It was a smaller slate of games in Week 9 for the Big Ten Conference, with just five games being played last week.
One of those games was, of course, the Huskers’ 31-14 win over the Purdue Boilermakers, giving Matt Rhule’s program their fifth win in their last six games. With the win, the Cornhuskers, like most of the Big Ten West, control their destiny. It’s straightforward, if the Huskers can win out the remainder of their schedule, they’ll represent the Big Ten West in the Big Ten Championship game in December in Indianapolis.
Beyond the Huskers and Boilermakers, the Big Ten also saw the now No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes defeat the Wisconsin Badgers 24-10 in Madison behind a big day from Treyveon Henderson.
Penn State survived an upset scare from Indiana, the Hoosiers and Nittany Lions being tied late in the fourth quarter before a 57-yard touchdown pass in the final minutes won the game for Penn State.
Northwestern won their fourth game of the season with a 33-27 win over Maryland, the Terrapins third consecutive loss, and Minnesota defeated Michigan State 27-12, giving the Spartans their sixth straight loss.
| HOME | HOME SCORE | AWAY | AWAY SCORE |
| Wisconsin Badgers | 10 | Ohio State Buckeyes | 24 |
| Penn State Nittany Lions | 33 | Indiana Hoosiers | 24 |
| Northwestern Wildcats | 33 | Maryland Terrapins | 27 |
| Minnesota Golden Gophers | 27 | Michigan State Spartans | 12 |
| Nebraska Cornhuskers | 31 | Purdue Boilermakers | 14 |
With that, here is how the Big Ten standings look after week nine, which players took home the conference’s weekly awards, how ESPN’s FPI view each program in the conference, how the conference’s quarterbacks stack up in terms of QBR and a look ahead to the schedule for Week 10.