I have done a couple of these on the realignment board and figured I would try one here more Big Ten specific. As with all of these threads so far, I am picking a year without first looking anything up about it. In this case, I choose 1984 because that was the year I was born.

Note: This was during a brief trial with 9 conference games in the Big Ten (full round robin schedule). This wouldn't last long, but every school played every other school. This was in spite of only having 11 regular season games so there were only 2 non-conference games scheduled a piece.

Big Ten Standings:
#13 Ohio State 7-2 (9-3)
Illinois 6-3 (7-4)
Purdue 6-3 (7-5)
#16 Iowa 5-3-1 (8-4-1)
Wisconsin 5-3-1 (7-4-1)
Michigan 5-4 (6-6)
Michigan State 5-4 (6-6)
Minnesota 3-6 (4-7)
Northwestern 2-7 (2-9)
Indiana 0-9 (0-11)

Future Big Ten Members:
#4 Nebraska 6-1 (Big 8), 10-2 (total) - co-Big 12 Champs with Oklahoma
#12 Maryland 6-0 (ACC), 9-3 (total) - Outright ACC Champions
Rutgers (independent) 7-3
Penn State (independent) 6-5

Big Ten (and future Big Ten) Bowls:
Rose Bowl: #18 USC 20- #6 Ohio State 17
Holiday Bowl: #1 Brigham Young 24-Michigan 17
Freedom Bowl: Iowa 55, #19 Texas 17
Hall of Fame Bowl: Kentucky 20- #20 Wisconsin 19
Peach Bowl: Virginia 27-Purdue 24
Cherry Bowl: Army 10-Michigan State 6

Sugar Bowl: #5 Nebraska 28-#11 LSU 10
Sun Bowl: #12 Maryland 28-Tennessee 27

Heisman Trophy: Runner-Up: Keith Byars of Ohio State, but he was way behind Doug Flutie of Boston College

The Season
In the Big 8, Nebraska was dominant through most of the year. They did lose to Syracuse out of conference in September, but after the loss, won all their Big 8 games through the Kansas game the week before Oklahoma. They went to #1, but suffered a home lose to the Sooners (#6 at the time) to finish as co-champs. With Oklahoma taking the Orange Bowl spot, Nebraska was invited to the Sugar Bowl were they convincingly beat the SEC champs LSU.

For the future Big Ten schools on the east coast, we see some interesting things. Penn State played both Rutgers and Maryland. They beat them both, but had a difficult schedule and didn't end up bowling. They did however beat Iowa very early in the year.

Both Maryland and Rutgers had relatively successful seasons. Maryland struggled early, but after the Penn State loss never looked back again and won out. Rutgers beat a ranked West Virginia team their next to last game of the year.

In the actual Big Ten, we see a year without a clearly dominant team. Before the last week in October (3-4 games left), Iowa led the conference with only 1 loss while Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan, and Illinois all sat with 2 losses.

Iowa ends the regular season with a tie to Wisconsin and then losses to Michigan State and Minnesota. Michigan would beat Illinois on October 27th, but then lose to Purdue the following week. This left Purdue in a tie with Ohio State and in control of their Rose Bowl destiny thanks to a head to head win earlier in the season. When they lose to Wisconsin on November 10th, Ohio State controls its own destiny again and completes and outright Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl trip with a win vs. Michigan the following week. They do not fair as well in the Rose Bowl though loosing a close on to USC.

Thoughts on the season:
1. Looks like a bad season for the conference. They went 1-5 in bowls with Iowa's domination of Texas being the only bright spot (although to be fair, all games were within a TD and most less). Only Ohio State and Iowa ended up ranked.

2. There were 6 Big Ten teams in bowls, but Illinois which finished a tie for 2nd in the league did not go bowling.

3. To to finish off their lone national championship, BYU beat a Michigan team that finished 6th in the Big Ten.

4. Interesting looking at how attendance is different. At this point, Ohio State's biggest game attendance wise is the Rose Bowl at over 100,000 while the home games don't fit as much. That's flipped now.

Back in the days when 6 or 7 wins didn't automatically grant you a bowl.

On another note, I noticed a pattern the games were generally lower scoring than they are now. The spread clearly has changed things even for programs that don't quite use it.