1. MSU
2. OSU
3. NEB
4. iowa
5. Wisc
6. Maryland
7. Minnesota
8. Michigan
9. PSU
10. Rutgers
11. Indy
12. Illinois
13. Purdue
14. Northwestern

Not enough to go on in week 1 to make a lot of big changes yet. MSU and OSU will stay at top until they lose.

Nebraska jumped up to #3 because it did the best of the 2nd tier teams.

If wiscy would have won big over LSU, that might have been enough to move to #2, but they lost, so they stayed about where they were from preseason.

Northwestern really looked bad in their loss, which was enough to drop them to the bottom below Purdue.

Rutgers, PSU, michigan, maryland and Minnesota had impressive wins.

Iowa, illinois, Indy, Purdue not so impressive wins. But its week 1, there will be time to get better.

Looks about right. Wisconsin looked good minus McEvoy's 2 picks. Nice even matchup.

TTFP with the 3 TO didn't impress me, but credit to their resilience in pulling out the win in Ireland.

At this point I would put Wisky above Iowa and Michigan looks like it has the potential to be at the top. I would have them at #6 at least if not higher.

I agree with your top 3. I'd probably drop Iowa a few spots and move Michigan up a few.

It's really hard to do this so early in the season since all we have is preseason expecations to go off of.

(08-31-2014 01:06 PM)General Mike Wrote:  I agree with your top 3. I'd probably drop Iowa a few spots and move Michigan up a few.

It's really hard to do this so early in the season since all we have is preseason expecations to go off of.

I wouldn't judge Iowa too harshly on their play against Northern Iowa. In the region, everyone knows to expect a challenge from Northern Iowa. Those coaches know how to get their kids pumped for their season opener against regional P5's whether it be Iowa, Iowa State or Wisconsin.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=322450275

Northern Iowa, NDSU, SDSU, EWU, Montana, Montana St. Close games don't make an FBS team bad when playing these teams, they have FBS talent rosters from both recruiting and transfers, only difference between them and a good team from the G5 is scholarship difference.

(08-31-2014 02:10 PM)DexterDevil Wrote:  Northern Iowa, NDSU, SDSU, EWU, Montana, Montana St. Close games don't make an FBS team bad when playing these teams, they have FBS talent rosters from both recruiting and transfers, only difference between them and a good team from the G5 is scholarship difference.

Fair enough, but are they better then a UCF or Washington State? Penn State and Rutgers played close games with those teams 3000 miles away from home, and are 5-6 spots lower than Iowa in power rankings.

In 2002, a terrible Rutgers team lost to a very good Villanova team (got to 1-AA semifinals). In 2004, a Rutgers team that beat Michigan State and Vanderbilt, lost to a New Hampshire team with Chip Kelly as OC, that went to the 1-AA playoffs. Nobody cared how good the 1-AA team was, they only cared that Rutgers lost to a 1-AA.

(08-31-2014 02:46 PM)General Mike Wrote:  

(08-31-2014 02:10 PM)DexterDevil Wrote:  Northern Iowa, NDSU, SDSU, EWU, Montana, Montana St. Close games don't make an FBS team bad when playing these teams, they have FBS talent rosters from both recruiting and transfers, only difference between them and a good team from the G5 is scholarship difference.

Fair enough, but are they better then a UCF or Washington State? Penn State and Rutgers played close games with those teams 3000 miles away from home, and are 5-6 spots lower than Iowa in power rankings.

In 2002, a terrible Rutgers team lost to a very good Villanova team (got to 1-AA semifinals). In 2004, a Rutgers team that beat Michigan State and Vanderbilt, lost to a New Hampshire team with Chip Kelly as OC, that went to the 1-AA playoffs. Nobody cared how good the 1-AA team was, they only cared that Rutgers lost to a 1-AA.

UCF is transitioning to a new QB and Penn State is basically playing FBS ball with FCS scholarship limits. Rutgers did well against a Washington State coached by Mike Leach, they fact you guys kept up and beat that offense is impressive. Penn State I'd keep down, Rutgers I really need to see another FBS game to decide how good you are.

I did not want to over react to 1st games of the season especially if the team still won.

If Iowa keeps turning in mediocre efforts, they will gradually drop or they will eventually lose and will drop like a rock. If Rutgers keeps winning, they will gradually climb higher.

Big Ten looked good pretty much across the board this week (of course, some of the opponents were not strong enough to make a good evaluation).

It is a constant debate with power rankings if teams should be ranked on how they would do if they played today vs. how they will eventually finish.

That is why you see teams like Iowa ranked all over the place. Based on the way Iowa played in its first game, it should be ranked around 13th only ahead of Northwestern.

But Big ten fans have learned that week 1 results mean little. Iowa coaches did not really play to their strengths in game 1. They tried a lot of different things and different players on both offense and defense and not everything worked. Iowa might end up a good team or not, you really can't tell right now.

The main thing I know is Iowa finished strong last year while Michigan did not. Michigan just looked so bad down the stretch except for a close loss to Ohio State, but otherwise they looked so awful, thats a memory I can't shake. I guess thats a good argument to put both iowa and Michigan both in the middle around 7th or 8th until the real games are played. Then they can move up or down from there.