Well, the dust has officially settled since last weekend’s “Separation Saturday,” and many of the nation’s elite teams will now be afforded the luxury of facing a far less challenging opponent.

Miami will get to mop up on Temple after a tough matchup with Florida State, Georgia will get to play Vanderbilt after being pitted against Tennessee, and Auburn will get to face Mississippi State after playing the previously undefeated Arkansas Razorbacks.

In the case these games turn into routs, which they probably will, Miami, Georgia and Auburn will not only gain increased confidence and a win, but will also be able to sparingly use key players who are nursing injuries.

These “let down” games, or whatever you want to call them, come few and far between for teams in the Big Ten, however — at least once the conference schedule kicks off.

While it’s not unusual for a conference to have seven teams still in the hunt this early in the season, it is downright remarkable for all of them to still be ranked.

According to the latest ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, Ohio State (8), Iowa (9), Wisconsin (12), Purdue (15), Michigan (17), Michigan State (18) and Minnesota (19) are all amongst the best 25 teams in the land.

So, who’s going to come out on top in the Big Ten this year?

Well, unless one is blessed with psychic powers or has the football prowess of someone as “all-knowing” as Terry Bowden, who by the way gave Wisconsin a “zero chance of winning” against Ohio State, pretty much nobody can say with any unwavering confidence who is going to win the conference this season.

Every game from here on out is going to be a test for Wisconsin and company — and tomorrow will be no exception.

At the top of the list as far as rankings go, Saturday’s biggest matchup in the Big Ten will be the Ohio State/Iowa showdown in Columbus.

The Buckeyes are the No. 8 ranked team in the country, and they haven’t lost a ball game in “The Horseshoe” since Nov. 17, 2001.

Extending their home winning streak against the Hawkeyes will be easier said than done, however.

Led by senior running back Fred Russell, who has already rushed for 726 yards and three touchdowns, Iowa looks poised to duplicate their Big Ten Championship run of a year ago. They’ve already managed to get by Michigan, and their defense is once again a force to be reckoned with. Whether they can keep the ball rolling remains to be seen, but a victory over the Buckeyes would be a huge step in the right direction.

As any fan of Wisconsin or Purdue could already tell you, though, the “Bucks” matchup with the Hawkeyes is not the only big game in the conference this weekend.

The Badgers, who catapulted ten spots in the rankings after their 17-10 upset of the Buckeyes, will look to defend their No. 12 ranking and undefeated conference record against Kyle Orton and the Boilermakers.

Orton has already thrown 10 touchdown passes, which is just two shy of his season total in 2002, and his passer rating is an astounding 136.0.

Coach Tiller hasn’t relied on the pass as much as he did when Drew Brees was donning Purdue’s black-n-gold, but with Orton at quarterback and a pair of efficient receivers in Taylor Stubblefield and John Standeford, he hasn’t been shy about airing it out either.

This one could be a thriller; both teams are nationally ranked, it’s Wisconsin’s Homecoming and the Badgers are coming off one of the biggest wins in school history. Add GameDay’s Lee, Chris and Kirk to the mix, and this is arguably the most highly anticipated game of the entire weekend.

But tomorrow’s excitement in the Big Ten doesn’t end there, my friend.

Michigan State and Minnesota are ranked No. 18 and 19, respectively, and both will be looking to silence their critics in their clash tomorrow.

Coming into the season, Jeff Smoker and the Spartans were written off by pretty much every college football analyst and expert in the country; they had a new head coach, were fresh off a dismal 4-8 season and had lost their most potent offensive weapon with the departure of Charles Rogers.

Putting those things aside, MSU has surprised everyone (except Terry Bowden, of course) by jumping out to a 6-1 start and defeating both Iowa and Notre Dame along the way.

Quarterback Jeff Smoker has seemingly rebounded from his personal trials of a year ago, and a victory over Minnesota would further prove Michigan State is a legit contender for the Big Ten title this year.

Tallying their seventh win against the Gophers will be anything but a cakewalk, though.

Minnesota’s Marion Barber III — and this is not a typo — already has 14 touchdowns this season, and he is averaging just under seven yards per carry. Combine his presence on the ground with senior quarterback Asad Abdul-Khaliq in the passing game, and the Gophers have one of the most balanced, potent offenses in the country. However, their fourth-quarter meltdown against Michigan has raised some doubts as to how tough they really are. So, like the Spartans, they will be playing with something to prove come Saturday.

Last, and certainly least, Michigan will play in one of those few and far between games I mentioned earlier, as Jon Beutjer and Illinois will travel to the Big House and likely get throttled once again.

Nevertheless, the Big Ten has to be the best top-to-bottom conference in college football today. Not to take anything away from the Big 12, SEC, Pac-10 or Big East, but their middle-of-the-pack and bottom tier teams don’t pose as much of a threat as say a Penn State or Minnesota.

For this reason, nobody in the conference can be overlooked and every game has a unique intensity. And it’s not just an intensity demonstrated by the players and coaches, but the fans as well.

After I said, “I hated Ohio State” in my last column, nearly 300 Buckeye fans wrote me feedback telling me why they, in turn, hated me, too.

One guy even said: “I hate the fact that your parents didn’t use protection.”

It’s this kind of intensity, passion, or whatever you want to call it, that is part of what makes the Big Ten the best conference in the land.

And with the way the schedule and rankings have worked out, this intensity and the conference’s level of parity will undoubtedly be on display tomorrow.