Believe it or not, the 2019 college football regular season is now 1/4th of the way complete for most teams. As each week passes, we’re able to observe more and more to make a speculative power ranking of every team in the Big Ten — Ohio State included.
We will point out however that it is still early and teams will be very different as the season progresses. But nonetheless, this is how we see things right now.
Here’s your Big Ten football power rankings after three weeks. It’s still a small sample size so give me a break on all of this. After all, I was on working vacation last week pouring out tons of money on WI-FI at sea to watch games and keep up with all the shenanigans of the college football season.
14. Rutgers
Where to begin? Better yet, where to end? We all know the drill here. Rutgers is still banking on being the birthplace of college football and that’s about it. It hasn’t gotten much better since then.
13. Illinois
Now that’s the Illini we all expected to see. Illinois managed to lose to a directional school that doesn’t have the compass marking in the state name. If it were anyone but Lovie Smith running the show, we wonder if a change would have been made yet.
12. Purdue
I was tempted to move the Boilermakers even further down, but that would mean I would have to move Illinois or Rutgers up. Can’t do it. But man, getting obliterated by a decent — not great — TCU squad is cause for concern.
11. Indiana
Smoke and mirrors. That’s seems to be what the Hoosiers were all about. Ohio State got in on their bag of tricks and exposed the wizard behind the curtain.
Next … 10 thru 6
10. Minnesota
The Gophers are finding ways to win, but it hasn’t been a beauty pageant. If only the team would show the same energy head coach P.J. Fleck does.
9. Maryland
Thud. Rinse and repeat. We’ve seen this same story from the Terps before. The team looked fantastic in the first two weeks then got physically whipped by Temple on Saturday. Pump those breaks …
8. Nebraska
The jury is still out on the Cornhuskers. There’s still a lot to like there, and if the team can keep improving, it might have a shot at the wide-open West Division.
7. Northwestern
On a positive note, the Wildcats won a regular-season non-conference game Saturday — its first since September of 2017. It was less than impressive though, but that’s kind of the Northwestern way. Bigger landmines lie ahead.
6. Michigan State
The Sparty party got spoiled on a wacky ending, but when you only put up seven points against Arizona State at home, it’s time to sound the alarms on offense. The defense will keep Mark Dantonio’s crew in games, but we’ve been hitting the panic button on the offense from the start.
Next … 5 thru 1
5. Michigan
Don’t bet totally against the Wolverines just yet. Things have resembled a sewage spill compared to the expectations so far, but the talent is there for this team to get better.
4. Iowa
Big, big win for the Hawkeyes in a huge rivalry game on the road gets brownie points this week. There are still questions that need answered, but we’ll get them in the upcoming weeks. And … then we’ll have more when the Hawkeyes baffle and befuddle against a team they should beat.
3. Penn State
The Nittany Lions came back down to Earth just a wee-bit against Pitt, but they still won against a rival, so you just never know all that goes into that. For now, Penn State is looking better than most teams in the league, but it’s another wait and see type of affair.
2. Wisconsin
The Badgers were off, so no new things to observe or make fun of. What we’ve seen so far has been fantastic on both sides of the ball. Is it fools’ gold or is Wisconsin going to have a bounce-back year?
1. Ohio State
It’s looking more and more like Ohio State is the class of the Big Ten again. Sure there will be pitfalls and road-bumps down the line but this is the most talented team in the league and everyone is starting to take notice.
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