1. Michigan (finally had the kind of season like they had in the old days despite the playoff shellacking)
2. Ohio St (offensively fantastic but kind of indifferent defensively until they have to bear down)
3. Michigan St (they didn't appear to be the strongest team in the world but 11 wins is 11 wins)
4. Iowa (maybe we should have been a better team than Iowa but we failed to prove it on the field when we had the opportunity)
5. Minnesota
6. Wisconsin (a better team than the Badger team we beat 3 years ago but, despite their fantastic defense, they still appear more beatable in their current phase than they have for most of this century)
7. Purdue (I'm actually happy for their success this season and I don't say that about rivals often)
8. Penn St (had no business being in the Outback Bowl and I'm glad they lost even though I'm a PA native)
9. Maryland (not a very good team but, man-o-man, can they beat the hell out of bad teams)
10. Illinois (they impressed at times this year but then they also lost to Rutgers)
11. Nebraska (brutal schedule; not a good team but better than their record)
12. Rutgers (the only conference team to lose to Northwestern but they did win 2 conference games)
13. Northwestern (really surprising to see a Northwestern team that was pretty awful on both offense and defense this season)
14. Indiana (really tough schedule and probably not really worse than Northwestern this year but 0-8 in the conference speaks for itself)