Off Tackle Empire

The B1G’s NCAA Tourney Bubble Is Close To Bursting, And Why The B1G Isn’t The Nation’s Best College Basketball Conference

2012-02-22T16:32:43Z

Who says we can't write about basketball on OTE? With Spring Practice not quite heating up yet and some excellent storylines to be discussed, I wanted to ponder a little bit of media/reality disconnect I've been seeing regarding the B1G's basketball conferences.

Early this month, I read a few articles claiming the B1G is the best conference in college basketball. I was a tad surprised, well more than a tad surprised, because after watching a ton of games this year, I felt like the B1G wasn't that strong a conference. Sure we have tenacious Michigan, peaking Michigan State, and uber-talented OSU. But beyond them, very few teams strike me as dangerous or even Tourney worthy. These teams just don't pass the "do they look like an NCAA team" test. The conference as a whole plays defense well, which is important and half the battle, but...Illinois? Dead in the water. Purdue? Limping. Wisconsin? Cannot score the basketball.

My fears were confirmed today when "the best conference in the NCAA" was given only three locks for the NCAA Tourney by the SI Bubble Watch expert. Indiana and Wisconsin are "probably in", but not locks, according to this expert. The other possible four teams (Purdue, NW, Illinois, Minnesota) are closer to not making the Tourney...than to making it.

So what did we learn here?

It should be markedly obvious that the Big Ten is not in fact the dominant conference in college basketball. Our national championship results (no title since 2000, and before that, 1989) plus our Final Four presence of late (MSU and...) plus the amount of teams we're pushing into the Tourney this year, doesn't exactly equal dominance.

When the Mountain West may qualify as many Tourney teams as the SEC and the Pac 12 could qualify two teams overall, it should ALSO be markedly obvious that there is no dominant conference in the country. And any discussion of the Big East's tremendous depth is always colored by the huge amount of teams in that conference. Parity truly reigns across the basketball landscape, something we already knew coming off a 2011 Final Four that involved VCU and Butler.

There is one more issue this season taking down our national profile - disappointing teams. I would place Minnesota, Illinois, and Purdue squarely in that group, although I'm sure an argument could be made that Purdue has lost key players and lacks depth, thus their in-conference struggles could be expected.

Illinois has tremendous physical talent, it seems, but no cohesive offensive game and little defensive presence. The label of underachieving is never one you want to put on that program, but it's a great basketball school with fertile recruiting fields to sow, so I ask: What's the problem here?

Debbie Downer-ing aside, I don't want to piss on anyone's parade too much. This season has been so much fun, especially if you like defense and low scoring close games. We should start a whole other discussion thread just to discuss Coach of the Year: Does it have to be Izzo (from unranked to Top 10)? What about Fran McCaffery, winning games that this team doesn't deserve to win?

BONUS OTE FEATURE - My Three Favorite B1G Moments So Far

Michigan beating Ohio State at home. Well, of course I'm going to love that moment, but still, this was the biggest win for the Michigan basketball program since...the 90's?

Every game involving Draymond Green. He's running away with B1G POY because he's the glue guy and the star at the same time.

The Matt Gatens three point explosion against Indiana the other night. Last game I watched involving Iowa, they were getting beat by 40 at the Breslin. I turn around and BAM, Gatens goes off for 30. Beautiful.

Poll

Which B1G team is most likely to make an NCAA tourney run?

State of the B1G 2012: National Competitiveness Part I - On the Field

2012-02-20T11:00:03Z

For the past few weeks, I have been immersing myself in data. I am not an analyst by trade, but I am extremely fascinated by what information can tell us and I am also a little obsessive when I begin researching something I find interesting. And so when the OTE team decided to work on assessing the State of the B1G, I knew that I wanted to tackle the issue of "National Competitiveness." This was twofold:

1) Let's be honest, I'm still the new guy to the group and I felt like I could provide as non-biased an approach to the conference as a whole as possible (insert inability to be unbiased jokes here)

-and-

2) I had always revered the B1G as the premier conference in football, but with obvious hate getting thrown around by major media post-bowls for the past two seasons, I wanted to dig into the pieces that really make the B1G 'competitive'

After trying to come up with some legitimate parameters and failing miserably, I started researching everything from bowl records to rankings, net worth to attendance, and most anything on education I could find. The results? A aforementioned ridiculous amount of data that had to be parsed into consumable bites because no website wants to make this task easy.

