Big Ten football: 3 biggest surprises, 3 biggest disappointments so far this season

A lot of wackiness has gone down around the Big Ten in 7 weeks, because it’s college football and a month and a half can feel like a lifetime.

Very little has gone as expected, because it’s college football and Ohio State being undefeated and No. 1 in mid-October is about as surprising as the sun rising in the East.

OK, you want the wackiness? How about a team, a program, a head coach and a fan base many thought were finally destined to bask in glory in January being in shambles a few weeks before Halloween. White Out? The lights have already gone out at Penn State in 2025.

That covers the very extremes of this fall’s Big Ten reality, at least so far, because we’ve got another 7 weeks of presumed wackiness ahead of us until we smack head-first into December. In other words, we’ve got another lifetime of Big Ten football to live.

Here we are now, at the exact midpoint of the season and breathless already. So, let’s take a much-needed breath for a few minutes while breaking down the 3 biggest surprises and 3 biggest disappointments so far in the Big Ten: 

3 biggest surprises

We’ll start on the bright side of the Big Ten world:

1. Last year’s breakout was just the beginning for Indiana

Curt Cignetti had won everywhere he had been as a college football head coach, but this wasn’t IUP, Elon or James Madison. In the fall of 2024, Cignetti had finally hit the big time in the Big Ten, and turning Indiana football into a perennial winner was probably going to take a while. Or maybe it wouldn’t for the master coaching magician that the 64-year-old Pittsburgh native has become.

Cignetti immediately lit the flame on football at a blue-blood basketball school, leading Indiana to 11 wins and a berth in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. IU’s first-round Playoff loss at Notre Dame wasn’t just a cute ending to a Cignetti Cinderella story, either. Because in 2025, Curt Cignetti has led Indiana to even greater heights, with last Sunday’s No. 3 ranking in the AP Poll being the highest in program history.

So, maybe Cignetti winning games at Indiana isn’t a surprise, because he’s done it everywhere. But Indiana walking into Autzen Stadium in Eugene, which has forever been hell for opponents, and taking down Oregen by 10 is something Hoosier football fans have never really seen. IU is a perfect 6-0, 3-0 in the Big Ten, and at this moment the Hoosiers stand side-by-side top the league with defending national champion Ohio State. 

Last season, Indiana proved it was a Playoff team. This season, with Heisman contender Fernando Mendoza firing darts all over the field, Indiana might just be a national championship team.

2. Nebraska is quietly 5-1 and has snuck into the rankings

While Matt Rhule deals with rumors about the Penn State job, he’s suddenly got a good thing going right under his watch in Lincoln. The Cornhuskers don’t have a ranked win yet this season and they lost their only game against a ranked team, falling at home to Michigan in Week 4. 

But after beating Michigan State and Maryland to get to 5-1, guess what Rhule’s program does have? That would be a number next to its name, as Nebraska squeezed into the AP rankings last Sunday at No. 25. It’s the Cornhuskers’ first time being ranked in 2025, and they’ll have the Friday night Big Ten spotlight in putting that ranking to the test when they visit Minnesota for an 8 p.m. ET kickoff on FOX.

Dylan Raiola overcame 3 interceptions in the Maryland win last week, and he’s thrown for 1,591 yards and 16 touchdowns this season. Raiola has a chance to be special, and Rhule has a chance to pile up some wins this fall without Ohio State, Indiana or Oregon being on the schedule. 

Lincoln is officially on notice.

3. Lincoln Riley has USC ranked and ready for Notre Dame

There’s no sugarcoating it. Lincoln Riley was on the hot seat at USC going into 2025 — even Trojans legend Matt Leinart admitted it. Because 8-5 and 7-6, USC’s record the previous 2 seasons, respectively, doesn’t go over well, especially from a head coach who banged out 55 wins in 5 stellar seasons at Oklahoma.

Riley needed to make a stand this fall, for his sagging blue-blood program and for himself, and he’s done just that. The only thing keeping USC from a 6-0 start is a last-second loss on the road against a then-ranked Illinois team, and last week these rejuvenated Trojans finally got that statement win by taking down Michigan at the Coliseum. 

