Big Ten Football: Every Team's Best Moment from 2014 College Football Season
The Big Ten Conference didn't get a lot of love during the 2014 season, mostly because of a rough start that was sorely lacking in quality wins. But when the dust settled and the playoff pairings were set, Big Ten champ Ohio State was part of that Final Four, and nine other schools had earned bowl bids.
It might not have been the greatest season in Big Ten history, but it also wasn't a bad one. Every team did at least one thing worth noting as we look back on 2014's best moments.
Illinois Fighting Illini
1 of 14
Knocking off rival Northwestern to become bowl-eligible
The Tim Beckman era hasn't been a particularly successful one at Illinois, but there's one thing you can't deny: There's been progress. From 2-10 in his first season in 2012 to 4-8 last year to 6-6 this season, earning the program's first bowl bid since 2011.
To get to six wins, though, the Fighting Illini needed to win its last two games. That started with a hard-fought home win over Penn State, then required winning in Evanston for the first time since 2002.
This year's battle for the Land of Lincoln Trophy had added weight because both teams sat at 5-6, meaning only the winner would get a bowl. Illinois fed off this motivation from the outset, jumping out to a 19-0 lead, and then after Northwestern pulled close at 33-25 early in the fourth quarter the Illini got a long touchdown run from Josh Ferguson. Mason Monheim's 49-yard interception returned for a TD iced the 47-33 road victory.
Illinois' reward for its late-season surge is a trip to Dallas to face Louisiana Tech (8-5) on Dec. 26 in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.
Indiana Hoosiers
2 of 14
Tevin Coleman joins 2,000-yard rushing club
Indiana finished with a 4-8 record, its seventh straight season with a losing record and without a bowl bid. But the year did have some very memorable moments, both from a team and individual standpoint.
While the Hoosiers' shocking 31-27 win at eventual SEC East Division champion Missouri was big at the time, it ended up having no bearing on their overall season. What did, though, was the season-long performance of junior running back Tevin Coleman.
Coleman finished the season with a school-record 2,036 rushing yards, making him the 18th player in FBS history to reach the 2,000-yard club. Unfortunately for him, he happened to do this in the same season that Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon put up more than 2,300 yards.
He ran for 100-plus yards in 11 of 12 games, topped by a 307-yard performance in the Nov. 15 loss at Rutgers, and he finished with a stellar 7.54 yards-per-carry average. With 3,219 yards for his career, Coleman sits fifth on the school's all-time list.
Iowa Hawkeyes
3 of 14
C.J. Beathard leads comeback at Pittsburgh
Iowa's 2014 season went the way a lot of the previous years have in Iowa City, with the Hawkeyes mostly beating the teams they were supposed to and losing to the ones they weren't as good as. The exceptions would be the home loss to Iowa State and the September victory at Pittsburgh, the latter of which provided their best moment of the year.
Trailing 17-7 in the third quarter, coach Kirk Ferentz benched quarterback Jake Rudock and turned to sophomore C.J. Beathard with the hope it would ignite Iowa's stagnant offense. It worked, as right away Beathard threw a 62-yard pass to Damond Powell to set up the first of Mark Weisman's two second-half touchdowns.
"We knew that we weren't going to lose this game," Beathard told Darren Miller of HawkeyeSports.com. "We had a whole half to play, and we were going to pick it up from there."
Beathard would finish with 98 yards on 7-of-8 passing as Iowa came back to win, 24-20.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Maryland Terrapins
4 of 14
Last-minute win at Penn State
Maryland's move into the Big Ten this season required it to scrap old rivalries and square off against a whole new lineup of adversaries. The Terrapins wanted to make a statement in that first year, and they quickly identified nearby Penn State as a team they wanted to establish a conflict with.
While the choice to have its captains refuse to shake hands with their Penn State counterparts prior to the coin toss—a move that resulted in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty—was in poor taste, Maryland did get the last laugh by coming out of Beaver Stadium with a 20-19 victory after Brad Craddock booted a 43-yard field goal with 51 seconds left.
Craddock would go on to win the Lou Groza Award given to the nation's top kicker, while Maryland would end up with a respectable 4-4 record in Big Ten play to finish in third place in the East Division.
Michigan Wolverines
5 of 14
Two-point conversion stop at Northwestern
In a season that ended without a bowl game for the first time since 2009 and with coach Brady Hoke getting fired, most of the attention paid toward Michigan has been about all the things that went wrong. Buried among all the negatives, though, were some moments that could be something for the next coach to build off of.
Most of those came on the defensive end, as Michigan finished 10th in the country in yards allowed and 15th nationally against the run. This didn't always translate into wins, what with the Wolverines offense struggling all season, but when they visited Northwestern in early November, it was the defense that paced the victory.
