S&P+ last year. There are a lot of reasons to believe they'll be as good or better.
Many point to their "luck" on deep balls, which will almost certainly not be as successful as last year.
But their O line which was actually pretty bad at blocking for the run, returns almost everyone and is highly likely to be better in the run game and pass pro. And they were decimated by injuries early in the season which led to a 2-2 start, but after the returns of their LBs, they were a top-10 defense (opponent adjusted). Most of those guys return. As Connelly points out in his PSU preview, they weren't lucky overall.
They lack some depth so are vulnerable to injury dropoffs again, but their starters should be very good on both sides of the ball again.
I understand giving them a slight edge. Returning a lot of starters, defending conference champions, night game at home, and revenge will be on their minds after being humiliated last season. I say we have the coaching advantage and an overall talent advantage, but OSU had that last year and lost. If this was in Ann Arbor I'd take Michigan by a TD anyway, but I could very easily see us losing this game.
Barkley knows that each time he's played us he's gotten completely shut down. No one else has done that to him. He'll come out foaming at the mouth to play us. And even though McSorely does nothing but throw up Hail Marys, we don't have Lewis and Stribling locking down the secondary anymore. A lot of freshmen and sophomores will be roaming the backfield this year, and they need to grow up fast before this game.
And who's to say we may not play poorly in that game? Harbaugh-coached teams are capable of poor play as well, and this will easily be the toughest environment the team plays in all year.
If we play there like we played against Iowa (a far worse team in a less raucuous environment), I can safely tell you right now that we lose unless McSorely/Barkley combine for ~5 turnovers. Not saying we can't beat them there. We absolutely can. But that win is going to have to be earned big time.
Also, Michigan fans of all people should know that we're capable of losing games on a "ridiculous play" as well.
Yep. That Iowa game turned on a freak play - their punter trip-flipping, which drew a mildly questionable UM personal foul of some sort. We were about to take control of the game. As it was, we messed around and nearly won ugly.
omg we're gonna be third in the division again lol harbawwwwllllll
I liked the summary, and think he's a smart guy. Like many others, I'm not sold on PSU (although I am on Barkley). I am, however, sold on quotes like this:
Indiana might have the best defensive player in the conference, Maryland nearly has the best offensive player in the conference, Nebraska’s best offensive player is a receiver, and it was hard finding a worthy Michigan State defender for this list. 2017 is weird, man.
I, too, am not sold on Penn State, but Barkley is definitely the real deal. Did you see the video of him clean 405 lbs (breaking the PSU record). Seriously ridiculous strength.
From IU was also the real deal, but we still haven't lost to IU in forever. One great RB does nto make a team. Sure, one good RB can beat a team coached by, say, Brady Hoke, but this is 2017. I'm still selling on the PSU hype this year.
Absolutely true. As I said, I am not buying the hype, and I think we will bottle up Barkley enough to win the game. My only concern is that night games have not been favorable to us as of late...
Honestly, I think Michigan, Penn State, and Wisconsin should be in the second tier, and Ohio State should be alone in the top tier.
I think if Wisconsin played in the east that they'd lose to at least 2 of the 3 of M/OSU/PSU. For the umpteenth year in a row, they will have a good defense, a good running game and no real passing attack.
Flip the running game and passing attack in your last sentence and you've described Michigan under Harbaugh so far.
This is a brave position, plus I think a highly-defensible one.
It ain't gonna be a popular one, though!
I don't expect it to make people happy, but I also don't think there's very good grounds to claim it as being untrue either.
I meant my reply as an "amen". It's a very well-grounded position and it doesn't make most of us on the board happy.
I expect Michigan to be very good this year, but we're a year away from being at OSU level in terms of football talent. If Michigan jersey sales in Ohio are any indication ... .
Wow, that's a blast from the past with that old mgomeme.
(1) a 17-16 win against a 3-9 MSU team that required a brain fart from D'Antoni calling a 2 pt conversion instead of kicking the extra point when he had all of the momentum in that game
(2) a toss up game at home that they won in 2OT against Michigan and got some "lucky" breaks from the refs
(3) a dismantling 31-0 loss to Clemson where they looked very pedestrian.
That was hardlly a dominant finish to 2016 from OSU. On top of that, they lost several of their top players to the NFL draft, including their primary difference maker on offense (Samuel).
Now, they still have Urban Meyer and a crap load of 4* and 5* guys coming in to replace the guys that left. So I don't dispute they probably the best team in the B1G and may end up being dominant this year, but it is not as stark as you make it seem.
C'mon....you can't say that OSU's win over us was due to turnovers, but then give them no credit for their loss to PSU.
Penn State got so lucky with that blocked field goal. Not only is that an unlikely turnover, but for it to randomly bounce in the exact direction that it could be returned for a TD.
If they had one lucky win, but one unlucky loss, that means 1-1 is exactly what they "should've" been. They would've been lucky if they had gone 2-0.