USC has been in and out of the rankings all season, but that Michigan win sent the Trojans rocketing back into those AP rankings at No. 20. Junior quarterback Jayden Maiava is a budding star who’s getting Heisman attention, and Riley has USC relevant again just in time for a Week 8 showdown at No. 13 Notre Dame. 

A win in South Bend would hand Riley that signature moment he’s long craved at USC, and if that happens on Saturday night, then look out Big Ten.

3 biggest disappointments

The Big Ten has had its dark side, too, and here are some examples:

1. Penn State’s flop and James Franklin’s demise

Let’s be real and maybe a little harsh. Penn State’s freefall of a downfall could have filled up all 3 on our disappointments side. That’s how cosmic of a collapse this was. It took 3 games over a 2-week span of time, 15 days to be exact, for the Nittany Lions to go from the 3rd-ranked team in the country to a 3-3 team with an 0-3 Big Ten record and a big, fat head coaching vacancy.

We’ll never know how things would’ve turned out had Penn State completed that furious comeback against Oregon in Week 5. Instead, it ended sadly in Happy Valley that night, with a double-overtime punch in the stomach, and then it all fell apart with back-to-back unthinkable losses to UCLA and Northwestern. If the Oregon loss never happens, is Penn State 6-0 and possibly the No. 1 team in the country right now instead of Ohio State?

But the loss did happen, and James Franklin committed the unforgivable act of letting it snowball into those next 2 losses as a huge favorite. Franklin, who was fired last Sunday in the aftermath of the Northwestern loss, was rightfully always known as the coach who couldn’t win any big games in 11-plus seasons in State College. He could never get over the Ohio State-Michigan hump, and even when he found his way to the College Football Playoff semifinals last season, that ended painfully, too.

But the past 2 games were the dagger, and rightfully so, too. Franklin had lost control of his team, which was clearly shell-shocked from that Oregon setback. There will be a lot of soul-searching in State College over the next few months, as 1 of college football’s biggest brands searches for a new head coach and, no doubt, a new identity.

2. Wisconsin can’t score, and Luke Fickell has no answers

Fickell could very well follow James Franklin out the door if things don’t get at least a little better in a hurry in Madison. And good luck on that happening this Saturday afternoon when No. 1 Ohio State rolls into Camp Randall Stadium to try to punish those loyal Wisconsin fans a little more. 

They’ve already had enough pain, and it’s only Week 8. Forget the listless 17-0 Week 1 win over a Miami (Ohio) team that’s now 3-3 and also throw out the 42-10 Week 2 victory over a Middle Tennessee squad that now sits at 1-5. That was fool’s gold, and upon further review it wasn’t really gold, was it? 

Instead, it was a precursor of bad things to come for Wisconsin, starting with a Week 3 reality check at Alabama. The Badgers only managed 14 points in Tuscaloosa, then put up a feeble 10 points each in their next 2 losses to Maryland and Michigan. Sadly, those were the warmup acts to last week’s 37-0 home embarrassment against Iowa, which was Wisconsin’s first home shutout loss in over 4 decades.

The 2-4 Badgers have lost 4 in a row, and it feels worse than that. And Luke Fickell? He’s now just 15-17 since taking over in Madison late in the 2022 season. Now comes a potentially ugly visit from his top-ranked alma mater where he was also a longtime assistant coach. 

3. Bryce Underwood and Michigan have failed in big spots

Sure, things were never going to be too easy for Michigan in 2025 because as super-talented as Underwood is, he’s just so young. Underwood turned 18 just 11 days before he played his first game at Michigan, and though he’s been OK so far, Underwood hasn’t been able to answer the bell in the Wolverines’ 2 showdown games against Oklahoma and USC.

It hasn’t helped Underwood’s cause that both high-profile battles were on the road. The schedule has done him no favors as a talented but raw freshman. But under the bright primetime lights, Underwood only completed 9 of 24 passes for 142 yards and 0 touchdowns at Oklahoma, and back in primetime last week at USC he threw 2 TDs but couldn’t keep up with the Trojans. 

Michigan managed exactly 13 points in both losses. The Wolverines have fallen out of the AP Top 25 and aren’t relevant right now. Underwood will no doubt have far better days (and nights) at Michigan, but in his first 2 collegiate losses his QBR was just 43.3 against Oklahoma and 61.8 against USC. He’s still got a really long way to go.