What we are left with is a 3 part Series on The State of the B1G 2012: National Competitiveness. This first piece focuses solely on the B1G's current state of On the Field Competitiveness and will dive into what numbers say from a Rankings, Bowl Record, and National Championship (or lack thereof) view. Spoiler alert: It's pretty much what you expect. The second piece will dive into the B1G's competitiveness nationally as it pertains to Fans in the Stands and Net Worth. After all, this is all a money game, right? Finally, we're going to look at the one competition B1G fans think they rule - education. I mean, these are still student-athletes, right? We'll look at NCAA APR, Graduation Rates, and School Rankings and I'll try to make sense of it all. These three pieces will give a good snapshot of how the B1G compares to its national brothers and hopefully make sense of the conversation, "My conference can beat up your conference." So, that's the plan. On to the breakdown!

So... The B1G isn't the best football conference?

Before we go too much further, it's probably important to point out that all information I am accessing is trying to assess where the B1G is currently. While some of the information in future pieces are not going to have data from 2011, I have done my best to try to provide a snapshot of where we are as a conference relative to this moment. I have not gotten historical, and I really don't plan on it in the immediate future (mostly because of the previously mentioned stacks of paper and personal penchant for obsessive behavior... pieces like this aren't healthy for me or my wife's love of a non-cluttered office). Anyhow, at this moment, it probably wouldn't surprise you that the B1G is not the top conference in football. In fact, if you had to take a stab at it, most of you would guess somewhere around 3rd or 4th, right? Right. The numbers agree with you.

Mythical National Championship Game

Okay, I know it was a crock and to be perfectly honest, I'm beginning to wonder if it's a valid MNC indicator anymore. Still, this would not be a valid conversation without at least mentioning that as of right now the SEC rules all because they won the game and had the runner up. Moving right along...

Well, We Got TWO BCS Teams in, so there's that...

No matter what side of the aisle you are on (mostly that of Michigan winning a game or Michigan State believing they deserved to be in that game), we can all agree that it's better for the B1G to have two BCS teams than one regardless of the team. I know that there is a lot of chatter about what it matters, and that it's just money driving the decisions, but to qualify for the BCS, you have to have a good season and be a fairly decent team. Along with the SEC and Pac-12, the B1G sent two instead of the one automatic bid which gave the conference more exposure and money AND showed that the conference is still fairly deep. Big XII fans probably have a decent argument as to why they should have had two teams, but when K-State is the second team, they'll always lose out to Michigan. It's just kind of what happens. Oh, and the B1G went 1-1, which is nice (as opposed to going 0-2... we're looking at you ACC).

You haven't told me anything interesting yet. BOOOOOOO!!!

Sorry about that. When you've done research and have a stack of papers in front of you, it's hard to churn out interesting really interesting information. I mean, I'm recapping... bear with me. For those people who need pictures and fancy graphs, I give you this:

So what does this poorly colored and awkward graph tell us? Well, a couple of things. First and foremost, an important part of assessing the B1G's competitiveness starts with looking at how deep the conference is. With ten out of twelve teams going bowling, the B1G sent the highest percentage of its teams to a postseason game. That's remarkable and is better than both the SEC and Big XII. Of course, the flipside to that is that the B1G isn't winning at a high clip. The argument has and will continue to be that the B1G plays 'up' but that's not an excellent longterm excuse. Sooner or later you gotta win the games that are on the schedule. I will note that it's also not as absolutely dire as it could be. In a 'down' year as a conference, the winning percentage still was good enough for third overall. At least we're not the Pac 12... wait, we're partnered with them? Awesome...

Third overall? I guess that's not so bad...

As I've tried to really figure out exactly where the Big Ten stands in terms of overall competitiveness, I wanted to tackle it from many different angles. I did not go absolute head-to-head because the amount of data available is only so deep. What I was able to do was rank each conference according to their final F/+ (via Football Outsiders), BCS, and Sagarin. BCS did not have a final ranking post bowl season that I could find, so those numbers skew things a little bit. Still, this gives a good overall view of what we're working with. Here's what the numbers say:

So here's the deal, as we all knew, the B1G is squarely in third place as of right now. For what it's worth, I think the new Big XII will be slightly better off with their two new additions in West Virginia and TCU, but it's a marginal change at best. That is, of course, assuming those teams don't implode. The only question that remains is what do you do with all this? Most fans who watched football from sunup to sundown on Saturdays last season probably knew the B1G was trending around third place among the major conferences, but what good does it do to recap? Well, as a fan of the B1G, I think it is necessary to look at these numbers and say that something has to be done to be more competitive on the field. The Buckeyes hiring Urban Meyer was a good step forward. The improvements at the lower end of the spectrum at places like Minnesota and Indiana are hopefully going to pay off as well. OTE will tackle coaches and Urban in more depth, but those are great starts. The good news from this information is that not all is lost. The B1G was competitive overall and sent a lot of teams to bowls. As the impending ~~doom~~ playoff system approaches, it will be interesting to see where the conference lands. It seems like things are still setup nice and cozy for success in the future.

In the next post, we'll be discussing why the B1G might not really care about MNC's, rankings, and what the SEC is doing... You know, because we got $$$.

I suppose there's no point to studying business at Michigan since all of the companies in the state...

2012-02-16T01:05:26Z

I suppose there's no point to studying business at Michigan since all of the companies in the state went bankrupt in 2008...

State of the B1G's Quarterbacks: A Stable, Unspectacular Group Headlined By...?

2012-02-13T02:34:32Z

Mr. Delaney, Mr. Bielema, and fellow OTE reader -

I sit here and deliver a discussion on the state of quarterbacking in the B1G. I sit here and deliver a discussion on passing games in the B1G.

But most importantly, I sit here to warn you - We are not the same pass-happy conference that we were two years ago. The State of the B1G Quarterbacks and Passing Games are in flux thanks to coaching changes and changing offense philosophy.

2010

This is the gold standard of Midwest quarterback performances. Let me give you stats -

(9) This is the number of qualified starting quarterbacks who had a rating of 129.9 or higher. That's unbelievable. Even quarterbacks on terrible teams were putting up great numbers. Hey look, it's Adam Weber and his 20-9 TD/INT ratio! OH, hello Ben Chappell, leading the B1G in passing yards. Wha??? Five quarterbacks had 150+ ratings. Almost every team had a working, dynamic passing game that they were able to depend on if the run got stuffed.

How did this God-blessed passing extravaganza happen? Veteran O-Lines, veteran QB's, veteran wide receivers...and coaching staffs that had been together for a long time.

2011 saw some surprises (Russell Wilson led the damn nation in QB Rating, OSU couldn't throw the ball.at.all), but it wasn't that much of a drop off. Denard improved in conference play, Kirk Cousins and Dan Persa were consistently solid, while James Vandenburg, Taylor Martinez, and Nathan Scheelhaase fell a tad below expectations.

2012 will not be so simple, with tremendous coaching turnover and a few teams that...just haven't quite figured out what passing system works for them.

2012...New Coaches, New Faces

I guess a quarterback's rating isn't a completely individual number. While Andrew Maxwell may be unknown, I can guess that his talent, combined with Sparty's overall solid program and huge number of returning starters, will quickly make him a plus quarterback.

