Big Ten Power Rankings Week 8: Purdue and Maryland Rise, Northwestern Falls
Saturday Blitz Big Ten Power Rankings Week 8
Pat Fitzgerald’s Northwestern Wildcats appeared to be on a decent run after starting off very slowly, but it looks like they’ve woken up over the past couple of weeks. We had to drop them after such a blowout loss to Nebraska. This team is still something to believe in, but a bad start and bad play recently is what is in our minds.
Right now, this team just has no offense, averaging about 21 points a game. It has no rushing attack, and the passing game is not much better. What has kept the Wildcats afloat is a defense that has only given up a little over 20 points a game. But that came crashing down after surrendering 38 points to Nebraska. Going forward, the defense has to get back to being dominant for the Wildcats to start winning.
Iowa, Michigan, Purdue, and Illinois are fortunately still on the schedule, so a very easy schedule could get this team to 7 wins, even though they play Notre Dame. But with the way they’ve played recently, all of those games could be losses as well. We understand all of that but have faith in them to at least get to 6 wins.
That’s evidenced by us still keeping them in the top half of the conference just barely.