Big Ten Football: Which Teams Will Overachieve and Underachieve in 2015?

The 2015 college football season is a few months away, and with spring practices receding into memories for most Big Ten programs, eyes are turning toward the fall. The name of the game is expectations and whether "Dear Old U" can live up to them. In that vein, we're going to lay out some predictions based on those early forecasts—will these teams fail to live up to the hype, or exceed expectations?

College football is a notoriously difficult sport to make accurate predictions in. There's so much that changes from year to year, and it seems as if no two seasons are ever the same for any program. A few short seasons ago, we were all hearing about the demise of the Big Ten and how college football had passed the conference by. The Michigan State Spartans' flash-in-the-pan status seemed to be confirmed after a 7-6 season in 2012.

Over the following two seasons, Michigan State won the Rose Bowl and the CFP Committee-selected Cotton Bowl, while the Ohio State Buckeyes won the first-ever College Football Playoff.

So which Big Ten teams will be next to defy expectations? Which Big Ten programs will fall flat in 2015? Here are our picks for the five teams that will overachieve and underachieve in 2015.

Underperform: Wisconsin Badgers

MORRY GASH/Associated Press

It's hard enough to overcome player losses like Melvin Gordon, Kenzel Doe, Kyle Costigan and Rob Havenstein, but combined with new head coach Paul Chryst and the inevitable changes his coaching style will bring, the Wisconsin Badgers might not be able to keep up their West Division title-winning ways forever.

There also are the underlying questions surrounding Wisconsin's inability to keep a head coach for very long. Bret Bielema was hired to replace Barry Alvarez, who remained at Wisconsin as the athletic director after cementing his status as a Badgers legend. After seven successful seasons (a 68-24 record), Bielema suddenly and surprisingly resigned and took over at the Arkansas Razorbacks—at best, a lateral move (and that's probably being pretty generous to Arkansas).

To replace Bielema, Alvarez hired Gary Andersen. After just two seasons—again, successful with a 19-7 record—Andersen resigned to take a job with the Oregon State Beavers, a move not even Oregon State fans could dream of calling "lateral."

Could Alvarez, the man who is synonymous with the institution of Wisconsin football, be the problem? Some, like Yahoo's Pat Forde, vehemently believe he is. Others, particularly those who have an allegiance to the program in one form or another, like SB Nation's Adam Hoge, think that's nonsense.

It's worth noting that Hoge is a Wisconsin graduate, while Forde attended Missouri.

Whether or not you believe Alvarez is somehow affecting the program—be it through micromanaging, his influential presence or some other means—it does appear as if Wisconsin has become a place in which coaches don't stay invested very long.

With all of that added to the aforementioned player losses from 2014, we can't help but predict that the Badgers will underperform in 2015.

Overperform: Michigan State Spartans

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

There's not a whole lot of room for improvement at Michigan State, especially when one takes a gander at the last couple of seasons in East Lansing. A Big Ten title in 2013 followed by a Rose Bowl victory and an impressive win over the Big 12 co-champion Baylor Bears in the Cotton Bowl last season.

So, how can we predict the Spartans will beat expectations in 2015? Well, it depends on who you ask.

For years, nay, decades, Michigan State's modus operandi had typically revolved around a great season or two followed by several seasons of mediocre, middling performances. Why was MSU such an up-and-down program for all of those years, and what has changed?

Coaching has a lot to do with it. Nick Saban took over an MSU team that was 5-6 in 1994 (and later vacated those five wins) and 14-20 in the three years prior to that. Saban turned the Spartans back in the right direction before bolting for the LSU Tigers.

Then came Bobby Williams and John L. Smith. Enough said.

But there seems to be something different about the Mark Dantonio era at Michigan State. Gone, apparently, are the "same old Spartans" who start a season on a high note only to let a midseason loss derail the rest of the year.

Gone, too, apparently are the days of a coach using MSU as a stepping stone. Dantonio famously replied to a question about his candidacy for the job at Texas with, "I see Michigan State as a destination, not a stop."

So, if you're the kind of person that still believes in the ghosts of the "same old Spartans," you probably find yourself expecting MSU to fall flat at any moment. We, however, think those days are resigned to history. This is a program that has learned how to handle success, finally.

In 2015, Michigan State will outperform the expectations of those who expect a once-trademarked Spartan collapse.

Underperform: Purdue Boilermakers

Michael Hickey/Getty Images

Expectations were high for the Purdue Boilermakers when Darrell Hazell came in as head coach a few years ago—partly because Hazell himself set expectations so high and partly because Hazell had a résumé to back up his words.

