As bad as they’ve been the last few years, this year might REALLY be the down year for the Big 10, if week 1 is any indication.  Of all the Big 10 teams to play, only Penn State looked like a real football team.  I realize week 1 of the college football season in unpredictable, but this was worse than normal.  Iowa needed two blocked field goals in the final seconds to defeat the mighty Northern Iowa.  Minnesota narrowly escaped the mighty Syracuse Orange who have what, a combined 1 win in the last two years?  Even the mighty Ohio State was a mere 2 point conversion away from going to overtime with, of all teams, Navy.

The good news for the Big 10 is that all these teams that struggled still managed to pull out wins against their supposedly inferior opponents, and a few weeks from now (or if Ohio State knocks off USC next week) people will forget about it.  The bad news is that style does matter in college football, and the worse news is that this could be an indication of future troubles to come for the conference.  When games against Northern Iowa, Navy, and Syracuse actually make for good TV, that doesn’t exactly bode well for the games against real compeition on their schedule.  And we’ll just forget about even mentioning that Illinois/Missouri debacle…