By Brian Heinemann
For The Herald
The media that gathered at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency McCormick Place one week ago picked Ohio State to win the Big Ten for the sixth straight year, with the Iowa Hawkeyes coming in second and Wisconsin pulling up in third.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the way it’s going to be. And that doesn’t tell you a thing about where the other eight teams are bound to finish.
Over the next two weeks, I’ll be taking you inside the Big Ten with in-depth looks at each team, complete with statistical analysis, players to watch and an overall outlook. This year’s Big Ten looks loaded, which is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the coaches in the conference.
“I think this will be as veteran and as tough and as excellent a Big Ten in the 10 years that I’ve been here,” Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel said. “I think we do have a number of teams that can compete against anyone in America. And I think what the world remembers is what we did most recently.
“I think the most recent evidence of Big Ten football is pretty good from this past December and January.”
The Big Ten has been under fire for the better part of a decade for not performing in the late December and early January bowl games, but reversed that trend (and a 1-6 bowl record the previous year) with two BCS bowl victories and bowl wins over two other ranked teams last year.
There’s reason for optimism almost across the board in the conference. Everybody thinks they’ve gotten better, even some of the teams that were gutted by graduation. The Big Ten is home to a slew of impressive quarterbacks – Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor, the Big Ten Preseason Offensive Player of the Year for the second straight year, Minnesota’s Adam Webber, Iowa’s Ricky Stanzi, Indiana’s Ben Chappell, Michigan State’s Kirk Cousins – and some of the best defenses in the nation.
But the schedules are tough, and not just because they have to play each other. Penn State takes on Alabama in Tuscaloosa in week two. Ohio State welcomes Miami to Columbus that same week. Minnesota hosts USC a week later. Several teams take on Notre Dame.
And Iowa has another trip out west, where, as Coach Kirk Ferentz will tell you, Iowa “had a game scheduled but forgot to show up” back in 2004.
“It goes without saying that I think every team in our conference, we're all going to have a lot of challenges in front of us,” Ferentz said. ”All of us play challenging schedules as a tough, competitive league, and it's going to be certainly interesting to see what happens over the next couple of months.”
Many league games – regardless of the records of the opponents at the time – came down to a handful of plays last year. Teams like Purdue, who upset Ohio State, and Indiana, who led in nine games but lost over half of those, stand to be improved this year.
It may sound like a cliche, but this year, with the competitiveness up and down the conference, things will likely come down to turnovers.
“I think there's certainly parity in all of college football,” Purdue Coach Danny Hope said. “I think our league is the same. If you play hard, never give up, and take care of the football, you have a chance to win on any given Saturday. So I think the upper echelon of the league, I think it's close. But I think it boils down to Saturdays, taking care of the football.
“The team that wins the turnover margin and plays hard is the team that probably has the best chance to win it in any league, anywhere, at any level.”
Even with parity, even with upsets and even with so many teams being ranked in the Top 25 to start the coming season, everyone knows who the team to beat supposedly is. After all, Ohio State has been to two national title games in the past five years and has earned at least a share of the conference title for five years running.
“I think when you look at any conference, you look at the team that has won most consistently in that conference and you try and sort of set aim on that, try to get to a level to be able to play with that type of football team,” Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio said. “We don’t play them this year, so I may be not be quite as qualified to talk about them as some others, but certainly, when you look at Ohio State through the past number of years, they have unprecedented success.”
That doesn’t mean Ohio State is guaranteed another conference title, though. Far from it. Stay tuned, as tomorrow I begin breaking down each team in the Big Ten, from worst to first, culminating on Saturday, Aug. 21, when my pick for conference winner is analyzed.
Tomorrow – No. 11: Inexperience too much of a hurdle for Minnesota to overcome
No comments:
Post a Comment