Big Ten Football: Who Will Challenge Michigan and Wisconsin?
- Previous Leaders and Legends: Who Wins the Big 10 in 2012?
- Next 2012 College Football Win Totals: Nebraska
2 thoughts on “Big Ten Football: Who Will Challenge Michigan and Wisconsin?”
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MAXIMIZE YOUR EDGE
The Legends division is what I have been focusing on. It’s probably the most intriguing of the two divisons because it’s like a roulette wheel. You can spin it and it could come up 4 different teams to win it. With Nebraska it’s all about getting over the hump. And I’m not sure they can do it with Pelini and this coaching staff, which is in my opinion much inferior to the coaching staff that Hoke has put together at Michigan.
With Michigan, it’s pretty impressive what Hoke was able to do in his first season. But I think this team overachieved in 2011. For one thing, they had an extremely favorable schedule. And were one of only a handful of college programs who had 8 home games. This year they won’t be catching that kind of scheduling break with 6 road games (including neutral site game with Bama). So this is the team I’m most curious about. I believe they’ll have to improve on defense to win their divison.
Right now Michigan State is my pick. They’ll be playing with a bit of a chip on their shouilder this year after losing the Big 10 title game and then getting snubbed for a BCS bowl in place of Michigan, who they defeated during the season. Plus I’ve heard some talk that Maxwell will be a better QB than people are expecting. So we’ll see. But I was very impressed with the Spartans defense last year.
I wouldn’t rule Iowa completely out since all of the teams in this divison seem to have a weakness or two of some kind. Plus although I’m not a big Greg Davis fan, I think in his first season his offense could confuse some of these traditional Big 10 defenses, and give a few teams a run for their money. Plus it doesn’t hurt that he has a senior QB to work with. So you never know, they could surprise some teams with his new offensive wrinkles.