The Big Ten Season begins on Thursday, August 30th, so it’s time for the annual Sigforum Big Ten football thread.

Requests:

Keep this thread about the Big Ten teams & players, the weekend’s Big Ten match-ups and opponents, kudos for Big Ten players/coaches/administrators, and Big Ten conference champ predictions.

If you’re a fan of a team from another conference, join in for some good-natured ribbing when your team plays a Big Ten team. Otherwise, please start a thread for your favorite conference.

It’s just a game so let’s keep the ribbing good-natured.

Season Predictions:

The pundits are predicting my beloved Boilermakers to build upon last year’s bowl appearance and be improved over last year. Second year head coach, Jeff Brohm, will have the team good enough to make another bowl but will fall short of toppling Wisconsin.

Many pundits are predicting the Wal-Mart Wolverines will win the Big Ten East. I like Harbaugh a lot, but I think they’ll finish #2 in the Big Ten East.

The September 29th tOSU and PSU match-up will decide the Eastern Conference.

The November 23rd WI and IA match-up will decide the Western Conference.

The Badgers and Nittany Lions will be in the Big Ten Championship, and the Badgers will win.

Goodish natured ribbing:

Not So Pure Michigan: UofM Football

Not So Pure Michigan: Michigan State Football

Not So Pure Michigan: Wisconsin and Ohio

Q: If you have a car containing a Buckeyes running back, a Buckeyes linebacker, and a Buckeyes defensive back, who is driving the car?
A: The cop. In all seriousness, in order to be a contender for the playoffs the Buckeyes need to keep their players out of handcuffs and in the classroom.

Kudos:

Week 1 – MD to schedule TX and UofM to schedule Yoder Dame & the Fighting Amish. It takes cajones to schedule a real opponent week 1 instead of a cream puff.

Week 3 – tOSU for scheduling #16 TCU and my Boilermakers for scheduling a SEC team (Missouri). I’m a huge fan of scheduling real opponents prior to the Big Ten season and despise the practice of Power 5 conference teams playing cream puffs to boost their wins.

2018-19 Schedule:


EDIT NOTES:
1. Every week I change the title to give page # for this week's discussion of the games.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tatortodd,

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

My only comment is that I see lots of B1G teams playing worthy non-conference opponents.

"Spartan girls, pure Michigan."
"Lesbians, pure Michigan."

Penn State will have a great season. Everybody here says so, over and over and over. They open against Appalachian State... uh oh.

Michigan never fails to disappoint, and I'm sure they will come through again.

I fear Purdue will regress. They lost a lot of the starting defense from a year ago, and I don’t think they will be over looked on the schedule like they were a year ago.

As long as the games stay interesting, and we beat IU... it will be a good season..

On Wisconsin

Maryland should be interesting this year. Not knowing if the Coach is going to be fired. Most Players did not want Matt Canada named as interim coach.

Who are y'all predicting to be in the Big Ten Championship and who will win the Big Ten Championship?

Ohio State, they have the momentum now. Gives the team motivation. I am looking forward to seeing the signs held up by their opponent's fans. College students can be quite creative in their criticism.

I've picked tOSU nearly every year the annual Big Ten thread has existed. Urban Meyer's 3 game suspension includes a non-conference road game vs a Top 20 opponent (TCU). 2 weeks later, they face PSU on the road.

I think those two games take them out of Big Ten Championship as well as the FBS playoffs.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
I've picked tOSU nearly every year the annual Big Ten thread has existed. Urban Meyer's 3 game suspension includes a non-conference road game vs a Top 20 opponent (TCU). 2 weeks later, they face PSU on the road.

I think those two games take them out of Big Ten Championship as well as the FBS playoffs.

The TCU game is in Texas, but it’s a “neutral site, the Jones Dome. I know, advantage TCU for location, but if Ohio State is as good as they’re supposed to be, they should get by Texas Christian.

Wisconsin has a tougher schedule as far as road games than either Ohio State or Penn State. Penn State the most favorable, facing only Michigan on the road.

I guess I’m picking Penn State to beat Iowa in the B1G Championship. Iowa because they have a slightly more favorable schedule than Wisconsin.

I've read a lot of people thinking this is Iowa's year to topple Wisconsin.

BTW, the "neutral site" is 19 miles east of TCU's normal football stadium.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
BTW, the "neutral site" is 19 miles east of TCU's normal football stadium.

I know. TCU is in Fort Worth and the Jones’ Dome is in Arlington, a Dallas suburb.

It’s kind of like all those Orange Bowls the Huskers played in against Florida, Florida State and Miami.

I'm interested in Nebraska under new coach Scot Frost. The last 3 coaches have been duds.

