Tag: Big Ten Football Power Rankings

We’re in the home stretch of the college football season and it won’t be long before we know which two teams will head to Indianapolis to battle in the Big Ten Championship game. Ohio State has nearly been a mainstay in the game lately, but this year, a few challengers have emerged to provide some potential resistance to a fifth-straight title.

It’s been a crazy year that has ebbed and flowed. Some thought Iowa was clearly the best team in the Big Ten, but that soured quickly when the defense couldn’t create turnovers. Then it was Michigan and Michigan State that got their turns as the perception beast.

Now, as we sit here with just three games to go on the schedule in Big Ten play, Ohio State is still right there back in first place in the East Division. I guess that’s what everyone gets for writing the Buckeyes off early in the season after a loss to Oregon.

But we digress. Each week we try and sort out which teams in the league are playing the best from worst to first, and it’s no different this week. Here’s a look at our latest Big Ten football power rankings after Week 10.

With each passing week, the pecking order in the Big Ten becomes clearer and clearer. We’re now nine weeks into the college football season, five of those in-conference, so we’re now more than halfway through the league schedule.

The game of the week in college football took place in East Lansing and gave Michigan State a big boost in what we all thought its ceiling was. But how does Michigan’s loss affect its standing in the league, and what about Ohio State having to tough out a game against Penn State team that shot its best shot to spring an upset in Columbus?

We digest it all and give you our latest Big Ten football power rankings after nine weeks of play.

What a week of college football. Not just in the Big Ten, but across the country as the CFB gods blessed us with several epic games and drama we crave. And it never gets old. Just when you think college football has served up one of the best seasons ever, we seem to do it all over again the following year.

So far this season, we’ve seen several of the top dogs go down not even halfway through the schedule. Ohio State and Clemson lost early on, Notre Dame fell last week, and Alabama received a mark in the right-hand column this past weekend. If any year is wide open, it’s this one.

Now, about the Big Ten. Each week we rank teams based on who is playing best in our weekly power rankings, and it sure looked like the league was as wide open as it had been in a long time. Ohio State struggled to find its identity and personnel early, while teams like Iowa, Penn State, Michigan, and Michigan State defeated all challengers.

Iowa, Michigan, and Michigan State are still unbeaten, but Penn State fell from the top of the hill to No. Iowa on Saturday. Then, there’s the big scarlet and gray elephant in the room. Not so quietly, the Buckeyes are again looking like the Buckeyes with arguably the best offense in the country and an ever-improving defense.

That all has changed our Big Ten power rankings after Week 6, with what we call a return of the king.

Each week, we take a look back and try to determine what team in the Big Ten is playing the best on the football field. For the longest time, that team has often been Ohio State. However, early this season, we’ve seen some struggles from the team wearing scarlet and gray, with others like Iowa, Penn State, and Michigan rising up to challenge the bully on the block.

So yeah, for the first time in a few seasons, Ohio State’s perch among our power rankings has slipped. It’s the first real sign of adversity in the league we’ve seen since Ryan Day put the whistle around his neck after the 2019 Rose Bowl.

But now that the Buckeyes have had two very impressive weeks, has that changed our power rankings at all? In short, yes, but is it enough to move OSU to the top?