Normally my Pickin’ on the Big Ten columns are a lighthearted goof on college football, a sport that grows less fun the more seriously you take it. I intend for that to continue, because there’s no point in writing a column like Pickin’ if it isn’t fun. But let me assure you that, while the tone of the column may be breezy, the picks are serious and I put more work into them than you might imagine. I have been writing Pickin’ on and off, but mostly on, since 2002. And I have to tell you up front, as I begin to predict the 2021 Big Ten season, that there is a circumstance involving not just the conference but Our Favorite Team that I’ve not seen before.
Specifically, I’m all but convinced that Iowa is going to lose to Iowa State this season.
This will not happen for the same asymmetric-warfare reasons that have occasionally marked the Hawkeyes’ rivalry with Iowa State and, to a much greater extent, Northwestern. Nope, it’ll happen because Iowa State looks like it just has a better team, and it has home field advantage.
I’m just warning you in advance of what my pick is likely to be in that Week 2 donnybrook. Derek from Accounting, who talks a suspicious amount about the Hawkeyes for someone who claims he doesn’t care about them, will act like this victory single-handedly erases the last four decades of the rivalry, which, LOL. He’s going to claim that the Hawks are “over” and all the blue-chip recruits for which Iowa is known will head to Ames now. He’ll remind you of this victory every day until basketball season, when he will mysteriously lose all interest in sports. And there’s not a dang thing you can do to stop him. Just know that the rest of the college football world will take note of the result and wonder if it’s this off-season or next that Matt Campbell gets $8 million a year to replace Jim Harbaugh.
As for the Hawkeyes, well, pardon my mild OCD, but I deal with these things alphabetically, so there are two other schools I have to preview first. Let me just say, though, that I believe the Terminally Depressed Goth-Hawks who will be railing on Kirk Ferentz after that ISU game will likely be deleting some old tweets before the end of the season.
And as must be done these days, take everything I say with a grain of salt, if not the whole shaker. The college football landscape is evolving at pace that makes the coronavirus look like the coelacanth.
THE PREVIEWS
ILLINOIS is intriguing this season because of its hire of Bret Bielema to replace Lovie Smith, a genuinely nice man who did not belong in college football. Bielema has known great success at Wisconsin and abject failure at Arkansas. The Illini’s fortunes have tended more to the latter in recent decades, of course. Still, the hire makes sense, since Bielema is an Illinois native who has had considerable success in this conference, albeit at a much easier place to recruit. He is also a former Hawkeye, of course, and that is enough for me to hope he succeeds, but not at Iowa’s expense. Bielema doesn’t have a lot of raw material to work with this season; if he can get his team to bowl eligibility, that has to be considered a true victory. And with the schedule almost as soft as it could possibly be, that goal is well within reach. It would only take a few lucky breaks to start 6-0.
Predicted record: 6-6
INDIANA was last year’s surprise team among people who really haven’t been paying much attention to Tom Allen and the job he’s done in Bloomington. While IU has been undone by the same thing that upsets all the Big Ten also-rans (roster depth), Allen has more than proven that he knows how to coach. With perhaps the league’s most exciting quarterback in Michael Penix Jr., the pressure will be on to not merely compete with the East’s best, but beat them. Allen has given Ohio State all it wanted, but has never been able to close the deal. He won’t this year either, but he’s gonna get somebody. (The Hoosiers could also get got themselves by Cincinnati in Week 3 as well.)
Predicted record: 8-4
IOWA is a team in transition, though from what to what is up in the air. Last season started badly but ended well. Kirk Ferentz is now 66 years old, about the age where opposing fans began to make Alzheimer’s jokes about Hayden Fry. (I was there.) Those jokes wouldn’t stick to the robust Captain, of course, but opposing recruiters would be wise to mention that there’s no true guarantee for a high school junior this year that Kirk will still be coaching the team come 2027. I’ve already tipped my hand about the Iowa State game; I think the Hawks are going to lose that one. A loss at Wisconsin also feels all but inevitable unless this team finds a strong offensive identity (which is possible). I think the rest of the season is much too hard to predict.Honestly, I can see any record from 6-6 to 10-2 in play, and the first two weeks are absolutely going to set the tone for that. Last year’s team surprised us with its goodness. May it be thus as well this year.
Predicted record: 9-3
MARYLAND does not exist. It was created by David Simon as a setting for his TV series, Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Wire. He is such a visionary writer that he created this fictional state, named it after a middle school crush (really, “Mary-Land”?) and populated it with enough detail that it seems real to many people. I don’t know anyone from Maryland, and neither do you, even if you think you do. You need to do a better job distinguishing fact from fiction.