Michigan held the host Wildcats off the scoreboard for three quarters—the game itself was scoreless for more than 38 minutes, prompting Twitter to label the game "M00N"—and kept them out of the end zone until three seconds were left. The Northwestern touchdown pulled it to within 10-9, but rather than send the game into overtime it chose to try a two-point conversion.
Michigan was ready, rushing quarterback Trevor Siemian hard off the edge. Defensive end Frank Clark was within inches of sacking Siemian when he slipped and fell, giving the Wolverines the victory.
Michigan State Spartans
6 of 14
Blowout win over Michigan
A year after winning the conference title and the Rose Bowl, Michigan State wasn't able to replicate that level of success. The Spartans lost arguably their two biggest games of the season, at Oregon and against Ohio State, though with 10 wins for the fourth time in five years they still landed a prime bowl invitation against Baylor in the Cotton Bowl.
That game figures to provide an opportunity for some great moments to cap the 2014 season, but from the regular season the game that stands out the most is the one where Michigan State reasserted its in-state dominance over Michigan.
The 35-11 home win over Michigan in late October was Michigan State's second straight victory and sixth in seven tries against the Wolverines. The streak of consecutive quarters holding Michigan without a touchdown ended at 11, allowing a TD with 3:40 left, but then MSU added insult to injury by having Jeremy Langford cap his career-best 177-yard rushing performance with his third TD run with 28 seconds left.
That late score ruffled some Michigan feathers, but Dan Wolken of USA Today noted that such a reaction shows how far the Wolverines' program has fallen.
"Michigan fans upset that State didn't show mercy and take a knee may be the program's lowest moment," Wolken tweeted.
Minnesota Golden Gophers
7 of 14
Ending long road skid at Nebraska
Minnesota is still searching for its first Big Ten title since 1967, but it had a chance to win one this year going into its regular-season finale. That was possible because of the Golden Gophers' impressive comeback at Nebraska the week before, rallying from a 21-7 halftime deficit to claim a 28-24 victory.
Quarterback Mitch Leidner ran for a two-yard touchdown with 3:25 left, part of his 110 rushing yards as he had to pick up the slack following an injury to leading rusher David Cobb. But it was a key fumble recovery by junior Briean Boddy-Calhoun, who stripped Nebraska's De'Mornay Pierson-El at the 2-yard line with 1:19 left, that clinched the victory.
The win was Minnesota's first in Lincoln since 1960 and gave it a fifth Big Ten victory, its most since 2003.
The Gophers lost at Wisconsin in their finale to finish second in the West, good enough to earn them a matchup with Missouri in the Citrus Bowl for the program's first New Year's bowl game since the 1962 Rose Bowl.
Nebraska Cornhuskers
8 of 14Ameer Abdullah's game-winning TD catch vs. McNeese State
The inability to win the big games led to coach Bo Pelini getting fired after seven seasons despite at least nine victories every year. This is how it went in 2014, as the Cornhuskers were 0-3 against ranked opponents and 9-0 against unranked foes.
That latter mark could have been 8-1 if not for a thrilling play made by star running back Ameer Abdullah early in the season.
Shockingly tied at home against FCS opponent McNeese State in early September, Nebraska got the ball at its own 38-yard line with 1:14 left. It couldn't do much on the first two plays, leaving it with 3rd-and-6 and overtime certainly in the cards.
That is, until Abdullah caught a short pass from Tommy Armstrong a few yards shy of the first-down marker, then showed off his moves and footwork to shake off tackles and dodge defenders for a 58-yard touchdown with 20 seconds left for the 31-24 win. Brian Christopherson of the Lincoln Journal Star described the moment perfectly:
"Ameer Abdullah, tired of four quarters of nonsense, looked like a man who had had enough when he bounced off about five defenders, like some sort of video-game character, taking what would be a 3-yard play for most mortals and turning it into a 58-yard piece of art, one of the most incredible game-winning touchdowns you’ll see.
"
Northwestern Wildcats
9 of 14
Overtime win at Notre Dame
Since starting the 2013 season 4-0, Northwestern has lost 14 of 20 games to finish with losing records in back-to-back years for the first time since 2002-03. Yet this year the Wildcats won three games that a team on such a rough stretch normally wouldn't be able to pull off.
The most improbable of those came in mid-November, when Northwestern went to Notre Dame on a four-game losing streak and was facing a Fighting Irish team smarting from a blowout loss to Arizona State the week before. The game had all the makings of one where the home team would take out its frustrations on an overmatched foe, but Northwestern didn't play along.
Instead, the Wildcats bounced back from a 20-9 hole after one quarter by staying close throughout, then mounted a late rally with 11 points in the final 4:10 to force overtime, where Jack Mitchell hit a 45-yard field goal with 19 seconds left in regulation.
Mitchell then connected on a 41-yard field goal in OT, after Notre Dame missed a kick of its own, and Northwestern had a 43-40 victory.
