Another disappointment on national television for the conference as Michigan lost on the road to Notre Dame, 13-6. But luckily for most teams, B1G play starts this week. Ohio State travels to Michigan State for one of the bigger conference games of the season and Nebraska looks for revenge versus the struggling Wisconsin Badgers. Michigan dropped from the three spot, all the way to seven in this week’s Power Rankings. Minnesota jumped from number ten all the way to number six as they defeated Syracuse (a quality non-conference win at this point.)

1. Ohio State (4-0)- For the third time in consecutive weeks it was not pretty, but the Buckeyes are still undefeated. They travel to East Lansing this weekend where Urban Meyer faces his first conference road test as head coach of the Buckeyes.
2. Northwestern (4-0)- Northwestern is the only team who scheduled and defeated three BCS conference opponents. Look for Pat Fitzgerald’s team to take care of Indiana this weekend before heading to Happy Valley.
3. Nebraska (3-1)- The ‘Huskers welcome back running back Rex Burkhead to complement their already great rushing attack (5th in the nation.) Nebraska’s upcoming battle against Wisconsin had to be circled on Bo Pelini’s calendar after last year’s debacle (48-17) in their first ever B1G game.
4. Purdue (2-1)- Coming off a bye week, Purdue takes on a Marshall team that is ranked number one in the country when it comes to passing the ball. Purdue should be able to score though, as Marshall is also ranked 121st in the nation in points against (42.8 per game.)
5. Michigan State (3-1)- Le’Veon Bell saved embarrassment for Sparty and the conference by rushing for 253 yards in an uncomfortable win versus lowly Eastern Michigan. They welcome College Gameday into town for what could be the best conference matchup of the year versus Ohio State.
6. Minnesota (4-0)- One of the three unbeaten teams remaining in the conference, the Gophers took care of Syracuse last weekend and hope to take advantage of a sputtering Iowa Hawkeye team.
7. Michigan (2-2)- TTUN has another week to prepare for the start of their B1G schedule after putting together another embarrassing performance on national television. Denard Robinson completely destroyed his pre-season Heisman chances by throwing four picks in a 13-6 loss at South Bend.
8. Wisconsin (3-1)- To make matters worse, Wisconsin lost Montee Ball to a head injury versus UTEP. For a shade of optimism, the Badgers are somehow 3-1 and could gain momentum if they defeat Nebraska this weekend.
9. Penn State (2-2)- In reality, Penn St. is only a missed field goal  from being 3-1 and up a couple of spots in the Power Rankings. Quarterback Matt McGloin is starting to grasp Bill O’Brien’s offense and he looks to keep improving this week versus Illinois.
10. Indiana (2-1)- Indiana had an extra week to prepare backup quarterback Cameron Coffman  for this game versus Northwestern. Coffman hopes to lead the Hoosiers to their first B1G victory since the 2010 season finale.
11. Iowa (2-2)- After another bad loss, the Hawkeyes are relieved that the non-conference schedule is over. They hope to start conference play fresh with a win versus unbeaten Minnesota.
12. Illinois (2-2)- The Illini let up a combined 97 points to Arizona State and Louisiana Tech, both pass first teams. Their schedule does not get easier as they have the likes of Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State coming up in the next five weeks.

Compare with last week: http://menofthescarletandgray.com/2012/09/18/b1g-power-rankings-second-edition/

Discuss…

The following is a fragment of an intercepted message, sent by Bacon Ninja from an undisclosed location somewhere in the mountains (two and a half miles east of Interstate 25 exit 149 in Colorado.)

“…and I never saw the dog or the raspberry jam again.
“Then there’s this business with people in Florida acting all butt-hurt over pretty much everything Urban Meyer says or does. Not just Gator fans but journalists and commentators too – it’s kind of ridiculous. I think I get what it’s all really about though. Let’s face it, while Florida has been a very successful program over the last twenty years or so, it doesn’t have the same tradition and legend as the Alabamas and the Ohio States and even the Notre Dames of the world. People don’t leave those places voluntarily – unless they’re about to get creamed by the NCAA. Meanwhile Florida’s two most successful football coaches both left by their own choice to pursue different opportunities – Spurrier to coach in the NFL and Urban to spend time recovering from being too hardcore – I mean, to take a year off before going to Ohio State which wasn’t even remotely close to being in the market for a new head coach at the time he left Florida.
“Imagine that for a second – Florida has been a dominant power the last fifteen years or so and its coach leaves to go to Ohio State? Slowhio State? Really? (I mean, never mind that Urban didn’t actually leave Florida to go to Ohio State, we’ve got to go with their premises here to grasp the underlying psychosis.) What does THEE Ohio State University have that UF doesn’t have? Snow?
“If I was a Florida fan, I’d be waking up in the morning and trembling in my jean shorts that UF is nothing more than Miami ten years ago. They won 5 national championships over twenty years and then became almost irrelevant. I’d be terrified that Muschamp is a younger Larry Coker with a less impressive resume.
“And Urban’s actions – as they see them – made it painfully clear that no matter what UF does, they’re still new money. They aren’t the Rockefellers and the Carnegies of the world by any-”

