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Big Ten Championship: Every game title-worthy, says Jim Harbaugh
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In the Big Ten, every game matters.
Ranked No. 4 in the country entering the fourth weekend of the 2016 college football season, Michigan (3-0, 0-0) will begin conference play against Penn State (2-1, 0-0) this Saturday at home. And even though the Nittany Lions already have a loss to Pittsburgh under their belts, Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh still thinks this is a massive matchup with big-time championship implications on the line.
He’ll feel the same way about Wisconsin next week, too. And Rutgers the week after that. Then Illinois, and so on and so forth. You get the idea.
“The facts are, that the championships on the line every week,” Harbaugh said Thursday morning on WXYT 97.1 FM in Detroit. “You’re playing for the title every week. You make every week a big game. It’s a championship-type game. There’s three to four teams in the top 10, ranked nationally and the implications are that every game, it’s a game but it’s also …
“If you get in any tiebreaker, the first tiebreaker is the head-to-head matchup, and the conference record is next. They’re worth a game plus a half. That’s why it’s a championship game.”
Michigan hasn’t been ranked this high in the AP poll since 2006 — the same season that started with an 11-0 record before dropping two in a row to Ohio State (the Game of the Century) and then USC in the Rose Bowl.
Tyler has covered college football on a freelance basis since 2010. In addition to Saturday Football, his work has been featured on ESPN Radio, Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, Cox Media Group, Athlon Sports, and more.