Big Ten Football: Season preview and final standings predictions
The Saturday Blitz staff goes on the record with their Big Ten football picks for the 2017 season. Will their be a new conference champion this year?
For what felt likes ages the SEC West was known as the toughest division in football. A few years removed from the string of SEC Championships, it looks like the Big Ten East might have taken over as the most competitive division in football. Four Big Ten teams were named to the top 10 of the preseason coaches poll. The top three, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan all ranked in the top nine schools.
While Wisconsin appears to have a stranglehold on the West, the East will more than make up for the drama and intrigue. The votes are in. Who will be named the Big Ten football champion in 2017?
Big Ten East
| Ohio State | 1 |
| Penn State | 2 |
| Michigan | 3 |
| Michigan State | 4 |
| Indiana | 5 |
| Maryland | 6 |
Fasten your seat belts. The Big Ten East is going to be wild again in 2017. In case you’ve blocked it out of your mind, the division ended in controversy. Penn State defeated Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game. Then, in a stunning turn of events neither the Big Ten champion or the runner-up were invited to participate in the College Football Playoff. Instead, Ohio State, who didn’t qualify for the championship game, received the invitation. They were promptly blown out 31-0 by eventual champion Clemson.
More: Game by game predictions for Ohio State in 2017
That scenario is unlikely to happen again in 2017, but the jumbled finish at the top of the division isn’t expected to get any less messy. Ohio State narrowly edged out the Nittany Lions for the division crown in our ballots. Does that mean Penn State has the fast track to a playoff appearance?
And then there’s Michigan. The Jim Harbaugh effect was supposed to catapult the Wolverines to the top of the conference and eventually into a national championship. Yet Michigan has finished third in his first two seasons at the helm. That’s not bad, but it’s not the program changing success that he was hired to deliver.
Michigan State is one of the harder teams to project entering this season. The egg laid by the Spartans in 2016 was both unexpected and uncharacteristic of the Spartans and head coach Mark Dantonio. It was the first 9-loss season of Dantonio’s coaching career and the first such season at Michigan State since 1982. Led by running back L.J. Scott, they’ll be dangerous this year. It might just be a .500 season in East Lansing, but the rest of the conference better not overlook the Spartans.