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Ohio State made a 35-point victory look mundane, even a tad underwhelming.
That’s what happens when the Big Ten’s best team takes on the league’s worst team. The Buckeyes rolled past Rutgers 56-21 on Saturday.
OSU (10-0) remained on course for a College Football Playoff berth and will have a massive game this coming weekend against Penn State. The Buckeyes can clinch the East Division title and a place in the B1G title game on Dec. 7 but OSU’s dreams reach well beyond that.
Meanwhile, the biggest dream for Minnesota — an undefeated regular season — is over, but truth be told nobody expected the Golden Gophers to have a spotless record this far into November anyway. All that P.J. Fleck’s team realistically could hope to accomplish is still on the table including a real shot at winning the B1G West and reaching the B1G title game.
As for the rest of the B1G bowl picture, eight teams have become bowl eligible. Three others are 4-6 and need to win their final 2 games to qualify: Michigan State, Purdue and Nebraska.
Call us stubborn or crazy but we still project the Spartans to beat Rutgers and Maryland in their final two games and become bowl eligible at 6-6. Purdue has to play Wisconsin, then Indiana. Nebraska faces Maryland this week but then has to close against Iowa.
We’re still projecting that the Cornhuskers and Boilermakers will stay home for the holidays.
Now, on to our B1G bowl projections, in the conference’s approximate bowl selection order:
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.