Plus Quarterbacks

Andrew Maxwell, Denard Robinson, Kain Colter, James Vandenburg, Braxton Miller

...

Average Quarterbacks

Robert Marve (or the return of the two-headed QB system), Nathan Scheelhaase, MarQueis Gray, Taylor Martinez

...

Below Average Quarterbacks

The three-headed Bolden/Jones/McGloin mess, Tre Robertson, Curt Phillips/Jon Budmayr

What do we see in this group? Very few big arms. Very few "Jeff George, you go deep and I'll make it work" throwers. Tons and tons of dual threat quarterbacks. Colter isn't much better than Scheelhaase, in fact they're pretty similar, but he plays in a better offensive system. Gray is a top-top level athlete, but his arm is unproven and he...plays for Minnesota. Some comments and questions for 2012:

Will Michigan tweak it's pro-form more in 2012 to fit Denard's talents?

Marcus Coker is gone - How much does that impact Iowa's quarterback play?

Conventional wisdom says the sky is the limit for Miller in the Urban Spread. Can anyone make an argument that conventional wisdom is wrong?

Scheelhaase would get pulled at odd times in 2011 and replaced by Reilly O'Toole, a savvy youngster who brought less to the table than Scheelhaase. a) Who created that substitution pattern? b) Will we see it again this year?

Does anyone know what offense Bill O'Brien will be running at Penn State?

If Taylor Martinez struggles excessively at any point, will Bo pull him? What do Nebraska fans think?

Of the purported starters, who is most likely to lose their job? Who is most likely to succeed wildly beyond expectations?

ATS1996BTFT Game 2 - 2007 Indiana v. 1998 Wisconsin

2012-02-10T13:05:05Z

It's time for the kickoff of the second game of the All-Time (Since 1996) Big Ten Football Tournament (the explanation is here). Today we will see the Number 12 seeded 2007 Hoosiers of Indiana face off against the Fifth Seeded 1998 Badgers of Wisconsin. Fourth seeded 2008 Penn State awaits the winner in the quarterfinals. But first let's brush up on our competitors.

#12 2007 Indiana

7-6 (3-5); Lost to Oklahoma State in Insight Bowl

The Hoosiers came close in 2006. If not for a ridiculous loss to 1-AA Southern Illinois, they would have finished 6-6 and been bowling. Still things were looking up. Head Coach Terry Hoeppner had a veteran team coming back, and he instilled the mantra "Play 13." 2007 would be their bowl year. Mercurial quarterback Kellen Lewis led a talented offense that ran a form of spread option. James Hardy and Marcus Thigpen seemed to take turns making big plays. The defense was...well, it was better then it had been. Then, the unthinkable happened. Terry Hoeppner was diagnosed with brain cancer in the Spring. It would prove fatal in June. Offensive coordinator Bill Lynch was elevated to head coach, and he proclaimed that the 2007 season would be dedicated to Indiana playing 13 for Hep. The offense was fantastic. Greg Middleton and the defense were just good enough. When Austin Starr's 49 yard field goal beat Purdue, Indiana had won their seventh game. There would be a 13th.

#5 1998 Wisconsin Badgers

11-1 (7-1) Co-Big Ten Champs; Defeated UCLA in Rose Bowl

This is Big Ten Football. Big. Beefy. Powerful. Pounding. Relentless. Of all of the teams in this tournament, the 1998 Wisconsin Badgers epitomized the thoughts of what Big Ten football was all about. Led by All-America Running Back Ron Dayne, the Badgers pounded their way to the Rose Bowl. Quarterback Mike Samuel was a game manager, but he did have an incredibly talented weapon in wide receiver Chris Chambers. While not an all-time great, the defense was strong, holding seven of 12 opponents to single digits. The Badgers were thought to be outmatched by Bruins, who were a season-ending loss away from playing for a national championship. Wisconsin put those thoughts to rest with a 38-31 win.

