With Ohio State on a Week 9 bye, Indiana had its chance to steal that show, and the Hoosiers did not disappoint. Curt Cignetti’s team buried UCLA 56-6 in Bloomington, halting the Bruins' resurgence in its tracks.
Indiana continues to play like a clear national championship contender, but Oregon, the No. 3 team in the Big Ten, could be slipping away from the Buckeyes and the Hoosiers. Granted, it was in sloppy conditions in Eugene, but the Ducks managed just 21 points against Wisconsin and allowed the Badgers their first points since Week 6.
With Iowa, USC, and Washington still on the schedule, it’s not a certainty that the Ducks run the table into the College Football Playoff. Even two-loss Oregon likely gets an at-large bid, but those are three losable games for a team that looked borderline bulletproof early this year.
Iowa stomps Minnesota for the bronze pig
One of the reasons that Oregon’s final four games are so tough is that Iowa, with Mark Gronowski back to 100% for maybe the first time all year, looks like a real Big Ten contender. A week after Minnesota handled Nebraska, Iowa exploited its line of scrimmage advantage to dominate the Golden Gophers.
The Hawkeyes went up 31-0 before closing out a 41-3 victory. Minnesota finished with just 133 total yards, and only 24 on the ground, with three interceptions. Gronowski has been a solid runner all year, but he’s become more efficient in the passing game, and that’s unlocking a new level to Iowa’s offense that the Hawkeyes hadn’t tapped into with their FCS transfer.
Now, with a significant reshuffling, Iowa slots in at No. 6, topping tier 3. We can’t simply play the who-beat-who game anymore because Illinois beat USC, beat Michigan, beat Washington, and to complete the cycle, Washington beat Illinois on Saturday.
Illinois has asked Luke Altmyer to win shootouts all year. The Fighting Illini’s secondary is questionable, and the offensive line struggles to create running lanes, so it’s the Altmyer show. In Week 9, he just couldn’t match Demond Williams.
The Washington QB threw for 280 yards and four touchdowns on 26-of-33 passing, with 10 of those completions going to Denzel Boston, one of the best Big Ten wide receivers outside of Columbus. Washington’s statement win now keeps the Huskies alive for the CFP, but USC and Michigan still feel a slight step up from tier 3, but clearly behind the tier 1 contenders.
While Penn State was on a bye, the Nittany Lions get a bump from the top of the last tier to the bottom of the second-to-last tier in the Big Ten because taking Iowa to the brink with Ethan Grunkemeyer may have been more impressive than anybody thought in the moment.