Big Ten football power rankings, Week 12: Who will win the West?

If you thought the Big Ten West could not get any crazier, you would have been wrong. As we enter the penultimate week of the regular season, there are now four teams tied for the division lead with five teams still mathematically alive for the division crown.

The conference overall this year appears down. Sure Ohio State and Michigan are on a collision course as undefeated teams but the rest of the conference does not look great.

One could look at the conference teams and break them into four tiers. There is Ohio State and Michigan of course in the elite tier. Then Penn State is on a tier by itself. A good team but not a great one.

This is followed by the slew of bowl eligible or soon-to-be bowl-eligible teams. There could be arguments made to rank these teams in any kind of order and you would not be wrong. Finally, there is the bottom set of teams that are not good to downright bad.

The middle tier of bowl eligible teams may change some in the next two weeks but the top and bottom will remain stable most likely.