Update: We originally released these power rankings on Thursday, but a lot has happened since then that has altered the landscape of the Big Ten. From Washington losing their head coach Kalen DeBoer, to Ohio State getting some massive announcements that key players are returning for 2024, it’s clear that things have changed. On top of that, the Oregon Ducks have added a pair of elite transfer portal players, improving their outlook for the season as well. Because of this, we updated the ‘way-too-early’ power rankings at the top. The updates only impacted the top 8 teams; everyone below that stayed in their original spots.
The 2023 college football season has officially come to an end, which means that the past several days have been spent prematurely looking ahead to the 2024 season and what it might bring.
What it will bring is a completely new era of college football. Conference realignment will bring the death of a Power Five conference, and an expanded College Football Playoff will allow 12 teams to compete for a championship. As the week has gone on, we’ve looked at ESPN’s way-too-early Top 25 rankings, and we also made some predictions of our own, projecting which 12 teams will ultimately make it into the first expanded playoff.
Now we want to look at the predictions by conference. The Oregon Ducks, along with USC, UCLA, and Washington, are joining the Big Ten Conference, where they will compete with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State for a conference title.
With the transfer portal still churning and recruiting classes yet to be finalized, it’s a bit too early to get a perfect look at roster construction for each school, but at this moment in time, here are our power rankings for the 2024 season in the Big Ten: