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Who’s ready for a little chaos this week?
On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff committee will release its first rankings of the season, which will captivate the college football audience on a night devoted to trick-or-treating. But really, everybody will be in for a little bit of a treat — or maybe just pure surprise — when those rankings come out.
After Ohio State beat Penn State to climb back into the playoff picture and Iowa State took down TCU to virtually eliminate the Big XII from contention again, there’s definitely going to be a lot of intrigue to see who falls where on the first show.
Halloween should be plenty of fun.
Before we get to this week’s bowl projections, here are a few notes and takeaways from Week 9 in the B1G.
- Ohio State’s unbelievable come-from-behind victory over Penn State is the most impressive win any B1G team has notched thus far in the season. After dominating the competition the last five weeks, the win over the Nittany Lions was exactly what the Buckeyes needed to prove they belong in the national title discussion.
- While the loss to Ohio State was definitely a gut-punch, Penn State isn’t out of the national discussion just yet. James Franklin and Co. will need a little help, but if the Nittany Lions win out, they’ll still have a shot to grab one of the four playoff spots.
- Michigan State needs to figure something out offensively, and fast, if it hopes to stay in the race in the East. Losing to Northwestern was a setback, but as Mark Dantonio said, the Spartans are still in control of their own destiny. But if MSU doesn’t figure something out offensively, it doesn’t stand a chance against Penn State or Ohio State.
- Tanner Lee may have saved Nebraska’s bowl hopes with a game-winning touchdown pass against Purdue. The Huskers sit at 4-4, needing just two wins to return to the postseason. Maybe it won’t be enough to save Mike Riley’s job, but it was definitely a clutch performance in a must-win game.
- First-year head coaches are running out of opportunities to get to that all-important six-win mark. Jeff Brohm (Purdue) and Tom Allen (Indiana) are both at 3-5 and P.J. Fleck (Minnesota) is 4-4. With all three teams losing this past weekend, it was a huge blow to those postseason hopes.
- Finally, I’ll round this out with a question for the College Football Playoff committee. Is it going to be an all SEC-B1G playoff picture in the first rankings of the season? Chances seem high that we’ll see Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Wisconsin occupy the top four spots on Tuesday. Wouldn’t that be an interesting start to the final month of the year?
This is always an interesting time in the college football season and Tuesday should be a really interesting night.
But until then, here are the B1G bowl projections following Week 9.
Bowl Conferences Teams Heart of Dallas Bowl B1G vs. Big XII Iowa vs. Texas Tech Pinstripe Bowl B1G vs. ACC Nebraska vs. Virginia Foster Farms Bowl B1G vs. Pac-12 Northwestern vs. Stanford Holiday Bowl B1G vs. Pac-12 Michigan vs. Arizona Music City Bowl B1G vs. SEC Maryland vs. Kentucky Outback Bowl B1G vs. SEC Minnesota vs. South Carolina Citrus Bowl B1G vs. SEC Michigan State vs. Texas A&M Fiesta Bowl AL vs. AL* Wisconsin vs. Washington Orange Bowl ACC vs. B1G Penn State vs. Miami (FL) CFP Semis: Rose Bowl AL vs. AL* (3) Ohio State State vs. (2) Georgia
*Denotes at-large bid
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB