B1G Performance Grades, Week Three

Grading the Big Ten following Week 3

The Big Ten went 10-2 in week three, but with Michigan State losing its marquee match-up with Notre Dame, it won't do much for league's national reputation. The fact is, there are only three undefeated teams in the league, and none of them are named Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa, Penn State or Wisconsin.

Minnesota is not likely to complete the season unblemished, and Northwestern does not have the track record nationally to move the radar that much. Ohio State is holding up this league, but with them on probation it can only do so much.

The good news is there are still nine games for someone to step forward and help the league. And at the same time, there are nine more games for fans at some programs to be made very happy (i.e. Purdue or the surprising Gophers). Here is how each team looked Saturday.

Illinois Fighting Illini: A

Charleston Southern is a cupcake (even within FCS), so this was a very easy assignment for Illinois, and they still aced it. The team held CSU to a paltry 125 total yards and oh-for on third down. Nathan Scheelhaase was given the day off in order to heal up a bit more, and Reilly O’Toole played much better than a week ago.

Indiana Hoosiers: C

Indiana did not play a bad game by any stretch. They had no turnovers, outgained the Cardinals and Nate Sudfeld played well after replacing Cameron Coffman. That deserves an A. The defense though, not so much. This unit has to improve dramatically for the Hoosiers to have much hope in league play.

Iowa Hawkeyes: A-

It looks closer on the scoreboard (27-16) than an A grade would allow, but Iowa made some nice defensive adjustments and held the Panthers to just three second-half points. The team held the Panthers to 2 of 10 on third down, with Iowa outgaining them by nearly a hundred yards. The Hawkeyes also won the turnover margin. Iowa had fewer penalties than UNI and somehow rushed for 201 yards as a team, despite its top two tailbacks going down with injuries. Many thanks to walk-on fullback Mark Weisman picking up 113 yards and three scores.

Michigan Wolverines: A

Same rationale as Illinois. Sure, the assignment was easy, but they dominated the Minutemen so thoroughly on both sides of the ball, you'd have to give them the good grade.

Michigan State Spartans: D+

The Spartans just lost gap control on a couple of plays, and it cost them. After all, the defense held them to just 300 yards and 1 of 14 on third down.

Offensively, it's really hard to do much of anything when your QB takes a pounding. Andrew Maxwell was sacked four times and harassed all night.

One thing that surprised me was that Le’Veon Bell only had nineteen carries. Against Boise when the passing game was struggling, Bell put the team on his back with 44 carries. Sure, MSU was trailing, but it was only 14-3 at half. In fact, Notre Dame’s second-half field goals were not kicked until under seven minutes left in the game. Plenty of time for MSU to run its stuff. Instead the team panicked a bit and threw it 45 times. Way too many attempts, considering Bell was averaging 4 yards a carry, despite the rough day the Big Uglies had up front.

Minnesota Golden Gophers: B+

The Gophers took on a nice Western Michigan team and found a way to win despite MarQueis Gray’s injury. It wasn’t a hold-on win with the subs either, which makes it even more impressive. Max Shortell came in with the Gophers down 10-7 and made some plays for Minnesota to get a huge win. At 3-0 with four more home games and taking on just two more ranked teams (unless Nebraska, Northwestern or Purdue work its way into the polls) a bowl is looking like a real possibility.

Nebraska Cornhuskers: A

Up 14-0 after one and 28-3 at half pretty much sums up how this one played out. Martinez hit on 13 of 14 passes, Ameer Abdullah played another nice game with Rex Burkhead out, and let’s face it, Nebraska needed a bounce-back game after struggling last week with UCLA. Nebraska won 42-13.

Northwestern Wildcats: B

Boston College kept this thing closer than it should have been, thanks to some Wildcat sloppiness. Turnovers and penalties could have spoiled a day in which NU racked up 560 yards (to BC’s 316), completed 75 percent of its passes and held the Eagles to just 25 rushing yards. The good thing is NU still found a way to win, and the great news is Northwestern is 3-0 against AQ conference teams this year. The tough schedule has paid off. With South Dakota and Indiana coming in to town the next two weeks, there is a great opportunity for NU to start 5-0 and make an early statement in the Big Ten title race.

Ohio State Buckeyes: C-

Honestly, the Buckeyes should have lost this game. They didn't tackle well at all and did nothing offensively during the majority of the second half but managed the win, thanks to some costly mistakes by Cal. OSU might not get so lucky the next time it plays this sloppily. But the school did get to enjoy this play.

Penn State Nittany Lions: A

When I said Penn State needed to dig even deeper on defense, this is what I meant. The Nittany Lions held the potentially explosive Midshipmen triple option to just seven points. Matt McGloin had a very nice day; he needed just 13 completions (on 21 attempts) to rack up 231 yards and an Abe Lincoln (four scores).

Purdue Boilermakers: A

Just copy and paste what I said about Illinois and Michigan for how Purdue performed. I could have given the Boilermakers an A- because they had two turnovers and lost in time of possession. Then I had some smelling salts and realized TOP really doesn’t matter that much (see Oregon) and that 392 rushing yards on 42 carries as a team (9.3 average) is absurd and that alone deserves an A grade.

Wisconsin Badgers: D

This team played an F game again but since the Badgers won, they squeezed out a D. Wisconsin was outgained by a wide margin and was held to just 78 passing yards. Danny O’Brien had a horrible day; a missed field goal was the only reason the Badgers aren’t 1-2. Montee Ball had an impressive day yards wise (139) but needed 37 carries to get there and only scored once.