5 First Team All-Big 10 and We Finish 5-4 in Conference??

[karras]

Down year or more competitive? Having fewer undefeated teams is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather see more balance across college football than less. I hate having the same 2-3 teams every year at the top, it's boring and not exciting at all, but will likely not change.

Is it really 2-3 teams EVERY year at the top? I challenge that notion. Let's not forget Iowa was a breath away from the playoffs in 2015. And the consolation prize of the Rose Bowl would've been orgasmic in the Fry era.
The following teams can claim some form of Nat. Title since Iowa's last national championship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_national_championships_in_NCAA_Division_I_FBS

UCF
Miami
Nebraska
Florida
Florida State
Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
USC
Alabama
Notre Dame
LSU
Oklahoma State
TCU
Auburn
Utah
Texas
Tennessee
Washington
Georgia Tech
Colorado
BYU
SMU
Pittsburgh
Arkansas
Arizona State
Georgia
Clemson
Ole Miss
Missouri
Minnesota
Syracuse

Many of the programs mentioned have gone from the pinnacle to the toilet and back again. And many programs that haven't won a national title have come close. The NCAA landscape is more competitive than most give it credit IMO.

 

[AreWeThereYet]

The run away champion of the West lost home games to Akron and Duke
The second place team lost a home games to Eastern Michigan
3rd place team lost a home to BYU

You can make a strong argument judging from on the field results that not only is the B1G West the worst P5 division, each team in the West would struggle to win the MAC.

You can place the Big Ten West where you please among the ACC Coastal and Pack 12 South. You want to argue they are worse than the others, I wouldn't.

Your statement that the Big Ten West teams would struggle as a whole to win the MAC is pure foolishness. Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, Iowa, and Minnesota would seize five of the top six slots, with the best MAC team getting no better than 4th. More likely the best MAC team would end up 6th or 7th, with a fair chance that Nebraska passing them up later in the season as well.

 

[Xerxes]

You can place the Big Ten West where you please among the ACC Coastal and Pack 12 South. You want to argue they are worse than the others, I wouldn't.

Your statement that the Big Ten West teams would struggle as a whole to win the MAC is pure foolishness. Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, Iowa, and Minnesota would seize five of the top six slots, with the best MAC team getting no better than 4th. More likely the best MAC team would end up 6th or 7th, with a fair chance that Nebraska passing them up later in the season as well.

You call in foolishness, I call it using facts.

The B1G West was 3-2 against the MAC this season. The 2 losses came against Akron 4-8 and E Mich 7-5.

The B1G West also lost to 3 other non-P5 schools. BYU 6-6, Troy 9-3, & USF 7-5.

Now to the opinion part: Those schools are exactly Boise St. Its not like they are beating up their small time conferences. None of them even won their division. Akron is a bad MAC team. The B1G West was probably the worst its ever been in 2018 (because Wisconsin was so down) and that's saying something.

 

[AreWeThereYet]

You call in foolishness, I call it using facts.

The B1G West was 3-2 against the MAC this season. The 2 losses came against Akron 4-8 and E Mich 7-5.

The B1G West also lost to 3 other non-P5 schools. BYU 6-6, Troy 9-3, & USF 7-5.

Now to the opinion part: Those schools are exactly Boise St. Its not like they are beating up their small time conferences. None of them even won their division. Akron is a bad MAC team. The B1G West was probably the worst its ever been in 2018 (because Wisconsin was so down) and that's saying something.

Northwestern and Purdue quickly recovered from their early season troubles, Nebraska slowly improved but was never more than mediocre. Your top seven MAC teams would lose far more games than they would win against the Big Ten West, with maybe a single outlier doing well. Winning a single early season upset is a lot different than playing seven P-5 teams. Most of those MAC teams are going to wilt. I'm not saying the Big Ten teams get through unscathed, especially early in the season, but later in the season the MAC teams are going to have a very hard time consistently winning.

It may turn out to be the West's weakest year so far, depending on the bowl outcomes. 2014 is still in the running.