And now, to the game...

Dayne Brings Badgers Back

After Bad Quarter, Badgers Run Over Indiana

It did not start well for the Badgers. After the teams traded punts, a 36 yard run by Marcus Thigpen set up a short touchdown pass. Two plays later, Tracy Porter intercepted a Mike Samuel pass and brought it back to the Badgers' 20 yard line. That led to a one yard plunge by Kellen Lewis, and a 14-0 1st Quarter lead for Indiana. Barry Alvarez was livid. The Wisconsin players looked dazed. The Badgers finally got started with a field goal, but it was the last minute of the half that turned the tide.

The Hoosiers defense, which had played so well, finally broke. Samuel hit Ahmad Merritt for a 13 yard touchdown pass. After Kellen Lewis was picked off on Indiana's first play (why didn't you kneel on the ball, Bill Lynch?), another field goal brought the Badgers to within a point. Indiana may have led, but you would have been hard pressed to find a soul who thought they'd hold on. They didn't. The second half saw Ron Dayne pulverize the Badgers, with three touchdown runs. The game never really felt in doubt in the second half, and Wisconsin moved on to face the Nittany Lions in the Quarterfinals.

(click to embiggen)

Thoughts on the Outcome:

We all saw this coming. It's not just that Indiana was the worst team in the field, it's that they were the worst team in the field by a lot. And this Wisconsin team is really good. I don't know that there is much more to say than that. We could see a lot of exciting matchups as the bracket unfolds. I'm very excited to see how the Badgers fare against Penn State's run defense.

HMLee on the 1998 Badgers:

The emotion I associate most with the 1998 Wisconsin Badgers team is jealousy. Because of this, my memory of what we've decided was the best Badgers team is a bit... clouded. That year, my parents somehow acquired tickets to the Rose Bowl that Wisconsin entered into because of the strange Big Ten tiebreaking rules in force at the time (see, Sparty fans, 2010 wasn't the only time Wisconsin benefitted from tiebreaking rules). But did they bring me? Oh no. Of course not. I was just a teenager. I missed seeing Ron Dayne put on a show that previewed his 1999 Heisman campaign. I missed the Badgers proving Craig James wrong. And I missed out on a victory over a team that seemed bound for a national championship in UCLA. Given the Badgers struggles in recent years with Rose Bowls, missing out on the end of the '98 season seems all the more sad. And the fact that I still feel slighted more than a decade later should tell you just how great this Badgers squad really was.

Next week: 2002 Iowa faces off against 2003 Minnesota. Oh yes, the pig is on the line...

State of the B1G: Expansion

2012-02-08T12:46:03Z

Welcome to OTE's State of the B1G 2012, where we will be examining the B1G conference from as many angles as the twisted minds of our crack staff of writers can muster up.

...

One of the most discussed topics over the last year and a half or so has been college football expansion. Remember, this all started because B1G Commissioner Big Jim Delany said he thought the B1G might be considering, at some point in the future, possibly, maybe, expanding to a 12th team.

All Hell ensued, at the maelstrom is still continuing to this day.

The Big XII conference appeared to be going the way of the USFL, the SEC was looking at 4 to 6 teams, depending on which rumors you chose to believe, and the B1G and PAC-10 were rumored to be wooing Texas and triggering, along with the SEC, the college football equivalent of Armageddon--16 team super-conferences that would envelop and swallow the Big XII and Big East whole, muahahahaha.

All because Jim Delany farted the word 'expansion'.

So where are we in terms of conference expansion, where are other conferences, and what teams should...or what teams must..the B1G go after to stay at the forefront of this rapidly changing landscape?

First things first about expansion--I'm not getting into what other conferences are doing or are rumored to be doing, because honestly I can't keep up with it, with a couple exceptions. I do know the SEC expanded to 14 teams, adding Texas A and M and that bastion of Confederacy in Missouri. The Big XII is still around, and should be back at twelve teams soon...at least I think so. The ACC is adding teams that are geographically closer to most teams, which is better than the Big East, which has a conference footprint that literally will go from coast to coast when it's all said and done.

