Order is Restored. Ohio St., Michigan St. Move Up in Week 6 Big Ten Power Rankings.
Saturday Blitz Week 6 Big Ten Power Rankings
Jerry Kill’s Minnesota Golden Gophers didn’t play this past week, so it seems a little crazy to move them up four spots. But their one loss is to a TCU team that is now in our Top 10 after beating Oklahoma last week, and this team has dominated everybody else it played. That’s enough for us to put them among one of the better Big Ten teams right now, even if they didn’t play.
The Golden Gophers were expected to be a rush-heavy team, and that’s exactly what they have been. Averaging 230 yards a game, a 124th ranked passing game doesn’t really matter with this team averaging nearly 28 points a game. The defense is showing up too, giving up only 19 points a game right now, so this is a legitimate team that is thinking a lot bigger than it might have been thinking at the beginning of the year. They have an identity and don’t deviate from it.
And the schedule only sets up for them to look better over the next few weeks. Northwestern is a home game this weekend, and Purdue follows. Then comes Illinois, and Iowa is a home game. That means this team could legitimately be 8-1, setting up a great showdown for this team in the last three games of the season: Ohio State, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.
Keep an eye on this team making lots of noise as the year goes on.