Menu

Big Ten Legends Division

College Football Coverage: A Packed Race In The Big Ten Legends Division

, , , , , ,

The Big Ten Legends Division is clearly the stronger within the conference, even if you grant that the Leaders likely has the best team in Ohio State. All six teams in the Legends have reasonable expectations of a bowl game and four can make a legitimate case for themselves to be the representative at the league title game in Indianapolis on December 7. TheSportsNotebook’s college football coverage breaks down the Big Four and the two challengers.

THE BIG FOUR

Nebraska won the division a year ago, and Michigan State did it in 2011. Both are contenders to get back to Indy this season. Michigan has been on the rise under Brady Hoke, and Pat Fitzgerald has one of his better teams at Northwestern. The division champ will come out of this group, and here’s a basic rundown on each team…


Michigan: If it weren’t for the fact that this is “Michigan”, I don’t know that we’d consider the Wolverines a serious contender for the division crown. They’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do on defense, and one of the returnees, linebacker Jake Ryan tore an ACL in spring practice and will miss at least half the year. Denard Robinson is gone at quarterback, and there are two freshman starters on the offensive line.

But…they are “Michigan”, and that means more than just marketing. Hoke has recruited extremely well since his arrival in Ann Arbor and the players stepping into these jobs on defense have talent. Furthermore, new quarterback Devin Gardner looked good in the games he played while Robinson was injured in 2012. Running back Fitz Touissant is healthy again.

Most important, there’s this—Michigan plays the other three contenders in November. If you were the coach of a team with a lot of young talent, when would you want your biggest games? Yep, after you’ve had a half-season to round them into form.

That’s a tough November stretch—Sparty, the Huskers and the Wildcats all come in straight succession and two are on the road, and then you have a road trip to Iowa and home game with Ohio State following. But if nothing else, Hoke should have his team where he wants it when the storm hits.

Nebraska: The points will fly in Lincoln this season. I could swear Taylor Martinez is entering his 10th year as the Cornhusker quarterback, but the versatile signal-caller is just in his fourth season. He’s surrounded by running back Ameer Abdullah, wide receiver Kenny Bell and what should be a pretty good offensive line, keyed by guard Spencer Long. The Huskers have players who can make plays, and the lineman who can spring them.

It’s going to up to head coach Bo Pellini to use his background on defense to get this unit to come together and allow the offense to win big games for them. NU is solid on the corners, but green everywhere else.

Michigan State: It was a hard-luck year for Mark Dantonio and the Spartans, with a run of low-scoring, gut-wrenching losses that finally came to an end when they rallied to beat TCU in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. While the defensive front needs to be rebuilt, the linebackers are very good, led by linebacker Max Bullough. And the secondary has an All-Conference corner in Darqueze Dennard and is solid at safety. Scoring on Michigan State is again going to be a daunting challenge.

Dantonio may have to look at a quarterback change, as fifth-year senior Andrew Maxwell didn’t get it done in 2012. The offense’s problems were certainly not all, or even mostly Maxwell’s doing, but at the very least he’s not the solution. And sophomore Connor Cook might be. At the very least, you have to think the head coach will have a quick hook with Maxwell this season. Going with a sophomore and letting him grow with a young unit probably makes the most long-term sense as well.

Northwestern: Fitzgerald was the captain and starting linebacker on Northwestern’s miracle Rose Bowl team of 1995, and the head coach has to like what he sees on that side of the ball this year. There’s experience up and down the lineup, and playmakers like pass-rushing end Tyler Scott and safety Ibraheim Campbell.

The Wildcats are going to have to get their young offensive rebuilt, but if they do, the skill position players are there. A quarterback duo of Kaine Colter and Trevor Siemian provides both running and passing and Venric Mark is one of the conference’s top running backs. A veteran group of receivers is also on hand. After a year marked by some tough losses, Northwestern looks poised for a  big run in 2013.

BOWL CHALLENGERS

Minnesota: The Golden Gophers have been restored to respectability under Jerry Kill. They won six games and made a bowl last season, and in a conference where getting blown out in bowls has become the norm, Minnesota was refreshingly competitive in a 34-31 loss to Texas Tech.

They bring back running back Donnell Kirkwood and all five offensive line starters, so you know this is an offense that will be built around the running game. The defense is experienced in both the trenches and the secondary, and sophomore quarterback Philip Nelson saw game action a year ago as a freshman. There’s every reason to think Kill can keep the Gophs moving steadily upward, and while a division title is beyond their grasp, this team is good enough to be a spoiler in that race and knock off a favorite.

