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The BSD Big Ten Power Rankings (Week 11): You'll Never Guess Which Team is No. 1 (HINT: It's Ohio State)

Things are leveling out, and that's ok.

By Bill DiFilippo
Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

In this week's BSD Big Ten Power Rankings, Ohio State is still No. 1, Iowa is behind them, and the bottom two teams are Purdue and Maryland in some order. So, you know, nothing out of the ordinary.

Bill

  1. Ohio State (Last Week: 1)
  2. Iowa (2)
  3. Michigan State (3)
  4. Michigan (4)
  5. Wisconsin (5)
  6. Northwestern (6)
  7. Penn State (7)
  8. Nebraska (10)
  9. Minnesota (9)
  10. Indiana (11)
  11. Illinois (8)
  12. Rutgers (12)
  13. Purdue (14)
  14. Maryland (13)

I want to start this with the disclaimer that whichever team wins the Ohio State/Michigan State game will be my No. 1 team next week. Yes, if Sparty wins, it will be over Iowa. That doesn't mean that I don't think Iowa is good, in fact, I think they're excellent. I just think that beating Ohio State would be good enough to justify putting Michigan State on top, especially considering their loss to Nebraska was garbage. It'd be swell if OSU just won and saved me that headache.

But other than that look ahead to the future, nothing is different in the top half of the conference. It's said around here a lot, but the top seven of the Big Ten and the bottom seven are mostly set, barring something crazy happening. Speaking of crazy, Nebraska is a win away from bowl eligibility! Sure, it would need to beat Iowa, but still, this has been quite the turnaround for the Huskers.

The only other team that moved up – save for Purdue, because the law dictates that they must be flipped with Maryland every week for the last spot on this list – is Indiana. I think the Hoosiers, when Nate Sudfeld and Jordan Howard play, are legitimately not bad, as we saw against Michigan this week. With two winnable games to end the season against Maryland and Purdue, we can very well see Indiana make a bowl, which would be fun. Match Indiana up with a dumb, high-scoring MAC team if possible. First team to 70 wins.

Nick

  1. Ohio State (1)
  2. Iowa (4)
  3. Michigan State (2)
  4. Michigan (3)
  5. Wisconsin (6)
  6. Northwestern (5)
  7. Penn State (7)
  8. Indiana (8)
  9. Minnesota (11)
  10. Illinois (9)
  11. Maryland (10)
  12. Nebraska (12)
  13. Rutgers (13)
  14. Purdue (14)

The top of my power rankings have stayed pretty steady over the past few weeks, but with the top teams finally all playing each other over these last few weeks, things will start to become a bit more concrete. For now, I feel good enough about Iowa after seeing them beat a solid Minnesota squad to vault them up to No. 2.

Wisconsin is hilariously overrated in all of the polls, but they're also 8-2, which deserves some respect. Northwestern looked sleepy and beat up after playing Penn State, and nearly lost to Purdue because of it. I suspect that if the Wildcats and Nittany Lions met on a neutral field at a normal time of day, when one team wasn't coming off of a stretch of ten straight games, things might play out differently. But they didn't, so Northwestern earned that spot above Penn State.

Indiana looked awesome against Michigan, but still lack a strong enough defense to crack the top seven. Minnesota has improved significantly, enough to rejoin the top ten. Illinois is a bad team, but they know how to beat other bad teams, so that's something.

I think Maryland is better than their record. I don't exactly know why I think that, but I do. Nebraska is probably better than their record, but not by much. You know the drill with the bottom two by now.

Matt

  1. Ohio State (1)
  2. Iowa (2)
  3. Michigan State (3)
  4. Michigan (4)
  5. Wisconsin (5)
  6. Northwestern (6)
  7. Penn State (7)
  8. Nebraska (10)
  9. Minnesota (9)
  10. Illinois (8)
  11. Rutgers (11)
  12. Purdue (12)
  13. Indiana (13)
  14. Maryland (14)

With a rather dull weekend of games across the league, the only changes came from 8-10, but you could probably make a case for any order among the Huskers, Gophers, and Illini.

At the bottom of the league, I almost feel bad for our hated #PUNTWEEK rivals Indiana, who have come down to the final play against both Ohio State, and Michigan, in upset bids at home. Maryland remains bad, while Rutgers and Purdue stay ahead of them, on the strength of actual B1G wins.

These last two weeks should be fun at the top of the league, with plenty of matchups between the best of the B1G.

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