MICHIGAN is the best disrespectable team out there. To hear its detractors talk the Wolverines are a hopeless mess of motivational-poster coaching and talent that just didn’t pan out. It’s certainly fair to say that Jim Harbaugh has neither broken the biggest rock (beating Ohio State, though it’s not like anyone else in the conference has had much luck with that either) nor returned Michigan to its perceived rightful place in the pecking order. With a schedule that sends the Maize and Blue on the road for two of its three toughest games (Wisconsin and Penn State), expect lots of pressure. I think even with his restructured contract 8-4 and another loss to the Buckeyes would do Harbaugh in, opening the door for … well, some up-and-coming coach due for a big promotion.
Predicted record: 8-4
MICHIGAN STATE had the best possible 2-5 season last year, knocking off both Michigan and Northwestern in Mel Tucker’s first season. I don’t think anyone should carry anything over from last season into this one, except to say that it’s clear the Spartans have the talent to hang with the league’s best teams. If that sounds like a far cry from the Days of Dantonio, it is, but the program was in disarray for reasons we’ll not be repeating here. The roster is still very young this season.
Predicted record: 4-8
MINNESOTA and Iowa State are probably sharing notes about when their up-and-coming coaches will up-and-go, and to where. The difference is that Iowa State will miss Matt Campbell when he’s gone. The Gophers could return to their 2019 form, they’ll certainly have the offense for it. And I wouldn’t be shocked if the Gophers rebounded nicely from their Week 1 insta-loss to Ohio State with four or five straight wins and a Top 15 ranking. But go look at their schedule from October 30 on. There’s at least four losses there, and five wouldn’t shock me, because Bret Bielema can coach up a defense.
Predicted record: 5-7
NEBRASKA isn’t even worth making fun of any more. [Ed. Note: agree to disagree! -- RB]
Predicted record: 4-8
NORTHWESTERN dominated the West last season and is a perennial thorn in Kirk Ferentz’s side. Yet under Fitz, the Cats have always been volatile and unpredictable. It’s been a minute since jNWU was the least talented team in the Big Ten, though. Predicted record: 9-3
OHIO STATE There is never anything to say about this team other than:
Predicted record: 12-0
PENN STATE is becoming the Jan Brady of the East, perennially very good but never good enough to get past the Buckeyes. James Franklin is right for this job in all the ways Bill O’Brien wasn’t but part of me feels like we’re beginning to see the Solichification process. Meaning they’ll decide very good isn’t good enough only to discover their job is a tier below where they think it is.
Predicted record: 8-4
PURDUE doesn’t have Rondale Moore any longer, which has reduced Tums consumption among Big Ten defensive coordinators. But the Jeff Brohm experiment has yet to yield any dramatic change in the Boilermakers’ fortunes. One thing that hasn’t changed is Purdue’s ability to irritate the everloving crap out of teams that think they’re better than them. Still, when I look at this team, I do wonder who’s going to make the plays, especially on defense.
Predicted record: 3-9, but I feel like this is almost certainly wrong
RUTGERS is a scam perpetrated by generations of New Jersey slackers who weren’t smart enough to get into a private university. These slackers have been gathering in a parking lot called “East Brunswick” because it’s on the east side of a bowling alley for nigh unto seven generations now, claiming they’re “going to Rutgers” when they’re actually drinking cheap beer and eating enormous sandwiches. The concept of “Rutgers” was borrowed for the 2006 film Accepted, but that doesn’t make it any more real.
WISCONSIN is a machine oiled with bratwurst grease and lineman sweat.
Predicted record: 11-1
BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Ohio State over Wisconsin, natch.
BEST CHANCE FOR A NON-CONFERENCE LOSS: Nebraska at Oklahoma, Week 3.
BEST CHANCE FOR A NON-CONFERENCE UPSET LOSS: Auburn at Penn State, Week 3.
BEST CHANCE FOR A NON-CONFERENCE UPSET WIN: Washington at Michigan, Week 2.
Oh yeah, and there’s a game this week:
NEBRASKA AT ILLINOIS (12 pm CDT, FOX)
If there’s such a thing as a “must win” game in Week … Zero, then this is it for Scott Frost. It’s one thing to underwhelm on the field, as he has, but it’s clear that the school has lost patience with him in general. This NCAA investigation smacks of an attempt to get leverage to reduce a buyout, since I’d bet actual cash that similar things happened and are still happening at almost every school out there. A loss to Illinois would sour things considerably since the Illini have been a reliable Traveling Bye-Week Squad for lo these many years.
The spanner in the works is the Bielema factor. He was as unsuccessful at Arkansas as he was successful at Sconnie, but it’s not like anyone has done well in Fayetteville recently. Do you think he can coach? Do you think he can take Lovie Smith’s scrap heap and turn things around? Maybe I’m viewing things through black-and-gold-colored glasses, but I believe he can. The question is whether he can do quickly enough to win this game.
File this under “sentences that would have been unthinkable when I started writing this column”: As long as he’s going up against Nebraska’s defense, he’s got a chance. I think he gets it done.
Circle Me Bert 27, Frosty the “NO!” Man 23