In his two seasons as head coach for the Kent State Golden Flashes, he took a mediocre MAC program (which is saying something) and turned it into an 11-win team in his second season (2012). Kent State was one win away from securing a BCS bowl berth that season but lost in overtime in the MAC Championship Game to the Northern Illinois Huskies (which, instead, earned the automatic BCS berth as the highest non-automatic qualifying conference champion ranked by the BCS).

Since arriving at Purdue, however, Hazell's Boilermakers have been worse than bad. The team was so atrocious in 2013 that its lone win came against an FCS program that had one win on the season (which was, in turn, against a 2-9 Division II program).

So far, with a 4-20 record at Purdue (including a 1-15 mark in conference play), it's not a stretch to call the Hazell era something considerably less than a success.

What's on the horizon for 2015? The Boilermakers will be an exceptionally young team on both sides of the football. The offense will have just a pair of seniors in tackle David Hedelin and center Robert Kugler. The defense is similarly young, with Ryan Watson and Anthony Brown as the lone returning seniors.

Maybe being so young won't be so bad in the long run. The last group of upperclassmen weren't producing much in West Lafayette, and now, Hazell will have the opportunity to cultivate the new crop of young football players. In the short term, however, we think Purdue's youth and inexperience will keep it from improving on last season's 3-9 mark much, if at all. 

Overperform: Michigan Wolverines

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Forget about everything that has happened at the University of Michigan since the final game of the 2014 season. Now, consider the fact that the Wolverines are returning nine offensive starters and eight on defense for 2015.

Based on how that exact same group fared in 2014, it might be easy to write Michigan off for 2015, and many fans in Columbus and East Lansing are already doing just that.

But now, when you add head coach Jim Harbaugh into the mix, things aren't so clear. Sure, Michigan's underperforming roster is heading back to campus nearly intact this fall, but before we can expect more of the same disappointment in Ann Arbor, we have to figure out why the Wolverines fell so woefully short on nearly every goal set under Brady Hoke.

A general lack of player development hung around Hoke's neck like an albatross, and despite putting together a roster that promised to ooze talent, the Wolverines could never win the big games and even managed to lose a few not-so-big games.

Harbaugh, in stark contrast to Hoke, has managed to do more with less at many of his head coaching stops around the nation. Now that he has the resources of a program like Michigan, we expect big things down the road.

We also expect some noticeable improvements in the short term. Getting back to six wins and a bowl won't be enough for Harbaugh; the Wolverines will defy expectations and enter November near the top of the East Division standings.

Saying there is another matter entirely, but the simple fact that Michigan will (easily) earn a bowl berth this season and find itself back in the hunt is reason enough to put the Wolverines squarely in the "overperform" category for 2015.

Underachieve: Ohio State Buckeyes

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Ohio State Buckeyes fans are notoriously narcissistic about their football team, so to even suggest that the Buckeyes could underperform in 2015 is probably a capital felony in the state of Ohio.

That being said, it's important to recognize that we're not in any way, shape or fashion suggesting that Ohio State won't be any good in 2015. Quite the contrary, Ohio State, even in our minds, is still the favorite to win the Big Ten title again this fall.

But, going back to Buckeyes fans' pomposity, we have to look at what Ohio State fans expect from the Buckeyes this season. That's pretty simple: anything short of another College Football Playoff title will be viewed as somehow falling short.

Ohio State will have 14 starters from last season's team returning for 2015, including a small handful of All-Conference honorees and a pair of All-American players in Joey Bosa and J.T. Barrett. The rest of the cast isn't too shabby, either. Cardale Jones is back, as well, likely along with Braxton Miller, giving Urban Meyer easily the best three-deep quarterback group in the nation.

So, what's the problem? How on earth could we ever imagine Ohio State wouldn't live up to its national championship expectations this season?

Simple. It's hard enough to win one title, much less do it back-to-back. Even assuming Ohio State will be the best team throughout the entirety of 2015, the odds always—always—favor the field.

Could Alabama or Florida State or Oregon make another run at the title in 2015? Certainly. What about TCU or Michigan State or USC? Definitely possible. There's even a chance that some darkhorse candidate to which no one is paying much attention could step up and make a run at the title (think about where Ohio State's title chances were on Sept. 7, 2014).

Our friends over at OddsShark.com have early odds on next year's national title for Ohio State ranging from 4-1 to 11-2. That roughly means there's somewhere between an 18 percent and 25 percent chance Ohio State will win the national title. Pretty good odds, and the best in the nation (with Alabama and TCU close behind at 7-1 to 15-2).

But to put it another way, there's a 75 percent to 82 percent chance Ohio State doesn't win the national championship. A much safer bet, and the main reason why we expect Ohio State to underperform in 2015—simply by failing to win its second consecutive College Football Playoff title.

Follow Bleacher Report National College Football Featured Columnist David Luther on Twitter.