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Greg: I’m back after accidentally over-sleeping on this last week. A lot of close games for teams at the top. Michigan stood strong against Little Brother and Ohio State turned back Northwestern. We all know what happened with Wisconsin and Nebraska. Penn State continues to impress. Iowa was off, and they were not missed. Same with Rutgers.
Keith: Yup Nebraska moves up over an Ohio State team that looks overrated and shaky. Put them on a field in Florida, I take Nebraska and the pass defense against a shaky Barrett and a vulnerable Ohio State defense. I still hate Iowa and think they are a crap team. Look for a Northwestern upset of Wisconsin this week to help the Huskers. I also hope Purdue plays better as I am becoming a closet Purdue fan.
Andy: I think we’ve officially hit the part of the season where everyone is settling in and it will take upsets to shake the apple cart too much. Week 9 was completely devoid of those, so...
#1 & #2 - Michigan & Ohio St. - Both held serve, both hold wins over Wisconsin. I know some are clamoring for Ohio St. to move down based on the loss to Penn St & a 4-point win over Northwestern, but let’s give a little credit to a Wildcat team that had won 4 of their last 5 with the only loss being to Nebraska.
#3 - Wisconsin - Two losses are the the two teams above them. Everyone else fall in line behind.
#4 - Penn St. - Have reeled off 4 in a row following the Michigan blowout including a 4th quarter comeback win over you-know-who.
#5 - Nebraska - Still looking for this season’s signature win and came oh-so-close. A moral victory for competing won’t allow for a jump over the team that beat OSU, but it does prevent any kind of a drop.
#6 - Northwestern - A near miss against the Buckeyes & now the Badgers are coming to town. Let’s hope the aftermath of scaring the Buckeyes in 2013 doesn’t repeat itself when they followed up that effort by reeling off 7 straight losses. Just kidding, they don’t have 7 games left.
#7-#10 - Minny, Iowegia, Indy, Mary - the upper tier of bottom feeders. Indiana was finally rewarded for some decent showings during a 3-game skid.
#11-#14 - Mich St, Purdue, Illini, Rutgers - The only way these guys win a game is if they play each other or get a bye week. Congrats, Rutgers.
Jill: The top 5 or 6 in the conference look a lot closer than they did a couple weeks ago. I’m looking forward to the Husker tilt at the ‘Shoe because I think it will be a much better game than I expected pre-season. Ohio State has looked vulnerable, but Urban is much too good a coach to let them stumble around for long. Michigan keeps cruising along. Their score vs MSU suggests a much closer game than it really was. Penn State and Northwestern derped their way through a few games but are starting to play some good football.
I don’t really want to talk about the bottom of the conference. Iowa seems to be finding their footing, even if their coach is math-challenged. He probably just doesn’t understand numbers under $25 million. Single digits do not compute.
The Purdue coach-search rumors are way more fun than their football team right now. It’s too bad they don’t play Rutgers for the cellar-dweller spot in the B1G. That would be a fun trophy to let the Internet design.