And the Mountain West and Conference USA might merge. Yikes.

So when you look at conference expansion through that prism, and then look what the B1G has done in adding 'just' Nebraska (sorry, Northwestern fans), at first glance it seems like Delany took his shot and missed his target.

But actually, just the opposite has taken place. Delany and the B1G are in the driver's seat, and they probably won't even add another team.

There's no need to.

See, once again Jim Delany has been playing chess while the rest of the conference commissioners have been playing checkers, even the SEC. Texas A and M and Missouri are nice additions to the SEC, but they're not earth shattering, and they didn't really move the needle in terms of upping the ante. The SEC paced college football by expanding to twelve teams and developing a conference championship game back in the early '90's, but Missouri and A and M was uninspired. You add Texas and Oklahoma you've got my attention, but Missouri and Aggie? Meh.

Delany and the B1G have been setting the pace since he announced that the conference was looking at expansion, and he's just about lapped everybody else. First it was developing a conference network. No one thought it would work, especially ESPN. But now ESPN thinks it's such a good idea, they even went one step further and developed a TV network for just one school...which has been a colossal bust up until this point. They aren't carried by any of the major cable providers in or out of Texas, nor are they on Dish or DirecTV, but you can find the BTN just about anywhere in America, from Key West to Seattle, and the conference is almost to the point of being able to print their own money in terms of profit.

Then it was the addition of Nebraska, throwing the Big XII in to a tailspin it really has yet to recover from. The financial windfall that Big Ten schools will see by the addition of Nebraska caused Texas to grab as much money as it could in the aforementioned Longhorn Network, and it placed the Big XII in a situation more tenuous than the Al Swearengen-Seth Bullock alliance on Deadwood. The SEC reacted by adding two middling programs that really do nothing for either football or basketball (well, Mizzou has a pretty good basketball team, but does anyone outside of Kentucky care about SEC basketball?), and Jim Delany was already three moves ahead of everyone else.

And once the expansion and realignment started to settle down (and you can make an argument that it really hasn't), Delany launched another bomb, which is really not fully appreciated yet--he virtually stopped any more expansion in its tracks, just as quickly as he started it.

There can be no super-conferences without the B1G and PAC-12 particiaption, and this agreement assures there won't be, because there's no need for it now, at least from the perspective of Larry Scott and Jim Delany. And if those two conferences aren't going to the 16 team Armageddon, why would guys like Mike Slive keep adding teams, making it more difficult for them to get to some once and future mythical playoff or BCS National Championship.

With the PAC-12/B1G partnership, Delany now has the best of both worlds--marquee games across multiple sports, better TV revenue for his network because of those games, yet no conference expansion with teams that really don't fit into the geography or culture of the B1G and dilute the product of the conference.

When all of this began a couple of years ago, I have to admit I was kind of fired up about a 14 or 16 team B1G conference, but after looking at the way other conferences are starting to form and change, 12 teams is about as big as a conference can get before it starts to lose its identity. The one thing I really admired about the SEC is the quality of football it plays within such a generally confined geographical footprint--heck, that's what made the B1G King for the just about the entire 20th century and up until the early 2000's.

With the addition of Missouri and Texas A and M, I think the SEC is going to lose a little bit of their identity. Will it be enough of a schism to drive the SEC towards what the Big XII is currently undergoing? No, of course not. They'll be making a lot of money with their TV contracts, and as long as they keep fielding great, competitive football, they'll still be at or near the top. Even at 14 teams, the SEC should be fine.

But look at the ACC, the Big East, and so on. When you look at the variety of teams that will be in these conferences and the geographic footprint they'll have once the dust settles, what you're left with isn't a conference. It's a bunch of disparate schools joining arms in the ocean to keep from drowning.

