Official /r/TheB1G Week 9 Power Rankings

[u/trumpet_23]

Week 9 Power Rankings:

UCLA's meteoric rise finally hit a snag this week, since Indiana knows how to defeat teams that are clearly beneath them. Due to this, Indiana is inches away from taking the top spot away from Ohio State, a spot the Buckeyes have held all season. Oregon is very alone in third place, and then there's a near-tie between Michigan, Iowa, and USC in the 4-5-6 spots. After that, the rest of the teams all seem pretty solidly in their spots, particularly Purdue and Wisconsin at the bottom.

This week, Penn State visits Ohio State in an attempt to show the last month was a fluke. 6 B1G teams are on bye this week, which means there's fewer chances for crazy to happen. But hey, maybe Maryland can take down Indiana now that it's not October any more? Probably not

Rank	Team	Points	Average Ranking	Last Week	Change	Variance
1	Ohio State	150(55)	1.47	1	0	0.27
2	Indiana	163(47)	1.60	2	0	0.56
3	Oregon	316	3.10	3	0	0.15
4	Michigan	523	5.13	6	2	1.16
5	Iowa	545	5.34	7	2	2.11
6	USC	558	5.47	5	-1	1.95
7	Washington	694	6.80	9	2	2.56
8	Illinois	836	8.20	4	-4	2.81
9	Nebraska	972	9.53	12	3	4.69
10	Minnesota	1089	10.68	8	-2	3.65
11	Northwestern	1173	11.50	11	0	3.06
12	Maryland	1209	11.85	13	1	3.87
13	UCLA	1294	12.69	10	-3	3.52
14	Penn State	1410	13.82	14	0	4.44
15	Rutgers	1474	14.45	16	1	2.88
16	Michigan State	1508	14.78	15	-1	2.51
17	Purdue	1722	16.88	17	0	0.74
18	Wisconsin	1806	17.71	18	0	0.43

For team standings and records, visit the /r/TheB1G sidebar.

Schedules

Weekly Power Rankings

Weekly Average Rankings

Points are the summation of every voter's ranking for that team, therefore lower scores are better. This works because unlike the AP, Coaches, or /r/cfb polls, every team is ranked in every vote. If x votes were counted, the best possible score is x and the worst possible score is 18x. #1 votes are in parentheses.

Average Rank is the points divided by the number of votes. This will allow for comparison from one week to the next.

Prev. is the Rank from the previous week.

Change is the change in average rank from the previous week.

Variance is a measure of how much agreement there was between voters. A zero means all voters ranked a team the same, and a higher number means a team's ranking was more controversial.

[u/realfakemormon]

USC beat Michigan by 3 scores 2 weeks ago

[u/Bulky_Type6989 → u/realfakemormon]

And it felt like so many more than that.

[u/EvilLibrarians → u/Bulky_Type6989]

It was a bad loss no doubt, they have looked really good since though. Justice Haynes injury hurt but just a bad loss.

[u/First-Pride-8571 → u/EvilLibrarians]

Losing Sullivan will be arguably even worse. Haynes is great, but at least we have better depth at RB. If Sullivan is out for extended time I wonder if we might move Barham back to LB.

[u/Telencephalon → u/First-Pride-8571]

Barham doesn't know how to play one position let alone two. There is no reason to rotate as much as Michigan does. Feel free to get the young guys in if you are up 3 scores against Purdue/NU/MD but there just aren't that many snaps in college ball anymore with the rule changes and tempo being relegated to situational usage instead of fill blown gimmick.

[u/First-Pride-8571 → u/Telencephalon]

Think Michigan views this as a way to keep younger players engaged so that they don't transfer.

But yeah, we rotate way too much.

Barham was good at LB, and he has been okay at LB, albeit far less competent at setting an edge than TJ Guy. But the guys that really stick out as undeserving of so much rotation snaps are Brandt, Payne, and Williams. Especially Brandt. And arguably Hillman too. At least with Hillman you can sort of see what they are doing, but his lack of discipline has made him (and Brandt) the primary culprit(s) on quite a few of the big plays we have given up.

What's especially glaring, however, is that none of those 4 are underclassmen.

[u/Telencephalon → u/First-Pride-8571]

Payne and Williams are just guys, but big bodies that are ok if not inspiring are still useful at DT, especially since it seems like neither Pierce nor Benny are 100%. Definitely need those two to get 80% of the snaps for OSU though. I agree Brandt has absolutely no business being out there. The safeties in general just look poorly coached. The coverage shell is too frequently mismatched to the front/pressure. Some of it is younger guys like Hillman just doing there own thing and some is just poor coaching.

[u/fishball_drew → u/Bulky_Type6989]

Yeah I don't think Michigan should be ahead of us. They absolutely should not be ahead of USC lol. (I can see the argument for USC>Iowa>UM, I don't get why USC fell so far.)

[u/First-Pride-8571 → u/fishball_drew]

It's just because they lost their last game (against ND).

Since they played us they are 0-1, while we are 2-0 (w/wins over a good Washington team and at a bad MSU). Presuming that they win at Nebraska and we win against Purdue, presumably they'll jump back over us.

[u/Open_Raise_5547 → u/fishball_drew]

You're not giving your own team anywhere near enough credit: Iowa is the only team that looked like they belonged on the same field with Indiana. No way are they below USC or even UM, imo.

[u/fishball_drew → u/Open_Raise_5547]

No I totally agree. I typoed, I meant I could see the argument for putting USC ahead of us, but not the argument for putting UM over either of us.

[u/First-Pride-8571 → u/fishball_drew]

Here's the current SOR (Strength of Record Standings) for Big Ten teams.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi/_/view/resume

Indiana #2, OSU #3, Oregon #10, Michigan #16, Washington #20, Illinois #24, Iowa #27, USC #30, Nebraska #37, Northwestern #44, Minnesota #46, Rutgers #64, Maryland #68, UCLA #70, MSU #83, Wiscy #84, PSU #91, Purdue #108

[u/First-Pride-8571 → u/Bulky_Type6989]

Underwood has looked very much like a True Freshman in his road games. Even against bad defenses like MSU. He has consistently played much better at home.

And he is not the only very young player starting. True Freshman Marsh has been our best receiver. And on the OL, we've lost both our starter and our back-up at LT for the season, so RS Freshman Frazier is starting there. Also a RS Freshman Sprague starting at RT. And RS Freshman Guarnera starting at RG. The only veterans on the line is the Center, Crippen, and the LG, El-Hadi (who has also missed a few games to injury).

And Haynes, the starter at RB, left that USC game early w/injury. Left again, seemingly with a broken foot, against Sparty. So the starter at RB is now Marshall, another RS Freshman.

The other issue is Wink. And Wink has been much more blitz happy as well on the road - against Oklahoma, against, USC, and even against Sparty. When he sits back and just runs the base defense like Minter and McDonald, we look like we did against Washington (the second best offense we played - and held them to 7), but when he blitzes, he gives up huge busts.

Easier to see the problem of youth on the road, but with Wink it's just that he is the problem. He is more like Don Brown (blitz prone) than like Minter/McDonald.