Ohio State was also by far the youngest of the three teams last year. This year, that won't be true.
They've lost 6 games in 5 years...that's pretty damn insane (twice to Clemson, twice to MSU, once to PSU, once to Virginia Tech).
OSU is a probably death-machine, but let's remember they lost their secondary to the NFL and the offense isn't scaring me like it did in previous years.
Those guys are gone right? Jeez, don't scare me like that.
They scare me way more now with Kevin Wilson running the offense. If they're still the not terribly competent sludgefart they were much of the second half of last year with Wilson running the show, then it's because JT Barrett still isn't good and you'll have to question their QB recruiting not having come up with something better. Because Wilson is proven at coordinating an offense.
and essentially 50/50 (your assessment), they weren't lucky to go 1-1. That would be the expected outcome, per probability.
And it's easy to argue they were more unlucky against PSU than they were lucky against us so it could be argued they were unlucky not to go 2-0.
Right, but that was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Ohio State. Similar to what Michigan is doing this year with only a couple of starters returning on each side of the ball. I think its fairly easy to argue that with Michigan rebuilding and Penn State losing some key pieces, they are an entire notch up on the rest of the league. Their recruiting certainly has been a notch up. Michigan has done well recently to close the gap, but OSU has been posting top 5 classes for years.
That's OSU. They always seem to play down to their competition. It costs them a game here and there, but they usually find a way to win.
Based on Bill Connleys numbers, would have beat Penn State 64% of the time given the circumstances of the game. So they lost one they should have won. However, he also says they only would have beaten Michigan AND Michigan State 17% of the time. They should have lost both of those games and won them both.
Agree that OSU should be in Tier 1, although I'd still put M and PSU above Wisconsin. Wisconsin benefits so much from their weak schedule that it helps them appear to be on a higher level than they actually are, I think. I'd still put them above the Indiana etc. tier.
I think there's a chance that MSU ends up in the bottom tier, too, after the season. I mean, they have a chance to continue an implosion of historical proportion this year.
Also, re: OSU/Bama/Clemson/etc. being in a tier by themselves, it frustrates me because there is no reason for it other than the NCAA's joke of amateurism. Just let everyone pay their players so we can compete with the cheaters already.
This is the first comment I've seen on the boards that I felt both 1. needed a pos/neg response and 2. offered me options between which I couldn't choose.
I upvoted at first for honesty, because I value it.
Then I negged because your post also made me sad.
Then, when I realized the site wouldn't let me do both I settled, morosely, on the upvote.
objectively, that he'd put us in the same tier since he's projecting us to be more than a full game behind OSU and PSU nearly a full game behind them in expected wins.
Also, here are his S&P+ preseason overall ranks for those four teams:
OSU: 2
PSU: 8
UM: 10
UW: 11
One can argue those ranks but since they are his, I don't see how he puts the demarcation of his tiers between us and UW.
Wouldn't surprise me to see them make it to Indy at 12-0/11-1 where their flaccid passing game will catch up to them in a likely loss to the east champ, where they will then continue onto a NY6 bowl and lose by 30 to some SEC/ACC team who just missed on the CFP
I agree. I think they get to Indy at 12-0 or 11-1 (week 3 is tough going to BYU, who won 7 of their last 8 games last year with the one loss being by 1 point to Boise). I think Wisconsin and Camp Randall catch us looking ahead to OSU. Then we win the rematch in Indy and Wisconsin probably gets stuck with the Bama/Auburn loser in their bowl game, and hoooo boy that will be rough.
Not so sure about this. Badgers are a perennially strong bowl team.
They have won three bowl games in a row:
- Over Auburn, as the underdog, in the South in 2014.
- Over USC, as the underdog, in California in 2015.
- Over WMU, in a NY6 bowl.
The Badgers have not lost a bowl game by more than single digits since the 2008 football season (a 42-13 defeat to Florida State).
but I think their downy soft schedule is setting them up for a big bowl mismatch. I could see them being this year's version of 2015 Iowa: a mountain of uninspiring wins and a pretty ranking which takes them to the Rose Bowl (say OSU goes to the playoffs) where they get smoked by an actual top 10 team
Maybe, but they had downy soft schedules most of the past decade as well. Last year was the exception.
Also, the Rose Bowl is the playoff this year.
I mean if they were to win the West, their last three games at least would be pretty tough/good training for a bowl. Remember, they did give the conference its second best win in 2014 over Auburn after having the easiest schedule in the world and losing 58-0 to OSU.
Last Three Potential Games: vs. Michigan, @Minnesota, vs. OSU/PSU/UM in Indy.
If we do what Bill C is projecting and finish third, we will be finishing behind a team in the playoffs and a team in an NY6 bowl. We will be annoyed at the end of the year, but it's still nothing to scoff at. If Penn State is anything close to their hype, we now exist in one of the toughest divisions in college football.
If we do what I think we are going to do this year...then the kids coming back next year are going to be under immense pressure.