Eventually, these hybrid-conferences will collapse under their own weight, with not enough money to go around, and I suspect this realignment of mid-major and major wannabe's will continue for the next several years, maybe even into the next decade.

So where does that leave Notre Dame? Frankly, who cares? Delany has set up things up that Notre Dame would be a nice addition, but not a necessity. Once again, Delany dances to no ones tune--they dance to his, and that holds true here. With a 12 team conference fit into a nice, geographic footprint, the B1G doesn't NEED any team to thrive as a league, but with all the realignment yet to come, Notre Dame might need a safe port in the storm. And there will be no safer port than the B1G in three or four years.

And if that happens, then--and only then--will Delany offer membership. On his terms, in his time.

So as we but a bow on this, the B1G sits positioned stronger than any other conference--their own highly profitable network, 12 stable teams, and a multi sport partnership with a conference every bit as stable and ascending as the B1G.

No expansion necessary.

Consider them rolled, America. Consider them rolled.

Consider Them Rolled? Delany's National College Football Playoff Proposal?

2012-02-06T22:46:32Z

Consider Them Rolled? Delany's National College Football Playoff Proposal?

As Teddy Greenstein reports, Commissioner Jim (Mr. Big Testicles) Delany is once again leading college football, proposing a 4-team limited playoff to replace the BCS, with the first round games played on-campus of the higher-seeded teams (1 hosting 4, 2 hosting 3), and then the winners facing off (and the losers facing off) in normal BCS bowls....

Personally? I LOVE this idea, because: (a) I hate anything more than a 4 team playoff because it waters down the regular season, (b) I love the idea of the top seeds playing at home on campus rather than in sterile bowl environments, cutting down on fans having to travel, and (c) the bonus of a B1G 1 or 2 seed hosting an SEC 3 or 4 seed in the cold up north sometime (which frankly would be epic).

Way to roll them, Commissioner Delany....way to roll them.

State of the B1G 2012: The State of the B1G's Lesser Class

2012-02-06T18:00:35Z

Welcome to OTE's State of the B1G 2012, where we will be examining the B1G conference from as many angles as the twisted minds of our crack staff of writers can muster up.

...

Today we take a look at the bottom 1/3 of the conference to examine the state of what we will refer to as the B1G's lesser class. For the purposes of this piece we will look at the state of the four teams that finished 2011 with the worst conference records: Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Northwestern. While Ohio State finished with the same conference record as NWestern, I don't think anyone would put them in the lesser class of the B1G, so we're leaving them out.

The Recent Past

If you were picking a veritable murderers row of the B1G's lesser class, you'd do pretty well by coming up with this group. Only Purdue might round out the discussion, but they found their way to a .500 conference record last season, so they are spared association with this group for now.

At the very bottom is Indiana, a team that managed zero conference win and just one win overall in 2011, beating South Carolina State. Indiana is a team that made a nice hire in Kevin Wilson before the 2011 season, but it certainly didn't translate to the field in his first year. Indiana was the laughing stock of the B1G, and for that Gopher and Illini fans across B1G country thank them.

Illinois, a team that started 2011 like a (insert euphemism for a team playing very well), ended the season like a (insert euphemism for a team playing very poorly). A 6-0 start followed by a 0-6 finish was the most Ron Zook/Tim Brewster thing that Ron Zook ever accomplished. This record got Zook fired, and his team into the Kraft Cripple Fight Bowl, where they beat another coachless team to claim the Crown of DERP.

Next up a Minnesota team that looked all " we gonna shock the world" after an opening weekend where they took USC to the brink only to follow it up by completely crapping the bed, at home, against New Mexico State. Things then got worse before they got better as the Gophers also lost to FCS North Dakota State in a game that could only be described as butthurt. They followed that gem up by losing to Michigan, Purdue & Nebraska by a combined score of 144-31. All was right with the world, however, when they beat Iowa (again), played tough against MSU, and finished the year handing Zooker his job.

