BIG 10 Preview

Hola quesolitos, and welcome to today’s next installment of college football heaven: Big Ten edition. As you know, the Big Ten is a conference so big, it has 11 teams and basically allows Notre Dame to be the twelfth member! Boy Howdy!

Well, I am leaving out Notre Dame since they aren’t official and all that, so here are the 11 teams in the Big Ten, and how I think they will all turn out.


Iowa – Coach Ferentz returns seven starters on each aide of the ball, including senior QB Drew Tate who completed over 62% of his passes last year from a 22-7 TD-INT ratio. Depth at WR will make up for losing some starting talent, and Scott Chandler at TE is a big plus. Albert Young returns at RB after a 1334 yds, 8 TD performance last year, and he will run behind one of the nation’s best O-Lines. The D-Line is also really strong, which will help the Hawkeyes recover from losing two great LBs to the pros. A strong secondary means that Iowa is sitting pretty in a tough conference. With a joke of a non-conference schedule, if this team can outlast OSU—and I think they will—they should win the Big 10.

Ohio State – Troy Smith returns to make a run at the Heisman and the National Title. He and super WR Ted Ginn, lead an offense that welcomes back eight starters. They should be very explosive. But on the defensive side of the ball, the Buckeyes only have two returning starters, and Tressel has to replace his entire LB corps and his entire DB squad. Although the ranks are deep at OSU, the truth is that this much inexperience, along with a schedule featuring an early test at Texas, a trip to Iowa, and being in the all around best conference in football this year adds up to at least one loss.

Michigan – Chad Henne is back after two good years and looks to build on his impressive 58% completion percentage. Steve Breaston heads a talented WR corps, and Mike Hart brings strength to the ground attack, but all of this may be limited by inexperience at the O-Line. Unfortunately, on defense only one starter returns to the D-Line, so the loaded LBs will have to work extra hard to keep opponents from chewing up yards and time on them. Leon hall is a stud, and the Michigan DBs are real solid. If they can stop the run, they will win a lot, but they may find this difficult in this league this year with games at Notre Dame and Ohio State, and against Iowa and Penn State.

Penn State – Joe Paterno proved everybody wrong last year, but this year could bring all the critics back. Although the talent that has been recruited is good, much of it will be brand new. New QB, new O-Line, new D-Line, new DBs. Strong WRs, RBs, and LBs may not be enough to escape the youth on this squad.

Minnesota – Glenn Mason has made lemonade out of what has traditionally been a lemon of a team in Minnesota. Can he keep it up? 14 returning starters suggest that he can. Bryan Cupito will call the signals again as one of the conferences most underrated QBs. Rock solid WRs Paine and Wheelwright look good, and should continue to do well with Gary Russell taking the lead at RB where Maroney left off. The O-Line replaces three guys, but they grow them big and strong up in Minnesota, so that should be no big worry. The only questionmark on the defense is the front wall where three are being replaced, but solid LB play and the DB corps mostly intact mean that this defense might even be better than last year. Expect Minnesota to surprise some people, but because of a tough schedule, 7-5 seems pretty reasonable.

Northwestern – The Wildcats bring back a wealth of talent on both sides of the ball. The most crucial element being on the line of scrimmage where they bring back all five on the O-Line and three of four on the D-Line. They will be replacing the surprising Brett Basanez at QB, but the WRs are deep and experienced. Tyrell Sutton will hope to have another great year after averaging 5.9 YPC running for 1474 yds and 16 TDs. The LBs and DBs look pretty good, so don’t be surprised if they follow their easy schedule to quite a few wins.

Michigan State – Every now and then a coach ends up on the Hot Seat for no real good reason. John L. Smith is just such a story. Here is a program that traditionally has great rivals that usually beat it. Smith is now under the gun because his Spartans are not as good as its rivals. Either way, Coach Smith has a talented signal caller in senior Drew Stanton and some solid WRs to go with him. All of the talent they have at RB is nice, but behind a line that graduated all of its talent, the entire offense is a little shaky. The bad news is that the entire D-Line graduated, the good news is that those guys really stunk it up last year, so it’s a push. The LBs on the other hand, are really good and all back. Look for junior LB Kaleb Thornhill to lead them in tackles. Two undersized starters return to a secondary that got abused last year. In sum: weak O-Line and shoddy Defense = a new coach. Sorry Spartan fans.

Wisconsin – John Stocco is an underrated QB, but played consistently well last year. He returns to lead the Badgers and will have to have an amazing year in order to make up for the inexperience of his receivers. The news gets worse when you remember that Brian Calhoun left early to play in the pros, leaving the ground game in dire straits. Three OL also left the team, and that means that the offense is somewhat sketchy. As bad as the offensive outlook is, the defensive outlook is that much better. Eight starters return to a defense that was really good last year. Expect it to continue to keep the badgers in games, but don’t expect the offense to be able to close the deal as often as it did last year.

Illinois – Normally returning 19 starters would be good news, but didn’t this crew go 2-9 last year? Yepper. Either way, Zook’s crew looks to do much better this year. Tim Brasic is back under center and should improve his decision making. The WRs were surprisingly decent last year, so hopefully they will continue to grow. The running game is solid, but unheralded, and the O-Line returns intact, but not amazing. The defense appears ready to slow opponents down returning all but one member of the D-Line. Miller and Carson need to step up in the LB corps and do better than a combined 133 tackles. Return all you want, but the talent level here is simply not enough to make this team a winning club in 2006.

Purdue – Despite having one of the QBs in last year’s controversy transfer, Coach Tiller has yet to find a number one QB. Still, the WRs are in great shape led by Dorien Bryant. Kory Sheets will carry the ball on the ground and should be a key contributer, especially working behind the solid line up front. Last year this defense returned 11 starters and then proceeded to give up 431 YPG! That may mean that replacing seven this year is not such bad news. Almost completely new in the trenches, the LBs will attempt to hold the front seven together, and most likely will have serious trouble, because the DBs will not be giving much support—the only returning starter is a sophomore. Not this year Boilermaker fans.

Indiana – Blake Powers at QB was pretty good last year and his return makes the IU offense look pretty formidable. Especially while throwing to one of the conferences top wide outs, James Hardy. The blocking troops are replacing a couple of key players, and the old starter at WR is now the new starter at RB, but this offense is ready to move the ball. Unfortunately, this defense is ready to let anyone move the ball. Last year, I could have put some numbers up on these guys. The only DL returning was an underachiever, and the LBs are sub-par. The secondary is returning everyone and should be less big play prone, and this is the only up side on this side of the ball. Coach Hoeppner is headed in the right direction, but he has a long way to go before he gets this club to consistent respectability, or interestingly enough, respectable consistency.


Have a good day, and keep dreaming about college football.

God save the Cheese.