The Big Ten Becomes The Irrelevant Eleven

The once powerful Big Ten conference has fallen on tough times these last few seasons. This is even more evident this season when, only into week three almost every single team has either a loss or a close win they shouldn’t have. The only one that doesn’t is Penn State and that’s because they have the likes of Temple and Syracuse on their schedule. It’s been a decade now since the Big Ten was thought of as more than a punch line to ESPN and CBS Sports. Since 2002 no team for the Big 10 has won a BCS Title, the flagship team of the conference, Ohio State has tried and failed miserably in 2006 and 2007. Where is Michigan and Penn State you ask? At home losing to Toledo and Appalachian State, when speaking for Michigan. As for Penn State they’re still wondering what happened in last years Rose Bowl with USC.

Time and time again the Big Ten’s top tier teams go into battle highly ranked, just to come out humiliated in the national spotlight. It’s not just the top tier of the Big Ten with this huge issue, Michigan State lost to Central Michigan at home this weekend and Wisconsin needed to go into overtime to beat Fresno State. That’s the same Fresno State team that lost to Wisconsin 10-12 in Fresno last year by missing two field goals inside their 40. Speaking of overtime, Minnesota needed one to get by the Syracuse Orange during the opening weekend. Syracuse has a quarterback who hasn’t played football in 5 years and comes in giving the Gophers all they could handle. Illinois pegged as a dark horse candidate for the Big 10 Title got throttled by a Missouri team that is supposed to finish middle of the pack in the Big 12 North. That’s right I said Big 12 North, not the Big 12 overall. Iowa also a dark horse candidate needed to block two field goals by Northern Iowa in the closing seconds to narrowly escape being another Big Ten team that’s lost to a FCS division team. Ohio State looses at home in their citadel call the Horseshoe to a freshman quarterback in his first road start, with a USC team that’s one of the least talented in the Pete Carroll era.

Last years bowl record continues to prove that the Big Ten doesn’t stack up to the other BCS Conferences, and some of the teams in lesser conferences such as the MAC, Mountain West and WAC. Michigan bucked its yearly trend of loosing to a horrendous team in the early part of the season, and beats a Notre Dame team also in the rebuilding process for the conference’s marquee win of the season. Ohio State and Penn State square off, more than likely for the Big Ten Title later on in November. The winner more than likely goes to play USC in the Rose Bowl and the loser will play a SEC team in the Capital One Bowl. Depending on that match up the Big Ten’s reputation will fall even more considering that Ohio State is the well-documented 0-9 versus the SEC in bowl games and USC has shown they’re in a different class than any team in the Big Ten. It’s a long road for the Big Ten to recover to prominence back to what it once was. Is it possible? Yes. Is it probable? Not this season.