Over all, I would say the Big Ten West and ACC Coastal are neck-and-neck for the weakest P-5 division. Other divisions have also spent stretches near the bottom, but the Big Ten West and ACC Coastal are the two that consistently stay in the bottom half of the P-5.

I'll add, the weakest P-5 divisions are both closer to the P-5 divisions above them than the G-5 below. Pretty much all the measures of conference strength have said as much. It goes all P-5 divisions, a big drop to the American Athletic Conference divisions, than another bigger drop to the rest. Some of the weakest G-5 divisions are arguably worse than the MVC.

 

[Knight78]

4thngoal - you're not really trying to compare the Big 10 West with East based on their bowl game performance, are you? That's like an undefeated class 1A Iowa high school team saying they could beat 4A powerhouse Dowling because Dowling had 2 losses this year. The Big 10 East has 3 teams ranked in the top 12 in the country. Those three teams will be playing in the 3 best bowl games against the 3 best opponents. Ohio State may very well be play Alabama in the playoffs, while Michigan and Penn State will likely play top 10 opponents in the New Years 6. You are going to equate a win by Minnesota against Eastern Illinois in the Weedeater bowl as superior to a loss by Ohio State to Alabama? Eye roll.

And yet, I remember an Iowa City Regina team that did beat every single team it played all season. They played in the same conference with Cedar Rapids and Dubuque schools. They beat the 3A state champions and 4A state champions during their conference season. The top 6 players for that team all held Division I scholarship offers. Mark Gannon was their top player, who went on to start for Iowa. They actually WERE the undefeated class 1A Iowa high school team that DID beat the 4A powerhouse that year. In fact, in Gannon's soph year, Regina beat all four of the "Final Four" of the state qualifying teams of class 3A (Dubuque Senior, Dubuque Wahlert, Cedar Falls and IC West).

 

[oldhawk12]

Is it really 2-3 teams EVERY year at the top? I challenge that notion. Let's not forget Iowa was a breath away from the playoffs in 2015.

It was proven in the rose bowl what a fraud iowa was that yr. played and beat no one...per usual

 

[karras]

It was proven in the rose bowl what a fraud iowa was that yr. played and beat no one...per usual

It's also been proven that it isn't the same 2-3 teams every year. As far as 2015 is concerned the fraud keeping us from the playoffs was limited to one person. So I will maintain my more generous appraisal of that squad and restate that we were an eyelash from the playoffs.

 

[4thngoal]

Umm, this was the first year you could play true freshman as well. Every fan in the big 10 would have freaked out if their team didn't play a bunch of tf.
When is the most likely time to do that? In non cons.
I hate to tell you this, but any smaller school is going to fight like the 3rd monkey on the ramp of the ark and brother it's starting to rain.
ImI willing to over look some non con losses across the board this year, because everyone was trying to figure out how to work it.

 

[PlatypusMessiah]

I would argue more that it had to do with a mismanaged play call and a staff clearly not recognizing it and not calling a time out and letting the play continue anyway. Yes there were injuries but Iowa could of won that game if it weren't for mismanagement.

Is it the Jiimmy’s and the Joe’s or the x’s and the o’s? Sure we could of coached our way ourt of it. But our CB’s were torched though out the game.

 

[Northside Hawk]

And yet, I remember an Iowa City Regina team that did beat every single team it played all season. They played in the same conference with Cedar Rapids and Dubuque schools. They beat the 3A state champions and 4A state champions during their conference season. The top 6 players for that team all held Division I scholarship offers. Mark Gannon was their top player, who went on to start for Iowa. They actually WERE the undefeated class 1A Iowa high school team that DID beat the 4A powerhouse that year. In fact, in Gannon's soph year, Regina beat all four of the "Final Four" of the state qualifying teams of class 3A (Dubuque Senior, Dubuque Wahlert, Cedar Falls and IC West).

IC West had a player who's three point play heard round the state put us in a different final four three years later. Steve Waite, who's teammates in 1980 included Gannon.

 

[Robowe]

IC West had a player who's three point play heard round the state put us in a different final four three years later. Steve Waite, who's teammates in 1980 included Gannon.

Good times ... seems like this happened 100 years ago.