Iowa: As Minny ascends, Iowa goes down. At least that was the case last year, as the Hawkeyes went 4-8, in the worst season under Kirk Ferentz. Now in his 15th year, the Iowa master is coming under increased scrutiny.

Ferentz needs to find new quarterback, but should have a competent offensive line for whomever he settles on, and there’s a lot of returning personnel on defense. They didn’t play well a year ago, but thinking they might improve just enough to get back to six wins is very reasonable.

The quality of Minnesota and Iowa make it likely that the lower rung of the Legends Division will dominate its counterparts in the Leaders (everyone below Ohio State and Wisconsin) and get all six of these teams into postseason play.

CONCLUSION

If you break down the Big Four, Nebraska is the safe pick. They have experience and they’re going to be in the race all year. Michigan is the interesting team, as we watch Hoke try and built cohesion in time for November. Michigan State is more of a darkhorse—we know Dantonio produces well-coached teams that compete, but I have a hard time seeing this year’s version in Indy.


Northwestern though, is the team I’ve got my eye on. Fitzgerald’s been consistently knocking on the door throughout his tenure in Evanston, consistently going to bowl games, challenging the best teams in the league and with his veteran defense, looks finally ready to take the next step. I’m going to step out on a limb and pick the Wildcats to reach the conference championship game.

Big Ten Overview
Big Ten Leaders Division: Ohio State Sets The Pace

Big Ten Legends Division Race Heats Up Saturday

, , , , ,

The Big Ten Legends Division will see its race kick off in earnest on Saturday. Contenders like Nebraska and Northwestern have played significant conference games, but none within the division. Michigan’s only important tests have come outside the league entirely. Iowa won an opening salvo over Michigan State in overtime last week. But on Saturday there are two head-to-head battles and tough cross-divisional game that will help give early shape to the Legends race.

Nebraska visits Northwestern, hoping to get some revenge for a Wildcats upset in Lincoln a year ago. Each team has lost on the road in Big Ten play, to Ohio State and Penn State respectively. Nebraska also has a win over Wisconsin.

One thing we don’t know if Nebraska has is a defense. After a shutdown effort in a second-half rally over the Badgers, the Huskers were positively torched two weeks ago by Ohio State. There will be a difference in that Wildcat quarterback Kain Colter won’t test the defense to the degree Braxton Miller did in Columbus. But Colter is versatile and can create problems. Just not as many as Taylor Martinez creates for opposing defenses, and I believe he’s enough to get Nebraska a win.

Michigan has revenge on its mind, as well as homefield when they host Michigan State. The Wolverines have torn apart Illinois and Purdue in league play, but I consider this misleading. When Michigan can spread a slow, bad defense out, Denard Robinson runs and throws at will. Michigan State has its problems, but the defense is good and Robinson won’t be able to do what he wants. Nor will Michigan run the ball in the conventional way.

The problem is that so long as Robinson doesn’t make mistakes, he’s still enough to put 21-24 points on the board, and I don’t see any reason to believe Michigan State is ready to match that. They can run the ball with Le’Veon Bell, but the passing game hasn’t improved enough to merit confidence, especially on the road in a rivalry game where revenge is working against you.

Iowa doesn’t play a divisional game, but the Hawkeyes do follow up their win over the Spartans by traveling to Penn State. The Lions are a better team—quite a bit better—and are coming off a bye week.

They also have the motivation of playing for a PSU season-ticket holding friend of mine who got married last week (a stunning coincidence his wedding fell on a bye week) and had a reception marked by a cake shaped like Beaver Stadium. If that’s not enough to stir Bill O’Brien’s troops to get a road win in a place that’s caused Penn state problems over the years I don’t know what is.

The team in the Legends Division that really needs to win is Nebraska. They’re the ones who already have a conference loss, and the schedule-makers did them no favors. The Cornhuskers also have to play Penn State, meaning they’ll play the three best teams on the other side of the conference, while Michigan only plays one.

We’ll take a look at Saturday’s biggest games in our regular Friday college football feature here at TheSportsNotebook. For now, here’s a look at the landscape in the other major conferences…

SEC: LSU can’t get too busy celebrating its win over South Carolina. The Tigers travel to Texas A&M for an early kick at noon EST, and the Aggies can put up points in a hurry. The rapid-paced offenses like the one run by new A&M coach Kevin Sumlin often struggle against real defenses, but that assumes said real defenses are ready to play. LSU needs to be fully engaged, because they’re a still a game back of Alabama.