1st year, Frosty & the "Children of the Corn" may go 7 & 5 or 8 & 4 with a return to respectability on the horizon, Frost can recruit & is a leader. Can't wait for the season to kick off.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:
I'm interested in Nebraska under new coach Scot Frost. The last 3 coaches have been duds.

1st year, Frosty & the "Children of the Corn" may go 7 & 5 or 8 & 4 with a return to respectability on the horizon, Frost can recruit & is a leader. Can't wait for the season to kick off.

Mike Riley was so obviously a good man that you wanted it to work for him. Since December, though, things about the football culture under Riley have come out bit-by-bit. His shit was weak, and that mentality was pervasive.

Recoatlift is thinking along the same lines as I am. Cautious optimism this first year. I also think 7-5 most likely and 8-4 possible, if the team advances faster in Frost’s vision than we have a right to expect. I know one thing. Even if Nebraska loses a game, the winning team will know they’ve been in a fight—and that feeling hasn’t been present for way too long.

When Neb was in its glory days, if they lost a game, the team that beat them usually lost the next week due to injuries.

I see you're in WY. Craig Bohl will do some good things with the Cowboys, at least I think so.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:
When Neb was in its glory days, if they lost a game, the team that beat them usually lost the next week due to injuries.

I see you're in WY. Craig Bohl will do some good things with the Cowboys, at least I think so.

Yes, it’s taken a little time for Bohl to get the program where he wants it, but they played NMSU down in Cruces Saturday night. The Cowboys thoroughly dominated them; I believe New Mexico State didn’t get a first down util 5 or 6 minutes remaining in the first half. They look tough. BTW, our son graduated from UW

Kinda excited, kinda worried about the Buckeyes.
I would love them to get to another bowl game but beating Michigan is tops for me. Odds are stacking up that Michigan will win some year. Can't beat one team infinitely.
3 game suspension hurts a little but I have faith. Guess we'll see what happens.
They could be horrid and I'd still be a fan. Suffered through worse.
Not gonna even try and pick a championship game right now until I see a few teams play.

Pretty big news out of Lincoln today. True freshman QB, Adrian Martinez was just named the starter yesterday, Sunday. That made red-shirt freshman, Tristan Gebbia (4-star Mike Riley recruit) the backup QB. Martinez was the first player Frost went after when he was announced as Nebraska’s head coach. He was an early enrollee and played very well in the spring game.

Gebbia, although recruited as a drop-back passing QB, by all accounts had experience as a,dual threat QB, embraced the new offense, and competed effectively with Martinez for the starting job. He didn’t show for practice this morning, and now comes the news that he wants to transfer.

Frost said that he appeared to take it well when told yesterday, obviously, he thought about it further. Funny thing is, he was all about the Huskers since arriving in Lincoln, helping with recruiting, visiting hospitals etc. He does seem like a really good guy. I guess he got to thinking about the QBs committed in 2019 and 2020 (Luke McCaffrey in ‘19) and just didn’t feel like it was going to work out for him.

Assuming Gebbia does leave, that leaves only a walk-on as backup. Sophomore QB and Nebraska native, Noah Vedral, followed Frost from UCF. He has to sit out a year.

Week 1:
The first 3 weeks, I'll just be commenting on interesting match-ups and will ignore the cream puff match-ups (all times Central time):

New Mexico St @ MN on Thursday at 6:00 on BTN - first game of the Big Ten Season. None of the 6 odds services have a spread for this game. I'll like PJ Fleck so I'll go out on a limb and say he'll have the team prepared and they'll win.

NW @ Purdue on Thursday at 7:00 on ESPN - first Big Ten match-up of the season. My Boilermakers are 1 to 1.5 point favorites depending on which odds service you believe. Purdue wins and covers.

Texas @ MD on Saturday at 11:00 on FS1 - The Longhorns are unanimously 13.5 point favorites. Historically, UT is overrated early season 80% of the time, but it sounds like MD is having issues. I'll go with Texas to win and cover.

Northern Ill @ IA on Saturday at 2:30 on BTN - The odds services have the Hawkeyes 10 to 10.5 point favorites depending on which odds service you believe. Northern Ill has toppled several Big Ten teams in recent history, but they won't pull off the upset this week. Iowa wins and covers.

UofM @ Yoder Dame & the Fighting Amish on Saturday at 6:30 on NBC - Four odds services have the Amish as 1 point favorites, but two have the Wolverines as 1 to 3.5 point favorites. This is one of the best rivalries in college football history and glad to see it resume. Wolverines win by more than 3.5 points.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

If anyone is planning to come to the Wisconsin vs. W. Kentucky game, you may need to bring some water wings. We've had quite a bit of rain the past two weeks, and expect more this weekend.