Big Ten Football Week 8 Review
Week 8 record: 3-3…….Record so far: 50-18 73.5%
Ohio State-29 Purdue-22 OT…..CORRECT…..Give your coach Buckeye fans all the credit in the world for pulling a seemingly victory from the jaws of defeat on Saturday…it sure does appear that Urban Meyer is doing that very thing. Apparently Kenny Guiton, Braxton Miller’s backup at QB had almost been run out of Columbus (Kenny, that may not be a bad thing) during spring football…on Saturday however, he won the game for OSU with a 61 yd TD drive with just 3 seconds left…”You’re going to win this game for us” OSU coach Urban Meyer told Guiton before he took the field for that fateful drive. ”He looked right at me….I think he was down at the time…but I think that moment kind of picked him up.”….get a room with yourself coach…Geesh. Isn’t that your job?..to inspire and coach kids up?…it was a great performance by the kid…and you have to go and take credit for it?…kinda strange.
Wisconsin-38 Minnesota-13……CORRECT…..Don’t look now, but the Badgers have taken control of the Leaders division…with three consecutive resounding victories (albeit against Big Ten bottom-feeders Illinois, Purdue and the Gophers) the Badgers have got some major momentum on their side….and you can point to the rushing attack as the reason why…HB James White rushed for 175 yards and 3 TD’s and Montee’ Ball added 166 yards and 2 TD’s…now this is how the Badgers should’ve been playing all season…but we will see if this continues next week when they get an old friend to visit Madison….
Michigan-12 Michigan State-10…..CORRECT…..Denard Robinson played pretty well in a game against an aggressive defense. This was a big step for Robinson…in fact, it seems like he misread more read options than threw bad passes or made bad decisions throwing the ball…he did what so many Michigan QB’s have done down through the years and that is give his team a chance to win at the end..The Wolverines are now firmly entrenched in the drivers seat to wrap up their first Legends Division title…but there is a lot of work to do. It begins (and may end) next week in Lincoln…
Navy-31 Indiana-30…..MISS…..Getting this one wrong irked me…the Hoosiers had this one wrapped up…but hauntingly similar to the Indiana-Michigan State game…the hurry-up offense that IU coach Kevin Wilson runs kept throwing the ball with a 9 point lead and just over 12 minutes to go. They couldn’t get a first down to take some time off of the clock…so that, along with a late INT sealed Indiana’s fate…too bad..had Indiana beaten MSU and Navy they would be sitting at 4-3 and needing to win 2 of their last 5 games to go to a bowl…but now…they need to win 4 to be eligible…and the schedule dictates that will be a daunting task.
Nebraska-29 Northwestern-28…..MISS…..Taylor Martinez had one of those games that when his career is finally over at Nebraska…this will be one of those games that he will never forget…he led his team back from 12 points down and scored the go-ahead TD with less than 2 minutes to go…he ended up going 27-39 for 342 yards and 3 TD passes….but he also ran 18 times for 65 yards and another TD as the Corn racked up almost 550 yards of total offense…after HB Rex Burkhead left the game in the 3rd quarter Martinez had to shoulder the offensive load for Bo Pelini and his crew in a surprisingly hostile Northwestern home crowd….they must’ve had a mid-semester break or something…there are usually more people in the Northwestern libraries on Saturday night than are at Wildcat football games.
Penn State-38 Iowa-14……MISS…..of all the Big Ten scores on Saturday…this one surprised me the most…the look and feel of this Iowa team has been a drastic change for the fan base…the Hawkeyes mustered just 209 yards of offense and very little else in being absolutely undressed at home in a night game at the hands of Penn State…now granted PSU has a history of playing well at Kinnick (now 8-5)…but night games are when Iowa usually plays well…well enough to keep them in games they might not normally have any chance of being in….but the Nittany Lions made it seem very easy…The Lions have put pressure on people early this season as they have outscored their opponents 66-0 in the 1st quarter…they led Iowa 24-0 at the half.
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It was nice to see PSU get that win… Even though PSU is 8-5 all time at Kinnick, the last few trips there were horrendous for PSU. (’01, ’03, ’08,’10)
Urban Meyer loves himself some Urban. I wonder if his book The Urban Way is mandatory reading for all players.
With OSU and PSU ineligible for the Big Ten Championship, the Leaders Division is pretty much guaranteed to go to Wisconsin.
I’m not an Urban Meyer fan, but I’m also not offended by his “pep talk” with the backup QB. I know you would have preferred he keep the exchange to himself, but I think it makes pretty good copy. Sometimes a few words of encouragement… well, you know the rest.
I’m glad you pointed out the read option thing on Denard. Man was he off on those on a variety of occasions. Regardless, he made some huge plays to help set up that win. What a job by Gibbons/Wile to get it done.
Seems like that’s twice IU has thrown in the 4th quarter enough to lose the game (MSU). What a shame.