What is the State of the Big Ten After Week One?

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SHGopher

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-Michigan and Ohio State vied for the #1 spot entering the season. Where is this at? Ohio State seems to have questions at QB. Michigan QB JJ McCarthy completed 86.7% of his passes in a thrashing of East Carolina.

-Penn State a close #3 entering the season. Has that changed? Penn State QB Drew Allar threw for 325 yards and 3 touchdowns with a 72% completion rate and no interceptions in week one.

-Then these four are closely matched together fighting for the West championship: Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois. Oddsmakers put them in that order. I had switched Iowa to the front of that list for my assessment.

-Both Minnesota and Illinois had to come from behind to win, the Gophers doing that against a power 5 Big Ten team.

-Wisconsin fans must be worried about their "destined to make the national championship game Brett Favre II" quarterback Tanner Mediocricai. Has Wisconsin fallen behind Minnesota in the four-team battle royal?

-Last game of the season is Wisconsin at Minnesota.
 

SHGopher said:
-Michigan and Ohio State vied for the #1 spot entering the season. Where is this at? Ohio State seems to have questions at QB. Michigan QB JJ McCarthy completed 86.7% of his passes in a thrashing of East Carolina.

-Penn State a close #3 entering the season. Has that changed? Penn State QB Drew Allar threw for 325 yards and 3 touchdowns with a 72% completion rate and no interceptions in week one.

-Then these four are closely matched together fighting for the West championship: Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois. Oddsmakers put them in that order. I had switched Iowa to the front of that list for my assessment.

-Both Minnesota and Illinois had to come from behind to win, the Gophers doing that against a power 5 Big Ten team.

-Wisconsin fans must be worried about their "destined to make the national championship game Brett Favre II" quarterback Tanner Mediocricai. Has Wisconsin fallen behind Minnesota in the four-team battle royal?

-Last game of the season is Wisconsin at Minnesota.
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Every single BIG West team looked like crap —wide open for any team to win it !
 


Wisconsin running game looks pretty, pretty good. Formidable, very experienced one-two punch. Braelon Allen up to 245 lbs? Looks like they won’t be relying on Mordecai to win them games. Things Mordecai does right will be a bonus; looks as though he is capable of going “Jeff Sims” regarding interceptions.
 



Rowthatboat said:
Every single BIG West team looked like crap —wide open for any team to win it !
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Not wide open for Purdue or northwestern. They’re bad

Nebraska could probably beat everyone in the division in a one off game. But they already have a loss and their next big ten game is vs Michigan.
Then they are @ Illinois oct 6.
Then bye.

Nebraska may not get a big ten win until oct 21
 






Gopher 461 said:
One game does not make a season for the Gophers but the run game and Special Teams have to be fixed. The Defense looks pretty good.
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Especially with college kids and the transfer portal. I bet we will se sloppy early season games more frequently now, so many off season changes even for the teams that keep their coaching staff in order.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
My only concern is that, among the West “contenders,” the Gophers showed the most pronounced inability to score. Hope the offense gels soon—or we will be relying on Rossi’s troops more than ever.
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Certainly have my concerns but not looking at it that way. Among the West "contenders" the Gophers were also the only one to face a real defense. The only Power Five Conference one at that.
 
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My take on everything is simple. It was week 1 and a lot of teams are only going to improve from here. Athan is going to be a top 5 QB in the conference by years end. Mordecai will not. Although, his 1st interception reminded me a bit of Athan's 1st where he simply threw it late. His second one looked like he tried throwing it to the LB. As a 35 year old college QB, he should be better than that.
 

time to throw out one of the classic coaching cliches:

"most teams will see their biggest growth from week #1 to week #2!"

and there is a germ of truth in that. with limited contact during training camp, week #1 is the first opportunity to evaluate your team against another opponent who is going full speed with live hitting. coaches can break down the video and do a lot of teaching while correcting mistakes. if necessary, personnel changes can be made.

so most teams will look different as the season goes on.
 



