The Little 11?

I have always been a huge supporter of the Big Ten against the other conferences. I thought the Big Ten played tough nosed Midwest football that prided itself with good defenses and a balanced offense.

Now, I wonder if that style of football will get you beat by the top tier teams in the NCAA. Now, chill out everyone that says a balanced offense and at good defense does not a good football team make. Just hear me out. This season the Big 11 is way down. This past weekend was a great example of that. Let's take a look, shall we........

Michigan and OSU: Played the awe inspiring 14-3 football game with 367 of total offense between the two teams. Tim Tebow has that before half time.

Penn State loses to MSU: MSU was tied for 10th place in the Big Ten coming into this game. Penn State was ranked in the top 25. Not good for the Big Ten nationally.

Wisconsin barley beats Minnesota: Wisconsin coming off a big win against Michigan at home all most gets upset by a 1-win Golden Gopher team that could be one of the worst teams in Division 1A.

Western Michigan beats Iowa: Enough said here.

IU beats Purdue: I know this is an instate rivalry and IU is looking forward to going to a bowl, but at one point this year Purdue was ranked 15th in the country and just lost 3 straight.

Come Bowl season the most attractive Big Ten school maybe Illinois. I expect them to get a Citrus Bowl invite to play maybe Georgia. I'm not sure their quite ready for that type of game yet.

So we throw in names like App. State, anyone that played Minnesota, and so on. I thinks it's hard to argue that the Big Ten hasn't had an off year.

So what's next? Let's try not to get embarrassed in the Bowl season. Right now the SEC-Big Ten Bowl match up looks heavily favored towards the SEC. Florida could be in the Outback Bowl? - Wow that will be ugly for Michigan or Wisconsin. OSU got a little lucky with Dennis Dixon going down last week and can compete against USC or Arizona State. But if they are to face West Virgina, that doesn't really set up very well for OSU.

There is always next year! Illinois and OSU will be the two top teams in the conference in 2008.