Chapman's B1G Five of the Big Ten: Predicts Ohio State Will Take Down Spartans
- Michigan State took down Oregon and has the second most first place votes in the AP poll! Do you see the Spartans going to the College Football Playoff?
No. That's because I don't see them beating Ohio State. As impressive as the win against Oregon was, all it did was solidify the Spartans as a contender. In order to get in, they have to beat Ohio State in Columbus and there's a 95% that it's just not going to happen. The Buckeyes have a better coach, better talent, more depth and home field advantage.
If you look at last year's College Football Playoff field, you'll see that four conference champions made it to the College Football Playoff and if the Spartans lose to the Buckeyes, not only will they not win the B1G Championship, they won't even win the B1G East Division.
In some other conferences you could make the case that a team like Michigan State could lose to a super heavyweight like Ohio State and still make the conference championship game because you could see that Ohio State-like team losing to a pair of other great conference opponents to clear the way for the Michigan State-like team. (Ex. If LSU's only loss was to Alabama, but Alabama lost to Ole Miss and Auburn, LSU would go to the SEC Championship Game.) Unfortunately for the Spartans, the B1G is still far too weak. Aside from Michigan State and Ohio State, Wisconsin and Northwestern are the only other ranked B1G teams and they're not in the top 22.
Aside from those four teams, only Minnesota and Iowa even received votes in the AP poll. The Golden Gophers received nine votes and the Hawkeyes got five, making them basically the 37th and 40th best teams in the country. Ohio State truly has basically no shot to lose a regular season game this year and that one game they could lose is a home game against a Spartan team that allowed 49pts to them last year… Michigan State's best chance to get into the playoff is to have three things go their way.
First, get some help from other Power 5 conference champions and hope that a few them have two losses. If Michigan State's lone loss is to the No. 1 team in the country, they'd probably finish ahead of a conference champion with two losses. Second, lose a close game to the Buckeyes. If Ohio State wins by two, three or four possessions and the Spartans don't look like they belong on the same field as the Buckeyes, forget the playoffs. Third, they need to run up the score.
Squeaking by cupcake MAC schools by 13pts is not going to cut it and the committee does value style points. I think that's why Ohio State snuck in (after walloping Wisconsin 59-0 in the B1G Championship Game) and Florida State finished No. 3 despite the undefeated record.
The Seminoles played close games all year long against nobodies and were proven to be frauds in the Playoff. A team that wants to leave no doubt that they are a top 4 team will beat Nebraska, Penn State and Michigan by at least 15 points per game and beat the rest of their non-Buckeye opponents by at least 30 points per game.
- Rutgers coach Kyle Flood is suspended for the next three games. How big of a setback is this for the Scarlet Knights program?
This is a pretty significant setback. They've been riddled with off-the-field issues all throughout this calendar year (including six players dismissed from the team due to arrests) and now we find out that the head coach has been fined $50,000 and suspended for three games for contacting a Rutgers faculty member about the status of one of his players.
This may not seem like a big deal, but the reason this rule is in place is to ensure that coaches are not intimidating instructors into giving athletes passing grades. Furthermore, after emailing the faculty member, Flood was told not to meet with the faculty member by a member of the Rutgers academic advising staff and he did so anyway.
Furthermore, Flood sent the email using his personal account, not his work account, to avoid an Open Public Records Act request. Furthermore (getting sick of that word yet,) both Flood and the player involved (Nadir Barwell) admitted to Flood making changes to a paper submitted on the player's behalf.
This is such a big deal that Rutgers president Robert Barchi is reportedly considering firing coach Flood over the offense. When you're already a bottom tier team in the conference from a school with no tradition, good luck recruiting the parents of big time athletes in New Jersey with that on your resume…
These are three really bad games to be without the head coach: at Penn State, home against Kansas and home against Michigan State. The Scarlet Knights have no chance to beat the Spartans, but a strong showing against a top 5 team in a night game could do a lot for visiting recruits. With coach Flood suspended for the game, not only will the Scarlet Knights get smashed, but recruits will be less likely to show up for the primetime atmosphere knowing that the coach won't even be in attendance.
The Kansas game is important too because it's a game against a terrible Power 5 team. Rutgers should not need Kyle Flood to win this game, but if they do somehow lose it, good luck making a bowl game. The biggest game to not have Kyle Flood is the game this weekend against Penn State. When Rutgers came into the B1G, their goal was to make Penn State their rival. Last year, they almost beat a Nittany Lions team that was hit hard by scholarship reductions. This year Penn State doesn't look much better and it would be a major boost for the program if they could exit Beaver Stadium with a win. It won't be easy with controversy swirling and the head coach watching from home.
