The best college football game for each week in November
By Austin Lloyd
Week 11: Michigan at Penn State (Nov. 11)
Usually when people think of the biggest games of the Big Ten football season, the first one to come to their minds is the classic war between Michigan and Ohio State (known by many as “The Game”). When considering how dominant the two powers have been both historically and recently, that’s not exactly a hot take.
There is another pairing, though, that I feel has the potential to dethrone that rivalry this time around, and that’s Michigan/11-win Penn State. One can easily come to this conclusion upon looking at things from the East division’s perspective, and here’s how.
Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State all play in the Big Ten East, meaning that the three schools encounter each other on the gridiron annually. With last season being the only one (so far) to see two teams from the same division make the playoff, that means that their matchups are likely to play pivotal roles in deciding which one represents the East in the 2023-24 bracket and which two don’t (it is a fair assumption that at least one of the East’s members will be in a position to do so, as that has been the case in seven of the nine college football installments so far).
With all of that now in the equation, let’s do what we did for Week 10: Ask simple questions. Who, as of last season, are the top squad to beat in the Big Ten? The Michigan Wolverines, who convincingly beat both Penn State (24-point win) and Ohio State (22-point win) en route to their 2022 Big Ten title. Of those two challengers, which one should now have the better shot at an upset? Penn State, as the Nittany Lions will have home-field advantage while the Buckeyes will be traveling to Ann Arbor.
By those criteria, this Week 11 meeting between the Wolverines and Nittany Lions is the one that’s most likely to hand the former their first conference loss since October of 2021 and, subsequently, shake up the Big Ten’s postseason footprint. That makes the case for it quite possibly being the conference’s biggest game of the year. With that much riding on it, the honor of being labeled America’s best game in Week 11 feels like a done deal.