Juggernaut Ohio State
The Buckeyes are back. Ohio State’s dominant performance against Oregon in the first national title game of the College Football Playoff era was a mark of resurgence not only for the Big Ten, but also for the championship culture in Columbus.
The span of time between Ohio State’s last national championship in 2002 and its 42-20 mauling of the Ducks Jan. 17 was trying for the program. The 13-year stretch saw the infamous tattoo scandal, two coaching changes, a frustrating 6-7 season in 2011 and a perfect record in 2012 that was essentially nullified by an NCAA-imposed postseason ban.
Head coach Urban Meyer has effectively erased the memories of that tumultuous period from the minds of the Buckeye faithful. Meyer has amassed a 38-3 record since he took over in 2012, and he has Ohio State primed to remain at the top of the Big Ten for the foreseeable future.
Ohio State retains three capable quarterbacks, four starting offensive linemen and seven defensive starters from its championship team. With Meyer at the helm and the core of the roster back in 2015, there’s no reason to believe the Buckeyes won’t again be in the hunt for another playoff berth and national championship next year.
—Jake Powers
Michigan gets its man
The day after the NFL season came to a close, the biggest coaching hire in recent years took place: Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the relatively successful San Francisco 49ers, was leaving pro football to go back to coach at his alma mater, the University of Michigan. Not only does such a high profile coach elevate the school, it elevates the conference as a whole.
In the months preceding the move it had been speculated by writers in the Ann Arbor area, but most of the national NFL writers scoffed at the idea of an NFL coach “demoting” himself. It was a move they didn’t understand, but one that college fans and writers get: The excitement, rivalries and emotion wrapped up in the college game is very different than the NFL, and Harbaugh is an emotional guy, to say the least.
Harbaugh has proven to be a successful coach at the collegiate level, taking the perennially average Stanford into national prominence. Now, imagine what he can do with the resources available (and lower academic standards) at a historically relevant powerhouse like Michigan. If given time, he could develop a program in the vein of what his rival school Ohio State has done with Urban Meyer.
If this is the case, expect another hotly contested period in one of college football’s greatest rivalries, mirroring the glorious “10 Year War” between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler that ran from 1969-’78. This level of competition would surely sway the national media away from the SEC, if only for a week.
—Andrew Tucker
The best win their bowls
The Big Ten’s 6-5 bowl record this season may seem slightly underwhelming. It was worse than both the Pac-12 (6-3) and the SEC (7-5), and only the ACC (4-7) had more losses.
However, the Big Ten accomplished that record by winning at the top. For each of the past 10 seasons, either Ohio State, Wisconsin or Michigan State have won the conference outright or clinched at least a share of the Big Ten title.
Thanks to the recent downfalls of both Michigan and Penn State, the Buckeyes, Badgers and Spartans are the undisputed top three programs in the Big Ten right now. They combined to go 4-0 this bowl season, thanks to Wisconsin’s back-and-forth win over Auburn, Michigan State’s wild comeback against Baylor and Ohio State’s dominating wins over Alabama and Oregon.
Let’s be honest—does anyone really care how Illinois fared in this year’s Heart of Dallas Bowl? The conference’s bowl record isn’t composed of bottom feeder victories while the most prominent teams collapse on the national stage. Instead, the three current faces of the Big Ten helped put the conference back on the map.
—Jim Dayton
Penn State sanctions end
Penn State defeated Boston College 31-30 in the Pinstripe Bowl in its first postseason appearance since receiving a short term death penalty from the NCAA.
Following the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, Penn State was given a four-year bowl ban and had access to just 40 of 85 scholarships.
These sanctions, handed down in July 2012, were lifted by the NCAA last September, making the Nittany Lions bowl eligible in the 2014-’15 bowl season. In addition, Penn State’s coaching staff will have all scholarships available for the 2015 season.
As a result, Penn State is not only back on the Big Ten map, but the national map as well. While the scandal was devastating to the Nittany Lions’ program and will forever leave a black mark on the university, Penn State football is still Penn State football and a return to a perennial Big Ten powerhouse is now inevitable.
After all, in Joe Paterno’s era, the team won two national titles, four Orange Bowls and six Fiesta Bowls. Second year head coach James Franklin, who turned around a below average Vanderbilt program in three years, has the ability to recruit top players from around the nation. Playing in front of over 100,000 passionate fans in Happy Valley under an enthusiastic young coach should be more than appealing for recruits.
All of this adds up to a resurgent Penn State program, which will soon become contenders in the already loaded East.
—Bobby Ehrlich
More new coaches
While the prodigal son’s return to Ann Arbor got far and away the most media attention (and rightfully so), a couple of other Big Ten powerhouse programs, Wisconsin and Nebraska, each hired new head coaches in December.
The Badgers lured Pitt head coach and former UW offensive coordinator Paul Chryst back to Madison, with the hope that, unlike Bret Bielema and Gary Andersen, he’ll be staying at Wisconsin until he retires. The Badgers have been one of the conference’s premier programs in recent years and hiring Chryst will keep them competing for Big Ten titles on an annual basis.
Nebraska, on the other hand, shocked just about everybody when it brought in Oregon State’s Mike Riley to succeed the fired Bo Pelini. While he wasn’t the splashy hire most Cornhusker fans were hoping for, Riley is unquestionably a solid coach who found success in Corvallis, a place that had been the breeding ground for Pac-12 futility for years before his arrival. Whether or not he can take the Cornhuskers to a level that Pelini was unable to during his seven-year tenure remains to be seen, but the additions of Riley, Chryst and Harbaugh are all major positives for a conference that appears to be on the upswing.
Now if Iowa finally puts Kirk Ferentz out to pasture and escapes its rut of perpetual mediocrity, the Big Ten will really be in business.
—Zach Rastall
But is all this for real?
The Big Ten had a good New Year’s Day. The days surrounding New Year’s were pretty good too. But that week-long period doesn’t change a multitude of factors that have kept the tide against Midwestern college football for decades.
Let’s talk recruiting. Every team in the Big Ten save a couple is bad at it right now when compared to an average SEC school. It’s not necessarily their fault, but it’s also something that’s not going to change any time soon. The Pac-12 has California for a primary recruiting ground, the Big 12 has Texas and the SEC has the entire South.
The Big Ten has… Ohio, which is a good football state but nowhere near enough to sustain a major conference. Going off 247Sports’ football recruiting rankings, 22 of the 35 five-star recruits in the country are located in states containing SEC schools. Two are in Big Ten states.
If the Big Ten wants to be truly “back,” it’s going to need several coaches who can recruit nationally, not just two with Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh.
The Big Ten had a good winter, but let’s not confuse Meyer assembling a juggernaut with a fundamental change in conference hierarchy. That’s going to require something special.
—Jack Baer
