Big Ten football power rankings, Week 7: Purdue chugging along

What a debut for Jim Leonhard as head coach of the Badgers. They were able to do pretty much anything they wanted to do on their way to a 42-7 victory over Northwestern.

Much maligned quarterback Graham Mertz had a career day with five touchdown passes. Braelon Allen bounced back from an awful performance last week with 135 yards and he even threw a touchdown pass. The defense forced three Wildcat turnovers and held their rushing attack in check, giving up only 79 yards on the ground.

It is hard to look too much into the dominant performance because Northwestern is a bad football team right now. However, Wisconsin has not looked good this year either and they delivered their best game of the season against a Big Ten opponent. They stay on the road with a game at Michigan State next Saturday.

Minnesota had an off week to correct the mistakes from their loss against Purdue a week ago. They have another challenge next Saturday on the road at Illinois.

Maryland fell just short Saturday at home, losing to Purdue 31-29. The two teams were tied 17-17 at halftime and the game remained the same score until a wild fourth quarter which saw four touchdowns scored in the final eight minutes.

The Terps penalty problems showed up again in this one, being flagged nine times for 76 yards. None more crucial when they were flagged for an illegal man downfield on the two-point conversion that would have tied the game. The Terps failed on the second attempt and Purdue recovered the subsequent onside kick to seal the win.

This is still a decent Maryland team but a win would have been huge for the program. The Terps have two winnable games in the next two weeks against Indiana and Northwestern.