The Tide travels to Tennessee, a team that has enough explosiveness to tease, but not enough in the way of fundamentals and toughness to compete in a game like this. And this conference’s big game—indeed the nation’s big game—is South Carolina-Florida, one that gets our attention tomorrow.

Pac-12: Oregon and Arizona State are the early leaders in each division, one of them being a surprise and the other less so (I’m going to assume if you’ve visiting a site like this you know which is which). The Ducks and Sun Devils meet on Thursday night in Tempe.

ASU coach Todd Graham and his staff have to find a way to slow Oregon down—dramatically so, because it’s asking too much of sophomore quarterback Taylor Kelly to put 35-40 points on the board against an opponent with this kind of team speed. I have no sense of an upset in the making and Arizona State’s biggest games against divisional foes USC & UCLA are still ahead.

Oregon State came out 8th in the BCS rankings and is in position to make a major bowl game, even if they don’t beat Oregon in the season finale. What the Beavers can’t do is lose games like the one they have coming up at home with Utah. Another North Division rival, Stanford, plays archrival Cal in a must-win game, given the Cardinal already dropped a game to Washington.

The biggest question I have regarding this week’s Pac-12 card is this—why did Stanford and Cal move up their usual Rivalry Saturday game in late November to mid-October?

Big 12: Texas Tech quarterback Seth Doege outgunned Heisman frontrunner Geno Smith last week as the Red Raiders blasted West Virginia. Now Doege takes the show on the road to TCU, a team not nearly as defensive as they’ve been in recent seasons. The winner keeps their conference losses to one and their title hopes alive.

Baylor travels to Texas in a game where the Over/Under is posted at 80.5, and given the way both teams play defense (or don’t play it, as the case may be) I might take one team to cover that number themselves. And the league’s biggest game is Kansas State-West Virginia, which gets covered tomorrow.

ACC: There aren’t any big divisional rivalries on tap, but two games that cross Coastal-Atlantic lines loom very large. Florida State gave away its margin for error in the Atlantic when they lost at N.C. State two weeks ago. Now the Seminoles visit Miami in a prime-time affair, where the Hurricanes are off a loss to North Carolina that’s put them under the gun.

Virginia Tech saved its season with a rally from 20-0 down to beat Duke and now goes to Clemson, who is tied with Florida State.

The Atlantic Division times—FSU & Clemson—are the ones under the most pressure. They are the better teams, meaning neither can count on its rivals to lose again. My guess is the Miami-Virginia Tech race might be a backpedal to the finish line, with Duke possibly still getting back into the picture (North Carolian is on probation), so if either the Hurricanes or Hokies slip a game back it’s not the end of the world.

Big East: It’s a light schedule, as is often the case for a league with only eight teams where the seven conference games are spread out from September to December. The big one of this week is Louisville hosting South Florida. The Cardinals are still undefeated, but the Bulls and B.J. Daniels have been a big disappointment thus far. The USF we’ve seen the last few weeks isn’t ready to win this game on the road.

Rutgers takes its show on the road to Temple, but while the Owls are rebuilding nicely in the wake of large graduation losses and an upgrade from the MAC to the Big East, they are a long way from being in the class of the Scarlet Knights and their swarming defense.

The Best Of The Rest: We’re actually going to wait for the Friday marquee feature to shower some love on the Sun Belt, with its big UL-Monroe-Western Kentucky showdown. The rest of the card in the midmajors is pretty bland, with Western Michigan’s visit to Kent State noteworthy, as the Broncos are good enough to hand the Golden Flashes their first league loss.

And the Notre Dame-BYU game, which had such promise when the schedule came out, doesn’t look so hot anymore. BYU is 4-3, with quarterback Riley Nelson and the defense seeming to regress a little each week.

We can’t rule out a letdown from the Irish after the dramatic goal-line stand in overtime against Stanford. Nor can we ignore the fact that Notre Dame’s lower-scoring physical style is something BYU will be comfortable matching up with.

But I consider that analgous to the Thursday night NFL game between the Seahawks and 49ers—if a team is going to pull a road upset they need to take the home team out of their comfort zone, not play into it. I don’t know how good Notre Dame will look on Saturday, but I’d expect a win.