Big Ten Power Rankings Week 2: Ohio State Still On Top But Penn State Closing Gap

The first weekend of play is in the books.  Which Big Ten teams made the grade and which teams need to show improvement as we head into week two?

College football is back!  There were some marquee games like Alabama – Florida State and Michigan – Florida.  There were also some extreme upsets like Howard over UNLV – the biggest upset, by point spread (Howard was +45.5), in college football history.  Week one saw a little bit of everything.

The Big Ten, like all other Power Five conferences, saw its teams play a full slate of games.  The conference opened with an impressive 11-3 record.  Most people wouldn’t have been surprised the conference’s elites like Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan all played well and won. However, the perennial bottom feeders of the league also played very well.  Despite losses by Rutgers and Purdue, both teams acquitted themselves quite well against ranked opponents. Illinois even found a way to pull out a victory.

Week two of the college football season typically sees the biggest non-conference match-ups of the season.  Perhaps the biggest game of the weekend pits two top-5 programs as the Oklahoma Sooners invade The Horseshoe to square off against the Ohio State Buckeyes.  Another top-flight game sees the Pittsburgh Panthers travel to Beaver Stadium to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions in a rivalry game.

Those games plus some other interesting match ups can be seen in the complete list of Big Ten action for week two.

If you are new, here’s how this works:  We rank each team week-to-week based on the “what have you done for me lately” premise.  We won’t look ahead, project where your favorite team will finish, or even care what players got hurt.  These rankings are based solely on the results of last week’s games.  And, if you don’t agree, feel free to let us know in the “Comments” section at the end of this post.

Without further ado, I present this week’s Big Ten Power Rankings in reverse order (previous week in parentheses).