After all the conjecture and projections of what we thought each team in the Big Ten will look like, we now have some actual, real, live football to react to and use to try to figure out the pecking order of the conference.
However, it would be foolish to think that what we saw during Week 1 of the college football season is what we’re going to see going forward. Teams that looked great during their first game can change the narrative if they don’t back it up in Week 2. Still — at least we saw some things to help us make educated guesses on what the power of the Big Ten conference is.
Sort of.
Each week during the season we take stock in what we saw on the field of play and determine which Big Ten teams are playing the best at the moment in our weekly Big Ten football power rankings.
And there’s still a lot of questions. Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Michigan State didn’t feel like well-oiled machines at times, but looking across the conference, it’s hard to find a team that did.
Here’s our Week 1 Big Ten power rankings to set a baseline for 2023.