At the beginning of the season, experts forecasted the Big Ten could possibly produce a national champion. The conference had three teams in the top ten in Michigan (No. 4), Ohio State (No. 9) and Iowa (No. 10). All three went down in week two of the college football season but rebounded nicely last week, as did the rest of the Big Ten, as nine of the 11 teams came away victorious.
The college football year may be young but there are several games this weekend with major implications. Ohio State and Iowa face off in Columbus, while Michigan travels to Camp Randall in Madison for a match-up with Wisconsin.
"Any thoughts that one would have about playing for the national championship would end [with a loss]," Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel said.
For these three teams with national title aspirations, a second loss would all but eliminate them from contention, as no team has won a national title with two losses since Minnesota in 1960. As much as coaches dismiss talk of titles, they know championships can be won early.
"The more games you win early the better chances you have to be in position at the end of the season," Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said.
Iowa was able to bounce back from an early loss to Michigan last year to tie for the Big Ten crown.
Michigan, stung in an early loss to Notre Dame, faces a Wisconsin team it has beaten six straight times, but head coach Lloyd Carr knows it will be anything but easy to continue that trend.
"The tradition that Wisconsin has, the support they get … you know their team is inspired," Carr said.
Big Ten continues dominance in running game:
The Big Ten has always been known as a smash-mouth, power-football conference. As much as the recent trend has been to change to a spread-style offense, much like Purdue and Northwestern, the running game has still dominated the Big Ten and national landscape.
Currently, after three weeks of play, the Big Ten has three of the top five rushers in college football. Juniors Laurence Maroney of Minnesota and Brian Calhoun of Wisconsin are Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in the country. Maroney has totaled 481 yards in three weeks, while Calhoun has amassed 471. Freshman Tyrell Sutton of Northwestern is fifth in the nation with 416 yards on the year.
Minnesota, the top rushing team in the nation, faces off against Purdue this week in a match-up of opposite offensive styles. But Big Ten coaches are quick to notice that Minnesota is not a totally conventional smash-mouth program.
"Nobody in the country runs the ball as well as Minnesota … yet they do a lot of it from 3 wide formations," Ferentz said.
Purdue coach Joe Tiller, whose team uncharacteristically ran for 239 yards last week in a 31-24 win over Arizona, is assigned the unenviable task of slowing down Maroney.
"I think it's the techniques they employ…[but] more so than anything the personnel [that] they are putting underneath those helmets," Tiller said.
The Minnesota personnel Tiller referred to have combined to rush for over 1000 yards en route to a 3-0 record.
Badgers win Big Ten honor for third-straight week:
The Wisconsin Badgers have made it a habit of claiming Big Ten player-of-the-week honors through three weeks of the season. Punter Ken DeBauche won special teams player of the week for his efforts in Wisconsin's 14-5 road victory against North Carolina. DeBauche averaged 46.7 yards on seven kicks, including a booming 53-yard boot that was downed on the two-yard line. In all, four of his punts were downed inside the 20-yard line.
DeBauche currently leads the Big Ten with an average of 47.2 yards per punt. This award followed wide receiver and return man Brandon Williams' special teams accolade last week and tailback Brian Calhoun's offensive player of the week honor.
Elsewhere, quarterback Drew Stanton of Michigan State was named offensive player of the week after the Spartans' upset victory over Notre Dame. Stanton accounted for 375 yards of offense and four touchdowns.
Iowa linebacker Chad Greenway had a career-high 20 tackles, 12 of them solo stops, in claiming the defensive honors. He added a pass breakup in the Hawkeyes' victory over Northern Iowa.
