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The BSD Big Ten Power Rankings, Week 5

Where does the Khaki God land on our power rankings after UM mollywhopped BYU?

By Bill DiFilippo
KHAKI GOD
KHAKI GOD
Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Lots of football happened this weekend. It was really fun and Penn State won and we were all happy and lots of Big Ten things occurred. Wanna read some power rankings? Because we have some power rankings and we really hope that you'll enjoy them because we worked really hard on them. Here they are:

Bill

  1. Michigan State (Last Week: 1)
  2. Ohio State (2)
  3. Northwestern (3)
  4. Michigan (7)
  5. Wisconsin (5)
  6. Iowa (6)
  7. Nebraska (5)
  8. Penn State (8)
  9. Indiana (10)
  10. Minnesota (9)
  11. Illinois (11)
  12. Rutgers (13)
  13. Maryland (12)
  14. Purdue (14)
Honestly, we don't know anything about the Big Ten's top five or six, putting 7-10 together is tough, and the bottom four are mostly set, with Rutgers/Maryland/Purdue so firmly locked up at the bottom in some order that it's really the only guaranteed thing we have in this conference.

So, the 1-10 basically goes by the likelihood of each beating the next if they played each other on a neutral field. I don't think any team beats Sparty, OSU only loses to MSU, etc. Of course, the team I'm most intrigued by is Michigan. I do agree with most people that the BYU game is prooooooobably not as impressive of a win as most people think, because BYU has played an unreal schedule, but housing a really good team to that level is pretty impressive. If UM can figure out its issues at the skill positions – its receivers and backs are slow as all hell – this team can be a nuisance for the rest of the conference.

Rutgers is bad and so is Maryland and Purdue is too. Indiana should have gotten GameDay. Sports.

Nick

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

I must say, these rankings were very tough to come up with this week. Ohio State showed enough on offense to re-take their top spot for me, although the main factors in their rise were Michigan State only leading Central Michigan by 7 in the fourth quarter, and the Spartans' best win (Oregon) getting tooled by Utah. Northwestern continues to look over-ranked, but they deserve the third spot in the B1G until they lose. Wisconsin and Nebraska once again remain in the top five thanks to a combination of winning when they need to and reputation.

I was super close to bumping Michigan to #5, but I think a win over a emotionally and physically depleted BYU team isn't quite as impressive a typical top 25 win. A week or two more of wins like Saturday's, and they'll overtake the Huskers. Iowa looked very good again, and might be the toughest challenge the Badgers will face in winning the West. Penn State's passing attack could signal a complete team showing up in the near future, which is why I placed them against a still winning, but struggling Minnesota team.

Indiana's offense is still awesome, but their defense is still Indiana-y. How they fare against Ohio State this week will be very telling. Finally, the three musketeers continue their merry-go-round with numbers 12, 13 and 14.


Matt

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

Not much change this week, other than Michigan moving up a few slots, behind a dominant 31-0 win over a good, not great, BYU team. Do not get me wrong, I am not drinking the maize and blue kool aid popping up on shelves around Michigan, but the Wolverines are improving. We will start to find out more in a couple weeks when they host Northwestern and MSU in back to back games. Really though, 6-9 (nice) are all really close right now.

Closer to the top, I am curious to see what comes out of Iowa's visit to Madison this coming week, and Northwestern's trip to Minnesota. I did a little shuffling at the bottom as well, with Maryland getting run off the field in Morgantown, and Purdue falling to 1-3. Rutgers jumps to 12, mostly by default.

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