END OF TRANSMISSION

Hey guys, welcome to The Spread.

[insert elaborate opening credits sequence featuring skydiving royalty and Mr. Bean and some weird metallurgical dance number here]

So, by now I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “What is The Spread that I shouldn’t just stop reading right now and go back to what I was doing?” Well, stop asking yourself; you don’t know and you look ridiculous. The Spread is essentially just Poll Dancing with a new name, because as you know, I single-handedly changed the college football landscape with my constant ranting and raving about the BCS and soon we’ll have an actual playoff to determine the national champion and this happened because of me only and not for any other reason so don’t let anyone tell you different. So I figured since I’ll be shifting gears in this space, I’d come up with a new name for it and that’s what I did so give me my money.

Hey, Ohio State is not the only team with a new coach this year, although we might as well be for all the good it’s going to do those other poor Urbanless bastards. Here’s a list of guys who actually got head coaching jobs this year, presumably from people who think football is this or this:

Bob Davie – who got Notre Dame sued for age discrimination almost immediately after being hired and then never won a bowl game for the Irish.

Charlie Weis – who was almost as bad as Davie at ND, but did win that one bowl game against Hawai’i.

Rich Rodriguez – who is like Michigan’s Bob Davie if Bob Davie was even worse at winning football games.

John L. Smith – who is this guy.

Good luck with that.

Hey, there are college football games this week and not just reruns of all the various Alabama/LSU or Michigan State/Wisconsin games from last year. Brand new games, and some of them aren’t terrible! At least they aren’t yet.

THURSDAY Don’t watch these games. I know you kind of want to, because football’s been gone so long and now it’s back and you love football and so do I so we should watch these games right? WRONG! Don’t fall for it. ESPN is capitalizing on your starved passion and trying to trick you into watching a bad SEC game that you would never watch if it weren’t the only thing on. South Carolina and Vanderbilt? Seriously? You might as well have said A Four-Hour Claymation CHiPs Reboot Featuring The Voices Of Gilbert Gottfried, Richard Dreyfuss and Jennifer Tilly. Or maybe you were planning on checking out Texas A&M @ Louisiana Tech or UCLA at Rice or Minnesota at UNLV? I don’t even know you anymore.

FRIDAY Okay, you’ve waited long enough. Turn on the TV and check out Boise State @ Michigan State. The Broncos have been the darlings of college football since making a movie around Oklahoma in that Fiesta Bowl. But they’ve only played one Big Ten team in their entire history and that was a loss to Wisconsin in 1997, when 3 of the Badgers’ 8 wins were by a single point. The Big Ten remains the only conference that Boise has played and not beaten. You won’t often get my permission to cheer for another Big Ten team, nor will you often ask for it or ever care what I have to say about what you can do with your Yuengling-soaked vocal cords, but Friday you’ll get it. Use it wisely.

SATURDAY Obviously, this is the big day. It’s so big that you can watch football at nine in the morning without being on the West Coast! That’s when Navy/Notre Dame kicks off in Freaking. Ireland. and I will stop trying to convince you to watch it now because if you don’t watch a game from Ireland then seriously, why are we even friends?

Then you’ve got all your noon games, including Miami at Ohio State. Which is what you’ll be watching, so let’s move on.

The rest of the day’s games are just background noise for your five-hour celebration of the no-huddle wizardry you just witnessed. You should probably spend this time watching the game again and try not to pass out before Alabama/Michigan rolls around at eight. If you think you’re getting more of that Big Ten permission here, you are dead wrong, bucko, and I hope you don’t even want it. It really doesn’t matter who wins this game because it will mean that the other team lost and that can only be a good thing. But since it’s a football game we’re watching, we have to cheer for somebody and can you really cheer for this guy? I can’t.

MONDAY Go ahead and watch Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech if you want, see if I care.