Last is Northwestern, Pat Fitzgerald coached team that has been feeling good about it's future for a number of years. They were bound to be #PersaStrong in 2011, leading Fitzgerald to say that one man's limp is another man's pimp walk. The pimp went limp after a 2-0 start when NWestern dropped 5 straight before getting healthy against Indiana, Nebraska (somehow), Rice(!!!), and Minnesota. They couldn't quite hang with MSU, and they finished a very Northwestern 6-6 before getting handled by Texas A&M in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

2011 Group Conference Record: 7-25
2011 Group Bowl Bids: 2
2011 Group Non-Con Record (incl. bowls): 10-8

Looking Ahead

In this bottom 1/3 of the B1G things are changing rapidly and everyone is gunning to get better. The coaches of the bottom 3 teams in the conference standings last season have a combined tenure at their schools of 2 years. By definition the lesser class is a class of rebuilding. They live off the of scraps left by the upper class and hope to use it to build themselves into middle-class citizens. It rarely works, but there's reason for optimism at the bottom.

Indiana has some work to do (/waits for laughter to subside) and it appears that the seat under Wilson is already getting hot. They really do have no place to go but up but the climb won't be easy as the B1G just continues to get tougher each year. Indiana does play the bulk of their tough conference games at home, as they will welcome MSU, OSU, Iowa & Wisconsin, but Memorial Stadium isn't necessarily the home field advantage you'd hope for. Chances are Indiana isn't climbing out of this group in 2012.

There is optimism at Illinois as the Zooker is out (and miss him we will). The optimism for the new guy, Tim Beckman, isn't quite there yet as Illinois' coaching search felt a lot like Minnesota's the previous year: big names mentioned, meh hired. But Beckman is a guy that knows the B1G pretty well as he coached at Ohio State and grew up watching the Hawkeyes when his dad coached there, and is a guy that knows the midwest and knows recruiting in the region. Illinois will have it's bumps as any program with a new coach does, and when we name this group following the 2012 season Illinois will probably still be in it.

Optimism is a drug that Tim Brewster peddled like snake-oil at Minnesota, but it's a drug that Jerry Kill doesn't believe in. Minnesotans tend to be people who mostly keep to themselves, who put up with the elements around them, and who work hard to build a foundation that lasts. Jerry Kill isn't a Minnesotan by birth, but he sure talks like one. The national folks say Kill didn't recruit well compared to the rest of the B1G, but Jerry did lock down the Minnesota borders landing 7 of the top 10 recruits in the state. Most importantly, the team improved in 2011 and was playing their best football by the end of the year. It's too early to say that Minnesota will climb out of this bottom group, but they have a good shot at being a part of the bottom group that goes to a bowl in 2012.

When you've got a Pat Fitzgerald you're going to feel like good things are going to happen, and Northwestern put together a decent little recruiting class last week. The Wildcats have some good things to build on as they continue to search for their first bowl win since 1949. Kain Colter should continue the tradition of NWestern QB's who put up video game-type numbers and account for a huge % of the offensive production, but that is a formula that has worked for the 'Cats before. Where Northwestern stands in the B1G conference, and where they'll be moving forward, probably has far more to do with others in the conference than it does with Northwestern, as the middle class of the B1G is just a bit tougher to crack than most conferences. 2012 is a year where Northwestern needs to find consistency week in and week out on the field, and if they can do that, they'll break the mold and move into the B1G middle class.

And finally...

Look, nobody wants to be considered part of the lesser class, the "very poor" as Mitt Romney would say, or the cellar of their conference. But this is a group of programs that seem to be doing the right things in order to build a winner. In all likelihood none of these teams is going to move their way into the upper class of the conference anytime soon. But if the goal is to improve your lot in life, to get to that middle class, through hiring the right coach not just a splashy coach, through hard work, and through solid recruiting, this group of team's is going about it the right way.