Big Ten Football Power Rankings: Week Eight

Well ho-lee shit Black Heart Gold Family, I hope you were all able to enjoy a weekend that saw Tennessee beat Alabama for like the third time since I’ve made camp on this rock.

All the Volunteers needed to do it was employ the services of a 24 year-old transfer quarterback who barely had a 2:1 touchdown-interception ratio before leaving Virginia Tech.

Too bad guys like that don’t grow on trees!

Now now, we don’t have to be too pessimistic here. We also saw Utah lance a the USC boil with a wide-open, hurry-up, flavor of the month offense Utah uses a fullback and twin tight ends and dropped 43 on USC.

At least Iowa State lost!

1. Michigan (7-0, 4-0)

Totally and completely erased Penn State from history after somehow finding itself down 14-10 at half. Michigan had the ball for over 41 minutes and ran for 418 yards, a deadly combination of stats we like to call “service academy-ing.”

Sucks to Penn State, couldn’t have happened to a more deserving program.

The only thing I don’t like about this box score is the fact Michigan killed Sean Clifford, opening two doors. One for the more talented Drew Allar, and two for future Iowa QB Sean Clifford.

I’m gonna vomit.

2. Ohio State (6-0, 3-0)

By virtue of the Big Ten schedule, Ohio State should be much lower, but it’s the teams that live in that very schedule that allow Ohio State to occupy this hovel.

3. Illinois (6-1, 3-1)

Imagine! A blown call goes the other way against Indiana and we’re talking an UNDEFEATED Illinois and an opportunity of snapping a half-naked Bert at Kam’s.

Anyway, Chase Brown ran the ball 41 times against Minnesota, and things are getting a little hot in here.

4. *Removes glasses, rubs them on shirt, inevitably scratching the cheap Warby Parker bullshit lenses, rips third-hand Juul pod from distant acquaintance, whispers in a cloud of strawberry-flavored vapor... Purdue?*

Had 38 first downs to Nebraska’s 15 and held the ball for over 42 minutes and still only won by 6 points.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m not interested in the Charlie Jones Discourse... and yet!

Jones ran so we could cry.

5. Penn State, Michigan State, and Maryland, probably but maybe not (13-7, 5-6, oh my god)

All I really want to say here is Taulia Tagovailoa got carted off but is somehow a game time decision this week. Maryland doesn’t have a history of endangering players so I’m sure this is all fine.

7. Minnesota (4-2, 1-2)

Putting them here because Minnesota is starting a freshman quarterback this week. This guy picked the Gophers over Iowa.

His name is Athan Kaliakmanis.

I’m convinced Brian Ferentz halted all recruiting efforts because Athan is only 90% of a first name and Kaliakmanis is 175% of a last name and he refused to further embarrass himself by letting either leave his lips.

8. Indiana (3-4, 1-3)

Honestly should be higher for being the first FBS team to lose 700 games. Huge props to the Indianapolis Star for ranking the top-10 losses in Hoosier history. This is my personal favorite:

Same, Indiana. Same.

9. Iowa (3-3, 1-2)

Putting them here because I’m a HOMER and there’s nothing you can do about it! Learned today (or maybe it was yesterday, it doesn’t matter) that Jack Campbell and Tory Taylor were midseason all-Americans, and that’s fucking awesome—a team with two potential AA’s can’t even figure out how to get past the forward pass in the playbook.

The worst thing about this whole... thing, is that I’m ready to truther the fuck out of Ohio State and believe Iowa can drag the Buckeyes into a ditch and beat them with a thin but malleable stick for 60 minutes and squeeze out a win; the same way I squeezed out what I thought would be a silent fart on a Zoom call earlier this morning.

Was it bad? Yes! But for whatever reason it’s not going to get me fired, so for just a whisper of a moment I felt like Kirk Ferentz.

The rest

Let’s see, who did I forget? Who cares, all that matters is the combined record of the six conference teams not playing in a ranked matchup this weekend is 20-20.

2020 was a really good year so I’m glad we found a way to put Purdue-Wisconsin on ESPN.