The Original Michigan Monday: The State of The Big Ten

Wasn't it nice to fall asleep on Saturday night knowing your Wolverines played a good football game and beat dominated a top 10 team?  It was hard for me to remember the last time I had that feeling.  Beating Wisconsin at home at night didn't give me that feeling, it's been a long time BHB family, a long time.

Today is Monday which means its time to move on from the ND high and focus on the rest of the season.  Saturday was a great win but it wasn't a Big Ten win and Michigan still has some work to do in the conference.  With two loses the Big Ten Title game is probably out of reach, but the Wolverines still have plenty to play for with two rivals and upstart IU still left on the schedule.   Michigan travels to a struggling Maryland team on Saturday, has a week off, then will host Sparty at home, travel to IU, and then host the team down south.

Here are my thoughts on the rest of the Big Ten:

OSU is the clearly the best team in the conference and maybe the entire country.   Beating the Buckeyes will clearly be monumental task for any team.  Playing PSU and Michigan won't be easy, but winnable for the talented Buckeyes.

Penn State rolled a near dead Michigan State Spartan team on Saturday, this is exactly how I thought the Spartans season would go and they will struggle to get bowl eligible if they can't find two wins against the likes of Illinois, Michigan, Rutgers, and Maryland.   Penn State has to travel to #13 Minnesota, host IU, and then travel to OSU, then host the Rutgers bye week.   Probably 1 loss but maybe 2 if they get surprised by the Golden Gophers.

Minnesota I still believe are pretenders as their season is about to get difficult.   They host PSU after a bye week, travel to Iowa, go to Northwestern, and then host Wisconsin.  I see probably 3 loses in that grouping.

Wisconsin got rolled in Columbus as they looked like they might compete with the Buckeyes for about a quarter.  They now have lost two weeks in a row but probably will win out with a schedule that looks like:  hosting Iowa, going to Nebraska, hosting Purdue, and then traveling to Minnesota.

IU has been surprising and will make a bowl game as they are now 6-2.  They could have one of the best seasons in recent Hoosier history with a probably 8-4 finish.  They host NW, travel to PSU, host Michigan, and travel to Purdue.

That's it folks, the rest of the league is cannon fodder.

• Jimmy will do his regular Monday press conference at around noon today. 
• Duncan Robinson had 21 points for the Heat last night, color me impressed.

from The BIG HOUSE Blog http://mbighouse.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-original-michigan-monday-state-of.html