PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN, v2007.07

It’s hard to believe I still care about this. It’s hard to believe I’m still writing this column. I watched the Iowa/Penn State game in its entirety on Saturday, and yet here I am, still interested (or at least pretending to be interested) in Big Ten football.

I really need a new hobby, one that doesn’t rip my heart out quite so often or quite so spectacularly.

But, press on we must. It’s taken me ten seasons to build up my cadre of nine loyal readers. Can’t disappoint you now!

ILLINOIS @ IOWA

The reputation swap is now complete; the mantle of Genius rolled down I-80 to Davenport, then slipped undetected all the way across Illinois on I-74 to Champaign. Illinois has most of what you need to win in the Big Ten: a playmaking offensive back (actually, two of them), a dominating middle linebacker, just enough of a defensive secondary, and solid play on both sides of the line. Iowa is short a couple of those things. Really, what’s amazing is how quickly Iowa’s offensive line has gone from class-of-the-conference to execrable. Part of that may be due to inexperience, but as they point out over at Black Heart Gold Pants, there may be another reason:

In regards to the “fire O’Keefe or fire Ferentz” nonsense, Reese Morgan is probably a bigger sideline liability than KOK. At least O’Keefe was doing his job well when things were going well. Reese Morgan’s been with Iowa for 8 years, but after three solid years as recruiting coordinator and coaching tight ends (see Clark, Dallas), he moved to coaching the offensive line after the 2002 season, when Joe Philbin left. It seems now that this team misses Philbin (now the offensive coordinator for the 4-1 Green Bay Packers) more than we ever would have imagined. It certainly seems likely that he was every bit as responsible for the development and sustained success of the offensive line as S&C coach Chris Doyle was. [. . .] Look, Reese Morgan is a good guy, and he was a great tight end coach. Dallas Clark’s an obvious example, but Erik Jensen and Ryan Majerus were bona fide starters themselves. How easy it was to have tackles with receiver-eligible jerseys on the ends, taking up linebackers’ play action responsibilities on third and short.

But that’s not Morgan’s job anymore. Offensive line coach is, and the line’s been offensive in a different way for a couple years now. Worse, it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better, and that matters a whole lot more to the future success of the football team than any stylistic concerns we’ve got about play-calling or “using the whole field.”

BHGP aren’t the only folks who have noticed a change in Iowa football–so has former Hawkeye QB Drew Tate, currently freezing his foofoo in Saskatchewan:

“You can say all you want about scheme. I won’t get into that with my opinion,” said Tate, who tossed 18 touchdowns last year. “But it just seems, once we got into the second half of the season, every time we played somebody, (expletive), they knew everything we were going to run. They covered up everything. And throw on top of that young receivers that don’t know what’s going on, and I was hurt all last year … I think this year is kind of the same. You’ve got injuries and new guys and the schemes - the schemes are Iowa football.”

Read between the lines, which isn’t hard to do: It’s the schemes. I apologize to Drew Tate for implying that he was a bit of a loon last season. It’s obvious now that he played the way he did so that there would be at least one person on the offense who acted like he cared what happened in the game.

Speaking of the game, well, Iowa’s only hope will be to shut down Illinois’ not-quite-a-spread option attack. On offense they’ll need every last flake of Kinnick Stadium magic just to have a chance. But this team hasn’t scored more than 20 points on anybody but Syracuse all year. Why think they’ll start now? Illini roar to 6-1, but Florida fans know that’s just a wayside on the road to 7-5.

PURDUE @ MICHIGAN

Okay, Purdue came crashing back to earth last week, nearly getting stuffed by tOSU. That’s what October is for: crushing Pete’s delusions of greatness. Now comes a matchup against a Michigan team that didn’t exactly please too many of its fans in last week’s closer-than-it-needed-to-be smashup with Eastern Washtenaw County Michigan. The Wolverine defense just isn’t good. There, I said it. Purdue: spread option. Two words Blue fans would just as soon not hear again this season. Michigan isn’t as bad as everybody thought they were, but Purdue isn’t as bad as they looked last week. Except on defense. There they are that bad. But in a shootout between Michigan and Purdue–and the way these two teams defend, it’s gonna be a shootout–who do you go with? I’ll go with Pete. Gadzooks. The things I have to say this year!

INDIANA @ MICHIGAN STATE

It should be illegal to have to play Indiana and Northwestern in consecutive weeks. It’s the sort of thing that can drive fans of mid-pack Big Ten teams to spend the whole weekend in the basement playing Halo 3.

Has Mark Dantonio finally got Sparty on the right meds? You’ll know in this game. And you’ll know the answer is ‘no’ since IU runs the spread even better than Northwestern does, and Sparty didn’t have an answer for the spread last week.

MINNESOTA @ NORTHWESTERN

You saw what CJ Bacher did to MSU last week. Sparty plays defense. Goldy doesn’t.

KENT STATE @ OHIO STATE

Yup . . . I love me this twelve-game schedule.

WISCONSIN @ PENN STATE

If there’s a watchable game in the Big Ten this week–and I’m not saying there is–this is it. Penn State fans can breathe again, a common aftereffect of playing Iowa lately. Wisconsin needs to regroup following last week’s game when they got schooled by Illinois. But Wisconsin is a tremendously better team than Iowa was last week, mostly since the Badgers have only lost one wide receiver, not thirty-eight of them. This will be classic, grind-’em-out Big Ten football. If you’re in to that sort of thing. In the end, Wisconsin prevails, if only because they have more playmakers on offense. Meaning they have one.

Next week:

• Michigan @ Illinois: Potential seismic implications in this game
• Penn State @ Indiana: These two go together like Twix bars and Sriracha sauce
• North Dakota State @ Minnesota: WHY didn’t Minnesota hire Craig Bohl?
• Northwestern @ Eastern Michigan: The Eagles should just join the Big Ten and get it over with
• Michigan State @ Ohio State: If Sparty is still Sparty, they’ll win this game
• Iowa @ Purdue: Hawks’ last chance to score 20 points before the Minnesota game
• Northern Illinois @ Wisconsin: Playing for the pride of the I-39 corridor