Ohio State Buckeyes
10 of 14
Big Ten title shutout of Wisconsin to earn playoff bid
Ohio State has won all 24 Big Ten regular-season games under coach Urban Meyer, but the Buckeyes weren't eligible for the conference title in 2012 and lost to Michigan State in last year's title game. The loss last season cost OSU a shot at the national championship, and to get a spot in this season's playoff field it needed an impressive win against Wisconsin in the conference final.
Mission accomplished.
Ohio State crushed the Badgers 59-0, doing so with a third-string quarterback and against a Wisconsin defense that had come into the game ranked first in the country in yards allowed.
"I don't think there's any doubt we're one of the top four teams in America," Meyer told the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium during the postgame trophy ceremony, per Michael Marot of the Associated Press (h/t Yahoo).
Even with Cardale Jones starting in place of the injured J.T. Barrett (who himself was a replacement for the injured Braxton Miller), OSU's offense was unstoppable and its defense shut down FBS rushing leader Melvin Gordon.
The result was impressive enough to convince the playoff selection committee to award Ohio State the No. 4 seed, along with a game against No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
Penn State Nittany Lions
11 of 14
Sam Ficken's game-winning field goal in Ireland
James Franklin's hiring as Penn State's coach in January was met with great optimism that he could help carry the program out of its dark times and back to a level of prominence. A 4-0 start to his first year was a good way to help meet expectations, as was a thrilling debut victory in a far-off locale.
Penn State and UCF opened the 2014 season in Dublin, Ireland, playing a game called the Croke Park Classic. It proved to be a classic, too, with the Nittany Lions pulling out a 26-24 victory in dramatic fashion.
PSU led 20-10 after three quarters before UCF rallied to take a 24-23 lead with 1:13 remaining. That set the stage for sophomore quarterback Christian Hackenberg, who threw for a school-record 454 yards that included 47 on the final drive, along with an eight-yard run. His 18-yard pass to Geno Lewis with three seconds left put the game in the hands of kicker Sam Ficken, who had already made three other field goals on the day.
Ficken hit his 36-yard field goal as time expired and was quickly swarmed by his teammates in celebration.
PSU struggled in the second half of the season, finishing 6-6, but because its NCAA sanctions (including a bowl ban) were lifted in September, the Lions were able to accept a bid to play Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl.
Purdue Boilermakers
12 of 14
Austin Appleby wins first start at Illinois
Purdue tripled its win total from a season ago, rising from 1-11 to 3-9 in coach Darrell Hazell's second year on the job. This past season also included Hazell's first Big Ten win, a surprising 38-27 road victory at Illinois in early October.
The Boilermakers had made a change at quarterback before the game, going with sophomore Austin Appleby for his first career start. Appleby completed 15 of 20 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown, an 80-yard strike to Danny Anthrop that gave Purdue a 24-14 lead midway through the third quarter.
Purdue also ran for 349 yards in the game, with Appleby contributing 76 yards and two scores to go along with Akeem Hunt's 177 yards and a TD.
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
13 of 14
Big comeback at Maryland
Rutgers' first season in the Big Ten was an up-and-down one, with a near-miss in its first conference game against Penn State and a milestone victory over Michigan. There were also a lot of blowout losses, and another appeared in the books halfway through the Scarlet Knights' finale at Maryland.
Trailing 35-17—only because Gary Nova connected with Andre Patton for a one-yard touchdown pass with nine seconds left in the second quarter—Rutgers scored on its first four second-half drives while its defense held Maryland to three points and 123 yards after allowing 353 yards in the first half.
Kyle Federico's 25-yard field goal with 6:14 left gave Rutgers a 41-38 lead, which it would hold on to after Maryland missed a long field goal and turned the ball over on downs on its final two drives.
The win was especially rewarding for Scarlet Knights offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen, who spent 10 seasons as Maryland's coach before getting fired in 2010.
Wisconsin Badgers
14 of 14
Melvin Gordon shatters rushing record vs. Nebraska
The record no longer exists, but the memories can't be erased of what Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon did in mid-November on a snowy day in Madison.
The Badgers running back needed only three quarters to rush for 408 yards, which at the time set the FBS single-game record that had stood for 15 years. His fourth touchdown run, a 26-yard scamper on the final play of the third quarter, gave him the record...which he held for a mere week, before Oklahoma's Samaje Perine ran for 427 yards against Kansas.
Wisconsin rode Gordon's big day to pace a 59-24 win over Nebraska, a game it trailed 17-3 early in the second quarter. Gordon ended up rushing for 2,336 yards and needs 293 in the Badgers' bowl game (Jan. 1 vs. Auburn in the Outback Bowl) to eclipse Barry Sanders' single-season mark of 2,628 yards. Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer called Gordon's season "one of the most historic and unfortunately timed stretches of brilliance the sport has ever seen."
Gordon was a Heisman finalist, finishing second to Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
