Jackets Get Hawkeyed: A Recap of the Big Ten's Impressive Bowl Run

As much as it may hurt I will be the first to admit it, the Big Ten has been impressive this bowl season.  You can count me in the group of people at the beginning of the season who talked down about the Big Ten.  It was widely discussed in college football circles all season and most believed it to be true.

Well in the Orange Bowl the Big Ten capped off a successful bowl season with Iowa's 24-14 win over ACC champion Georgia Tech.  Not only did the Hawkeye's win, but they dominated the Nation's eleventh ranked offense, and held them to 156 yards of total offense.  The Yellow Jackets couldn't get anything going for most of the night, and one of their touchdowns was on an interception return for a touchdown.

Jonathan Dwyer, Josh Nesbitt, Darian Hagan, or Calvin Johnson it wouldn't have mattered who Georgia Tech put out there on the field tonight.  They were out classed and beaten in just about every phase of the game by Iowa, and they made it look relatively easy doing it.

Many thought before the game that there was no way Iowa would be able to slow down the rushing attack of the Yellow Jackets, but on this night the coaching genius of Kirk Ferentz showed. 

The biggest weakness of the Yellow Jackets is when teams have over a week to prepare for their offense, that was the case against Miami and Iowa who shut them down.  You could see that Ferentz and his staff had this team ready to play, and they were focused on assignment football which is essential to stop the spread option attack.

Even if the game was played right after the season ended I don't think it would have mattered much.  In some ways I think the Big Ten took all of the doubt they received all season, and came into bowl season with a chip on their shoulder.  Let's take a look at each Big Ten match up from the bowl season.

The first game was Wisconsin vs. Miami where many picked the Hurricanes to win this game relatively easy (myself included), but Wisconsin dominated the Hurricanes in the trenches the entire game on their way to a 20 - 14 win. 

What makes this win even more impressive is Wisconsin fell behind early, stuck too their gameplan and picked apart the Miami defense passing to their tight ends and eventually wore down the Hurricanes with their power running game.

The Minnesota Golden Gophers lost to Iowa State 14-13 in the Insight bowl, and if not for a fumble by backup QB MarQueis Gray at the Iowa State 17 late in the game the Gophers might have pulled out a victory.

In the Outback Bowl Northwestern narrowly lost to Auburn 38-35 when a fake field goal was snuffed out by the Tigers just short of the end zone.  Northwestern trailed by two touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, and managed to send the game into overtime when it looked like the game was out of reach.

Over in Orlando Penn State beat LSU 19-17 in the Capital One bowl.  Penn State handled LSU for most of this game, but the Tigers managed to put a drive together in the second half and take the lead.  But Penn State QB Daryll Clark drove the Nittany Lions deep into LSU territory to setup the game winning field goal with 57 seconds left.

The Rose Bowl put Ohio State versus the Oregon Ducks, and the Buckeye's came out on top 26-17.  It was believed that Ohio State would not be able to score enough to keep up with the Ducks high powered offense, but Terrelle Pryor showed he can win games with his arm.

Michigan State posted the worst loss in the bowl season for the Big 10 falling to Texas Tech 41-31 in the Valero Alamo Bowl.  The Spartans were leading for a majority of the game, but Texas Tech coming off the emotional firing of their head coach banded together and pulled out the victory.

Then of course the aforementioned Georgia Tech versus Iowa game discussed earlier in this article.  What makes this bowl run impressive wasn't the overall record, but instead the fact that no team from the Big Ten was blown out in any of the games.  I can't think of any game where a Big Ten team was dominated.  All the games were close, and the Big Ten with a few fortunate bounces could have gone undefeated in bowl season.

There will still be many pundits and disbelievers in what the Big Ten accomplished, but you have to say the represented themselves well while other conferences like the Pac-10 and ACC had several underwhelming performances.  These conferences did not put themselves in great positions for next season, as both of them were viewed equal or better than the Big Ten top to bottom this season.

This will come into play for preseason rankings next season, and by now we should all know the importance of those rankings whether we like it or not.  If a team starts the season ranked highly, then they have a much better chance of being in a position to play for a National Title. 

With the Big Ten's overall performance during bowl season including big wins over ACC, Pac-10, and SEC schools the pollsters may put several Big Ten teams in great position for a title run.  Bowl season should have no bearing on what happens next season, but its common knowledge that pollsters are swayed by such things.

This will open the debate for next season, which conference will be better?  The Big Ten has most of its top players coming back on its top teams pending players declaring for the NFL, and Michigan showed flashes of being relevant again.  Does that mean the Big Ten is poised to take over as the number one conference coming into next season?