Big 10 Football's Most Surprising Teams of the Year: The Overachievers

It is easy to get carried away with preseason expectations.  But it isn't always easy to believe that a team that struggled the previous year will right the ship just a year later, or that a team can survive losing a few key players to the draft.  It is easy to let the past dictate expectations for the future.

Which teams disappointed this year, and which teams outdid everyone's expectations?  Today we will take a look at those teams that surprised us.

Michigan (10-2, 6-2)

If you would have told a Michigan fan in August that the Wolverines would win eight games, go 1-2 against rivals, and end up in the Outback Bowl, I doubt many would have hesitated before saying, "I'll take it."

Meanwhile, 10 wins and a possible BCS at-large bid weren't even viewed as a credible best-case scenario.  Too many things would have had to go absolutely right just to sniff nine wins, and a back-loaded schedule that included games against Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Ohio State was daunting in the shadow of consecutive November collapses.

To say everything went right is an overstatement, but only slightly.  There was Denard Robinson's terrible day against Michigan State, as well as the egg that the offense collectively laid against an otherwise-mediocre Iowa defense.  Other than that, yeah, pretty much everything went right.

First and foremost, the Michigan defense is not the same unit that took the field last year.  Granted, most of the players are the same, but to go from one of the worst defenses in the nation to a top-25 yardage-and-scoring defense is absolutely incredible.  

The Wolverines defensive revival is a huge part of Michigan's success, but not the only factor.  A year ago, Michigan put up the kind of offensive numbers that would be hard to sustain in the midst of a coaching change, but despite that Michigan has managed to make a fairly smooth transition.  

Denard Robinson struggled as a passer for stretches but has gradually improved in the offense and now has a certifiably dominant performance to his name (165 pass yards, 170 rush yards, five touchdowns against Ohio State).  

On top of that, Michigan finally seems to have found a feature running back in Fitzgerald Toussaint.  Fitz came on in the last half of the season and gave Michigan its second season with two 1,000-yard rushers.

The future is bright for the Wolverines, who bring back the majority of both the offensive and defensive starters and add one of the nation's top recruiting classes. But a significantly tougher schedule—one that includes Alabama in Week 1—could see this team on the "Underachievers" list next year.

Penn State (9-3, 6-2)

The Nittany Lions came into the year with significant questions at quarterback that threatened to keep Penn State mired in mediocrity for a second straight year.

Three months later, we still don't have definitive answers—Matt McGloin being more the lesser of two evils than a true starter—but it turns out that the question didn't matter as much as the one that asked how much the rest of the team would improve.

The answer, apparently: a lot.

Behind the play of defensive standouts Devon Still and Gerald Hodges in the front seven, Penn State is giving up a touchdown and 50 yards fewer per game this year as a defense, and has only given up 20 points or more three times.  The Nittany Lions are in the top 25 in sacks and tackles for loss and have been suffocating against the pass (fourth in pass yards allowed, sixth in pass efficiency defense).

Perhaps most importantly as far as the Big Ten is concerned, Penn State's rush defense has improved from 74th in the nation to 34th this year—an improvement of nearly 40 yards per game.

This tougher defense has allowed Penn State to grind out wins without relying too heavily on quarterback play.  Matt McGloin hasn't needed to sling the ball 40 times a game for Penn State to win because the Nittany Lions have been able to rely on running back Silas Redd, who averages just under 100 yards per game rushing.

Penn State has amplified its strengths, controlled the tempo of games and done all of it on the way to a final game showdown for the Leaders Division title.  

While things didn't go Penn State's way against Wisconsin, it is impressive that Penn State was able to put itself in that position in the first place.

Michigan State (10-2, 7-1)

The Spartans had one thing on their mind coming into the season.  Revenge.

Michigan State finished 2010 tied at the top of the Big Ten only to see the team it beat (Wisconsin) and the team that Wisconsin beat (Ohio State) go to BCS bowls, while Michigan State was sent to the meat grinder that was a pissed-off Alabama team in the Capital One Bowl.

This year the Spartans planned to leave no doubt, and for most of the season that has held true. Michigan State opened the Big Ten season by demolishing the shaky Ohio State offense, then followed that up by holding Michigan to one of its worst offensive outputs of the year.  The next week was a win over Wisconsin in the best Big Ten game of the year.

The only black eye on the year was an uninspired loss to Nebraska in Lincoln at the end of October.

So, how can last year's co-champion earning a spot in the Big Ten title game be a surprise?  It wasn't supposed to be an easy path.

Last year's Michigan State team had a few built-in advantages on its way to a share of the Big Ten title. The first game outside the state of Michigan didn't happen until over halfway through the season. The Spartans missed Ohio State altogether, played Wisconsin at home, and beat Notre Dame on a fake field goal in overtime. The rest of the conference ended up being a bunch of 7-5 teams either coming off big years or building toward them.  

None of this was Michigan State's fault—you play who you play, and Michigan State took care of its business in all but one game—but it did raise questions for a 2011 season that would include trips to South Bend, Columbus, Lincoln, Iowa City and Evanston, as well as back-to-back home games against Michigan and Wisconsin.

In the face of a tougher schedule, what did the Spartans do?  They won nearly as many games, beat Wisconsin for the second consecutive year and finished with the best Big Ten conference record.  Now all that is left is to finish off the revenge tour in style.