I didn’t see many of the games but reading box scores and watching highlights looks like teams mostly lived up to their predictions, or suspicions as it may be. Too soon to draw any sweeping conclusions but I don’t think there were a lot of big surprises either.

Iowa’s 24 pts made me chuckle. Can’t fix Mordecai at this point in his career. Wisconsin will have to live with the ups and downs of an impatient gunslinger at QB. Not the AAC anymore. Michigan looks tough. Ohio State…dunno. The last of Urban’s players and culture have left?
 

Gophergrandpa said:
Wisconsin running game looks pretty, pretty good. Formidable, very experienced one-two punch. Braelon Allen up to 245 lbs? Looks like they won’t be relying on Mordecai to win them games. Things Mordecai does right will be a bonus; looks as though he is capable of going “Jeff Sims” regarding interceptions.
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Notice that while Becky rushed for more than 300 yards, they threw it 31 times. Pretty clear they could have won with 0 passes but used it to keep the defense honest and running lanes unplugged.
 

Wisconsin isn’t keeping its playbook “under wraps” until they face B1G opponents. It looks like they’re using all the plays currently installed to shake off the rust, get the bugs out, familiarize players with the plays at game speed, review player performances, etc. Good way to develop competences early in the season.
 

Funny that Ryan Day has the best winning percentage in first 5 years of any coach and could be on the hot seat. They did not look at all good yesterday. They'll get better, of course. Can they beat PSU and Michigan? To be seen.
 

Sparlimb said:
Funny that Ryan Day has the best winning percentage in first 5 years of any coach and could be on the hot seat. They did not look at all good yesterday. They'll get better, of course. Can they beat PSU and Michigan? To be seen.
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The shadow of Urban, maybe. A noticeable decline in certain areas, maybe. Crazy thing is, they were very close to a championship last year. They led by 2 touchdowns over Georgia in the second half and collapsed down the stretch, and yet were still one Dragan Kesich away from winning. Gut punch. I don’t know. Poor guys.
 

WI run game did look good, against Buffalo. Their QB play was shaky and they were really off in the first half. I was concerned that we didn’t move the ball well against Nebraska. But WI play against a way weaker opponent wasn’t setting the world on fire.
 

Many good thoughts here. What I didn’t hear was how sharp the Gopher offense and defense both looked in the last 5 minutes of the game to tie the score, then force a Nebraska turnover with a couple of minutes left and then get in position for a 45 yard plus clutch game winning field goal as time expired.

That was VERY good as far as I was concerned. It put one conference game win in the record book!
 


Was going to start a similar thread but was planning to wait till the Northwestern/Rutgers pillow fight was over. :)

My take on the big ten in week one was....meh....

Nobody really stood out but nobody looked surprisingly bad either (outside of maybe Ohio State struggling more than expected with Indiana).

West looks as wide open as always, nice to have a 1 game jump on everyone at this point. Iowa fans were less than impressed by their new offense, they started like gangbusters than to stuck at 24 against a pretty mediocre Utah State team. They needed to pile up the points in that one in order to hopefully average 25 for the season :)
 


Gophergrandpa said:
Wisconsin running game looks pretty, pretty good. Formidable, very experienced one-two punch. Braelon Allen up to 245 lbs? Looks like they won’t be relying on Mordecai to win them games. Things Mordecai does right will be a bonus; looks as though he is capable of going “Jeff Sims” regarding interceptions.
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Buffalo connects on a few scoring chances and wi woulda moved to passing. Maybe same ending but different stats
 


walrus said:
I haven’t been here for so long and couldn’t recall password. Yep, I am a very old GH person…a man of many former monikers.

Life is so good!
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BilldGopher said:
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;0)
 

How good does MN win look if NE ends up shutting down Colorado? I do believe we will look a lot better in the next few weeks as we adjust to what works well in our run game. NE defense was a challenge. I think our OL did really good in pass blocking and I didn't have an issue with their run blocking, as I think it was the types of runs that were called against the 3-5 defense. Optimistic things will settle in and we will separate ourselves over the next few weeks as they best team in the West.
 

walrus said:
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;0)
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