Big Ten Power Rankings Week 8: Purdue and Maryland Rise, Northwestern Falls
Saturday Blitz Big Ten Power Rankings Week 8
That’s right. Without playing, we decided to drop Penn State to No. 12 in this week’s Big Ten power rankings. Why? Well, for a few reasons. First off, a few other teams moved up. Also, they still haven’t had any impressive wins this year. Finally, their loss to Northwestern looks worse than it already did. All of this was enough for us to say that even Michigan is better right now.
The Nittany Lions are supposed to rely on their young but incredibly gifted quarterback in Christian Hackenberg. But while his talent continues to show up, he shows an inability to finish drives or avoid mistakes. That’s had a very detrimental effect on this team, and it could get far worse going forward if he and James Franklin don’t fix things.
Penn State has Ohio State coming up, and although they are at home, they won’t have an easy time dealing with Maryland either. With Indiana, Temple, and Illinois still on the schedule, this team will ultimately get to a bowl game at least. But we don’t have a lot of respect for how good they are, and that’s not going to change by winning those games.
Beating Michigan State, Ohio State, or even Maryland could help move them up these rankings, though.