Ranking 2018 Big Ten Football From Worst to First
It’s beginning to feel a lot like football. Media day has come and gone. The nights are starting to get dark a little bit earlier. You can really start to see Labor Day creeping around on the calendar. So, let’s embark on the exercise of trying to see where the Big Ten will shake out. Here’s how I rank the teams as most likely to win the conference title; the gambling odds come via Jason Simbal, an oddsmaker at CG Technology.
14. Illinois
Gambling Odds: 75-1
Quick Thoughts: This is Lovie Smith’s third season into a six-year, $21 million dollar deal with the Illini and thus far the results have not been sterling. His record is 5-19 overall and 2-16 in the Big Ten; last year they went winless in the conference. The only thing that could conceivably keep him from being on the hot seat this year is the fact that if he were out, Illinois would have to pay two coaches for three years.
13. Minnesota
Gambling Odds: 50-1
Quick Thoughts: Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck made the following bold prediction in May: “Fifty years ago, we were the Alabama of football. We were that. Fifty years later, we are not that currently. That is what we are going to get back to.”
How much would he want to bet?
12. Rutgers
Gambling Odds: 40-1
Quick Thoughts: The take I will have until the day I die is that UConn should have joined the Big Ten instead of Rutgers. Surely, Jim Delaney could have figured out a way to shoehorn the Huskies as the “local” New York team into their cable packages, if he figured out a way to do it for Rutgers. I’m not saying Storrs (or East Hartford) is a gold standard road trip option or anything, but at least they have a rich last few decades in basketball. When your school is playing Rutgers in football and it happens to be nice outside that day, it’s a major dilemma about whether to watch or go for a long hike.
11. Maryland
Gambling Odds: 35-1
Quick Thoughts: Senior running back Ty Johnson will be exciting to watch, but this isn’t a team that will contend to win the conference. D.J. Durkin is entering his third season as coach of the Terrapins, and the team has a 5-13 record in the Big Ten under him. Is his seat getting warmer?
10. Indiana
Gambling Odds: 35-1
Quick Thoughts: Even if Indiana is frisky, they’re in the loaded Big Ten East with Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, and Michigan State. Unless and until the divisions re-align, there is almost nothing the Hoosiers can do to counteract that institutional disadvantage to get to Indianapolis for the conference championship game.
9. Northwestern
Gambling Odds: 18-1
Quick Thoughts: You’ll notice that I have Northwestern slotted worse than their gambling odds, and we’ll get to that in a second. This is all comparative, but they have a lot of hype heading into this season after winning their final eight games last year, with Clayton Thorson returning for his senior year at QB. But, I think they’ll be leapfrogged in the B1G West by Purdue…
8. Purdue
Gambling Odds: 25-1
Quick Thoughts: Jeff Brohm was a great hire for Purdue, even if it is just a several-year stepping stone for him. If you’re in the position of a program like Purdue, don’t you want to nab young star coaches on their way up the ladder as opposed to retreads who failed at bigger programs?
7. Nebraska
Gambling Odds: 15-1
Quick Thoughts: I believe that Scott Frost will restore this program to being a national powerhouse, but let’s give him a year or two to get some more of his recruits in there before they are really contending for conference championships.
6. Iowa
Gambling Odds: 18-1
Quick Thoughts: Iowa should have a very prolific offense this season, led by quarterback Nathan Stanley, tight end Noah Fant, and fullback Brady Ross. They avoid Ohio State on their schedule this season; if I were to pick a team other than Wisconsin to come out of the Big Ten West, it’d be the Hawkeyes.
5. Michigan
Gambling Odds: 9-2
Quick Thoughts: It feels like Michigan underperforms preseason expectations every year. I know that Jim Harbaugh finally has a stout QB to play with in Shea Patterson, but over the last decade if you put money on Michigan State to outperform Michigan you’d have had a profitable run.
4. Michigan State
Gambling Odds: 7-1
Quick Thoughts: It’s really tough to believe Michigan State could leapfrog Penn State and Ohio State to wind up in the B1G title game, but I like Mark Dantonio’s squad to outperform expectations. Keep an eye out for running back LJ Scott and tight end Matt Sokol.
3. Penn State
Gambling Odds: 18-5
Quick Thoughts: The Nittany Lions are 15-3 in the B1G over the last two seasons, and if I were James Franklin I’d be telling the team every day the extent to which the media disrespects them by lavishing more attention on Michigan and Jim Harbaugh, who aren’t as good. As an aside, I liked Franklin’s idea for a standardized scheduling across college football that would make the CFB committee have more of a level playing field to judge teams on.
2. Ohio State
Gambling Odds: 6-5
Quick Thoughts: I’m going to get called a homer for putting my alma mater over Ohio State despite the pronounced difference in gambling odds, and that’s fine. This is a pot odds thing for me. Head to head, I would favor Ohio State. That being said, I believe by virtue of the divisions Wisconsin has a better shot at making it to the Big Ten title game than Ohio State, which has Penn State, Michigan State, and Michigan to contend with. Four of the five best teams in the conference are in the same division.
1. Wisconsin
Gambling Odds: 3-1
Quick Thoughts: The Badgers are extremely well coached. Paul Chryst and Jim Leonhard are virtuosos on offense and defense. The Badgers have a preseason Heisman contender in Jonathan Taylor, a quarterback in Alex Hornibrook whom I believe is going to open some eyes with his improvement this season, and a typically stout offensive line. As I said, I don’t think I’d pick them straight up over Ohio State or Penn State in a dome in Indianapolis, but by virtue of the divisions I think they’ve got a much stronger chance of being there.