There has been a lot of talk about how bad the B1G looked this weekend. Sure, Indiana eeked out a win, MSU was a little underwhelming, and Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Minnesota all lost (pssss... none of them were favored). Really, the only real surprises were Penn State's loss at Temple (which I actually kind of expected), Nebraska's Hail Mary loss to BYU, and Northwestern's WIN over Stanford. The point spread for the NU-Stanford game (10) was actually higher than the spread for either the Nebraska-BYU or PSU-Temple games (both at around 7), so they craziest result of the week was actually a positive for the Big Ten. How about the rest of the Power 5?
ACC:
North Carolina failed to score the "upset" over cross border rivals South Carolina, despite being seen as the better of the two teams by most of the preseason magazines. Louisville and Virginia could also not score upsets over Auburn and UCLA. The rest of the conference played mostly non Div. 1 teams or teams ranked outside the top 90 in Div 1. Golf clap.
Big 12:
In the only two games against "real" competition, TCU failed to cover the spread at Minnesota, and Texas got destroyed by Notre Dame. Kansas lost to FCS school South Dakota State. The Baylor-SMU games was close at the half, OK State really struggled to beat CMU, and Texas Tech game up 45 points to Sam Houston State. Color me not that impressed.
Pac-12:
Not only did Stanford get upset by Northwestern, Arizona State got upset by an un-ranked Texas A&< squad, Washington State lost to FCS school Portland State, Colorado get upset by Hawaii (ranked outside the top 100 by all major preseason rankings), and Washington lost to Boise State (which was expected). Oregon gave up 42 points to an FCS school and Arizona gave up 32 to Texas San Antonio. Ouch! The only real bright spot for the Pac 12 in reality was... Utah's win over Michigan.
SEC:
The SEC did have a good 1st week, mostly by their typical strategy of inviting slightly weaker opponents from other Power 5 conferences and making them travel to "neutral" sites that just happen to be in the south. But, Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M, and South Carolina did all get good wins. Then again, Vanderbilt did lose to Western Kentucky, Kentucky just squeaked past UL-Lafayette, Bowling Green gave Tennessee a run for a little while, and no one else played anyone of consequence.
Everything taken together, I am not sure it was that bad of a week for the Big Ten.
ACC:
North Carolina failed to score the "upset" over cross border rivals South Carolina, despite being seen as the better of the two teams by most of the preseason magazines. Louisville and Virginia could also not score upsets over Auburn and UCLA. The rest of the conference played mostly non Div. 1 teams or teams ranked outside the top 90 in Div 1. Golf clap.
Big 12:
In the only two games against "real" competition, TCU failed to cover the spread at Minnesota, and Texas got destroyed by Notre Dame. Kansas lost to FCS school South Dakota State. The Baylor-SMU games was close at the half, OK State really struggled to beat CMU, and Texas Tech game up 45 points to Sam Houston State. Color me not that impressed.
Pac-12:
Not only did Stanford get upset by Northwestern, Arizona State got upset by an un-ranked Texas A&< squad, Washington State lost to FCS school Portland State, Colorado get upset by Hawaii (ranked outside the top 100 by all major preseason rankings), and Washington lost to Boise State (which was expected). Oregon gave up 42 points to an FCS school and Arizona gave up 32 to Texas San Antonio. Ouch! The only real bright spot for the Pac 12 in reality was... Utah's win over Michigan.
SEC:
The SEC did have a good 1st week, mostly by their typical strategy of inviting slightly weaker opponents from other Power 5 conferences and making them travel to "neutral" sites that just happen to be in the south. But, Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M, and South Carolina did all get good wins. Then again, Vanderbilt did lose to Western Kentucky, Kentucky just squeaked past UL-Lafayette, Bowling Green gave Tennessee a run for a little while, and no one else played anyone of consequence.
Everything taken together, I am not sure it was that bad of a week for the Big Ten.