On top of that, Penn State and Rutgers recruit the same players and typically Rutgers gets the leftovers. Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin even said last year that he considers New Jersey (Rutgers is in the state of New Jersey, if you didn't know) in-state recruiting for Penn State. That's a shot at Rutgers. Players who are considering both schools will be at the game tomorrow. If Rutgers gets clowned without its head coach, the decision for these teenagers will be pretty easy… Finally, this also not going to sit well with traditional B1G fans who never wanted to see a team with no tradition enter the conference in the first place.
The thought bubble will be, "Great. We bring this terrible football program into our conference that nobody ever wanted in the first place only to find out that the coach has recruited a bunch of criminals and he's cheating like an SEC coach or a Tar Heels coach to keep his players on the field when they struggle with academics. What a joke! At least the Big Ten Network got the New York City television market."
- Illinois is crushing their non-conference opponents. When the Fighting Illini fired Tim Beckman, was it addition by subtraction?
So far it looks like addition by subtraction, but we'll know a lot more about Illinois after Saturday's matchup at North Carolina. The Tar Heels are not a good ACC football team. They are middle of the pack at best, have seen their win totals fall from eight to seven to six in the last three years and got smashed by Rutgers in last year's Quick Lane Bowl.
They are, however a much stronger team than Illinois' first two opponents: Kent State and Western Illinois. In those two games, the Illini blew them out like they were a top ten team by a combined score of 96-3. I couldn't see Tim Beckman doing that, but interim coach Bill Cubit did. According to a recent article by Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com, Cubit has done an excellent job forming bonds with players on both sides of the ball by cracking jokes and giving everyone a chance to play (73 played against Kent State.) When you also lead your team to 500 yards in a game and allow just 141, it's a whole lot easier to get players to buy in. Bill Cubit's leadership absolutely seems to be working… against low-level cupcakes at home.
On the road in Chapel Hill is not on the road in South Bend, but it's a tougher test than Western Illinois at home. The Illini certainly can't afford to turn the ball over four times like they did last week and expect to win. My guess is they lose a close game to the Tar Heels. If that's what transpires, it would be a better result than I would have predicted with Beckman leading the charge meaning the Illini may have found a diamond in the rough.
- There are five ACC vs. B1G game this weekend. Is this a good barometer for the strength of the B1G conference?
Of course it is. All non-conference games help you to evaluate your strength as a conference relative to other conferences. An Iowa vs. Michigan game says nothing about the strength of the B1G because they're beating each other up.
This could be a statement weekend for each conference depending on the outcome of Illinois at North Carolina, Northwestern at Duke, Nebraska at Miami, Virginia Tech at Purdue and Pittsburgh at Iowa. Unlike a lot of B1G fans, I did not think that the conference was back after the 2014 bowl season. Sure the Deep South Buckeyes won the national title and the Spartans finished No. 5 in the country, but the conference as a whole went 6-5 during bowl season. That's basically a .500 record. They were also embarrassed in non-conference play last September, including by cupcake schools from the MAC!
The first weekend of the season was nothing to brag about (Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska are to blame) and either they can bounce back against the ACC or continue to prove my point that this is not a great conference by losing four or five of the five matchups. The B1G is the on the road for three of the matchups and the underdog in four so it doesn't look good on the surface. That said, neither conference is sending its heavyweights to battle this weekend. Florida State, Clemson, Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin are all playing non-ACC opponents. The only ranked team involved in this weekend's ACC vs. B1G battles is No. 23 Northwestern.
If the B1G can win on the road and pull off a few upsets, that would say a lot about the strength of the B1G's middle class heading into conference play. If the B1G goes 1-4 to the worst of the five Power 5 conferences, then the debate will begin about whether the B1G is the worst of the Power 5 conferences.
- Who will win this week's B1G games?
North Carolina over Illinois. South Florida over Maryland. Michigan over UNLV. Michigan State over Air Force. Minnesota over Kent State. Duke over Northwestern. Miami over Nebraska. Ohio State over Northern Illinois. Virginia Tech over Purdue. Wisconsin over Troy. Western Kentucky over Indiana. Penn State over Rutgers. Iowa over Pittsburgh.
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