Creepin' The B1G: Week 10 Recap

Iowa 48, Northwestern 7

Iowa's offensive renaissance from the past few weeks continued against Northwestern, as the Hawkeyes jumped out to a 24-0 first quarter lead (in what had to have been the most un-Iowa like performance, ever) and never looked back. Often-maligned Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock looked like Tom Brady out there, tossing for 239 yards a touchdown on just 12-for-19 passing. The Hawkeye ground game was led by Akrum Wadley (15 carries, 106 yards and a touchdown) and Mark Weisman (20 carries, 94 yards and a hat trick of TD's). Meanwhile, the Hawkeye defense held Northwestern to 180 total yards. A dominant performance all-around for Kirk Ferentz's crew.

Wisconsin 37, Big Ten Powerhouse Rutgers 0

Aside from the sweet schadenfreude of seeing BTPR get tossed around like a rag doll in their inaugural year in the B1G by teams with a full pulse, this game also set college football back about 90 years. Neither team surpassed 100 yards passing but Wisconsin came up just a couple yards shy of 300 total rushing yards, thanks to the buddy-cop backfield duo of Melvin Gordon (131 yards) and Corey Clement (128 yards). Gary Nova, playing on a bum right knee, was held to merely 46 yards and an interception on just 5-for-15 passing.

Nebraska 35, Purdue 14

In a cruel twist of fate for Purdue, their defense was clicking for once, but the offense didn't perform like its improved self from their previous few games. Despite forcing three Nebraska turnovers and allowing only seven points total from three Nebraska drives that started at Purdue's 17, 16, and 31 yard line, Purdue's offense wasn't able to capitalize. Yes, they tied the game at seven, but after that it was basically all Big Red, as Tommy Armstrong Jr. (70 yards, 1 TD) and Imani Cross (66 yards, 2 TDs) picked up the running slack from an injured Ameer Abdullah to pull away from the Boilermakers.

Michigan 34, Indiana 10

While I'm not much of a believer in the transitive property applying to sports, it sure will interesting to see how many points Penn State's offense can put up next weekend against an Indiana defense that managed to allow Michigan to produce its highest scoring output in B1G play. More importantly though, it's become apparent at this point that Indiana's entire offensive production goes through Tevin Coleman, which means if opposing defenses can contain Coleman (which Michigan did, holding him to 108 yards on 27 carries), they've rendered the IU offense useless. Zander Diamont only threw the ball eight times for 24 yards, which shows you just how little faith Kevin Wilson has in having the true freshman air it out right now.

While the chances of Brady Hoke being Michigan's coach in 2015 are still a Lloyd Christmas one-in-a-million probability (and quite possibly, even lower now that AD Dave Brandon resigned last week) the Wolverines at 4-5, have a couple of winnable games ahead in a road trip to a reeling Northwestern team and a home tilt against Maryland. Winning both of those games would get the six wins and bowl eligibility. Play Ohio State as tough as they did last season, win the bowl game, and who knows what might transpire.

Ohio State 55, Illinois 14

After an unexpected overtime battle in Happy Valley last weekend, the Buckeyes got a second shot at performing a nationally televised primetime execution and boy, did they deliver. J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones both came to play football, throwing for a pair of touchdowns each, while the OSU defense made life miserable for Reilly O'Toole, Aaron Bailey, and just about anyone else who dared touch the ball for the Illini, amassing four turnovers in the process.