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Hickey: Counting down the 5 biggest disappointments of the 2022 B1G regular season
By Alex Hickey
Published:
For some, this Big Ten season was all about meeting or exceeding preseason expectations.
Most prognosticators felt the best-case scenario for the league was an 11-0 showdown between Ohio State and Michigan. Lo and behold, it came to fruition.
But even then, it seemed likely the loser would be eliminated from the College Football Playoff race. What we got was better than most expected.
Penn State losing only to those 2 Playoff teams after bouncing back from a combined 11-11 record the past 2 seasons was another case of a team topping what was expected of it in the preseason.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses in the B1G.
These were the 5 biggest regular-season disappointments in 2022.
5. Injured stars
Bad injury luck bit Big Ten stars from the get-go.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who seemed a sure Biletnikoff Award finalist and dark horse Heisman candidate, pulled his hamstring early in the season opener against Notre Dame. He made 2 short-lived attempts to come back from the injury, but it never went away. Doctors finally told him to shut it down for the College Football Playoff so his body will be ready for the pre-draft process this spring.
Explosive as Ohio State’s offense still is, Smith-Njigba’s injury may have robbed us from seeing something at a 2019 LSU level. The same could be said of the nagging foot injury that shortened Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson’s season.
Henderson wasn’t the only star running back dealing with inopportune injuries.
Minnesota star Mohamed Ibrahim missed just 1 game, but it was a 20-10 loss to Purdue that ultimately decided the Big Ten West race. The Gophers looked lost without their leader, and it seems likely the outcome would have been different with him in the lineup.
And then there’s Michigan’s Blake Corum.
Corum’s season-ending injury in the penultimate game of the regular season killed his chances of winning the Heisman. With a monster game against Ohio State, and then against Purdue in the Big Ten title game, Corum likely would have been the B1G’s first Heisman winner since 2006.
It’s nobody’s fault that these injuries occurred, of course. But it’s still disappointing that we were denied witnessing varying shades of greatness.
4. The 4th-best B1G team, whoever it may be
Mathematically there must be a 4th-best team in the Big Ten, but darned if anybody can figure out who it actually is. By the conclusion of bowl season, it looks highly probable that this will be the first year since 2014 that only 3 Big Ten teams are ranked in the final AP poll.
With 3 teams in the top 10, the top of the Big Ten is as strong as it’s been in years. But the middle class has tripped all over itself.
Minnesota looked like a contender early before stumbling in October. Illinois was ranked before losing 3 straight late in the season. Purdue won the West, but was outclassed in the championship game. Maryland performed well against Michigan and Ohio State, but finished 7-5.
Maybe bowl season will reveal a definitive No. 4 B1G team. More likely, it’ll be just as muddled heading into the offseason.
3. Wisconsin as West favorite, again
Wisconsin was tabbed to win the Big Ten West for the 2nd straight season. The Badgers responded by starting 2-3 for the 2nd straight season, and this time it cost Paul Chryst his job after 8 years in charge.
To many outsiders, Chryst’s firing was a shock. After all, he’d never had a losing season and Wisconsin hasn’t missed a bowl in 20 years. But with the Badgers flat and uninspired out of the gate once again, it was clearly time for a new locker room message.
Chryst was largely done in by the inconsistent play of quarterback Graham Mertz, who will go down as one of the bigger disappointments in Big Ten history. After a sensational 2020 debut — 20 of 21 passing and 5 touchdowns against Illinois — Mertz threw 33 touchdowns and 26 interceptions the rest of his career.
2. Michigan State’s encore
Mel Tucker was comin’ in hot in 2022.
Michigan State finished 9th in the country, capped by a Peach Bowl win over Pitt. Tucker was 2-0 against Jim Harbaugh. And with another strong season, the Spartans were poised to leapfrog Penn State as the definitive No. 3 program in the Big Ten East.
Tucker’s much anticipated encore?
Michigan State couldn’t even make it to a bowl game. And based on how it went down, the Spartans’ 2021 success looks more like a byproduct of Kenneth Walker III than Mel Tucker.
Somehow, the on-field ineptitude wasn’t even the low point of Michigan State’s season. The postgame tunnel fiasco at Michigan was a black eye that will take some time to heal.
1. Scott Frost’s Hail Mary
One of the biggest individual duds in Big Ten history.
That description works for Scott Frost’s entire 5-year coaching tenure at Nebraska, but 2022 was the whipped cream on top of the disappointment sundae.
Frost should have been fired last year, but program legends are difficult to dump. A compromise was reached. Nebraska would keep Frost, and Frost agreed to a restructured contract that lowered his salary and buyout.
Jim Harbaugh’s restructured deal with Michigan in 2021 was the obvious inspiration. And though no one expected a Big Ten or even divisional title from Nebraska, surely Frost would have the Huskers back in a bowl game after a 5-year drought. Merely doing that would have been enough to save his job.
The season opener in Ireland made it clear how this was going to end. Nebraska took a 28-17 lead, then attempted an ill-advised onside kick that Northwestern was ready for. The Wildcats closed out on a 14-0 run, dropping Frost to 5-21 overall in 1-score games.
A 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern was finally the death knell for Frost’s disastrous tenure. It was Nebraska’s first-ever loss at Memorial Stadium when scoring 35 or more points. The Eagles gained 642 yards, which is a record for any road team at what was once one of the toughest venues in college football.
There have been many disappointments in Big Ten history. Scott Frost’s 2022 may belong near the top of the all-time list.
Alex Hickey is an award-winning writer who has watched Big Ten sports since it was a numerically accurate description of league membership. Alex has covered college football and basketball since 2008, with stops on the McNeese State, LSU and West Virginia beats before being hired as Saturday Tradition's Big Ten columnist in 2021. He is an Illinois native and 2004 Indiana University graduate.