College football has started in earnest with the Big Ten having Week 1 games on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and even Sunday.
The week kicked off with Minnesota hosting Nebraska, only for the Huskers to do what they’ve been known to do: lose by one score.
On Friday, Michigan State struggled in the first half against Central Michigan before asserting itself in the second half.
Saturday featured more teams in action: Michigan, Penn State and Wisconsin earned what appeared to be easy victories. Ohio State had to fight Indiana in Bloomington, Iowa had a typical Iowa victory and Illinois nearly lost to a MAC team. Purdue did lose to a Group of Five team, and Maryland cruised against and Football Championship Subdivision team.
Sunday featured Rutgers flexing against Northwestern.
All-in-all, the Big Ten didn’t exactly flex in ways we saw some other teams in other conferences do (Oregon and Oklahoma come to mind in their lopsided contests) but it mostly got the job done. Now that all of the Week 1 games have been decided, here are our Week 1 Big Ten power rankings.