TheHoosier - Post spring B1G football power rankings
Alec Busse ranks the Big Ten's 14 team after the conclusion of spring football and most transfer portal movement
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Post Spring B1G Football Power Rankings
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Once the season starts, I'm planning on updating the rankings every Sunday or Monday. Depends on what the schedule looks like.
It's going to be so hard for them in the transfer portal and NIL space. Schools like Northwestern and Stanford are in such a unique spot that makes it so difficult for them to compete long term like that.
I think you have Wisconsin to high, and probably Nebraska. But I say Nebraska because I think Purdue is better than them, but I'm hesitant to move Purdue above 8.
Who would rank ahead of Wisconsin that I had below them? I thought about putting Illinois there, but they have some key replacements to make offensively that I think are pretty drastic. Not to mention the defense likely not being as good.
I think Purdue and Nebraska are both in very similar spots. But I put Nebraska ahead of Purdue partly because I think I trust Ruhle more right now as a head coach than I do Walters. However, I do own Walters stock.
Others have IU in front of Rutgers and Northwestern too …
Huge separation between Indiana and Purdue. You massively overrated Illinois. What has the fleckster ever done without tanner Morgan?
TheHoosier - Post spring B1G football power rankings
Alec Busse ranks the Big Ten's 14 team after the conclusion of spring football and most transfer portal movement
At first I had Maryland over Illinois, but then I switched it because I think I trust Illinois' DL more than I trust Maryland's offense. Plus, I trust Illinois to get more wins in the West than I do Maryland to get wins in the East.
I'd probably go Maryland and Minnesota. Long term, probably not, but for all the questions every team has in the west, Wisconsin might have the most. Wisconsin running a pass first offense and missing Jim Leonard? I'm skeptical. I think you could jumble the west 1-6 and make it make sense tbh. Tons of questions.
Illinois could be good, but how much of their success last year was because of Walters and staff? Plus, like you said, lost a ton. I'm not in the boat of thinking Franklin is a great coach (he is a great recruiter), but this could be his year. How anticlimactic would a psu vs Iowa big ten championship be? Lol
So there's Longo is an air-raid guy, but if you go look at some of the numbers of his best offenses at UNC and Ole Miss they had a lot of success running the football. I think they'll still give Allen the ball a lot. They made some good additions at WR, especially with a transfer from Oklahoma State.
I 100% hear you on being skeptical of Wisconsin's transformation too. I've echoed that to friends about them too. But let me put it to you this way: You have to bet on one of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota to win the West, who are you taking? My bet is on Wisconsin. But if you're different that's cool too.
You can add IU to that list. The football NIL is almost nonexistent. The school doesn’t care about football. It’s simply a placeholder to remain in the conference, which is too bad.
Jim Leonard is over valued by all a lot of people. He’s obviously good but Fickell is much better. Look what he did for Freeman,
If football NIL is nonexistent, it’s because the fans and business community don’t care.
You could be correct. The more I think about it, the more I think I agree with you. Because I think Illinois steps back and the fleckster's boat always springs a leak. Dang, you are making me more excited about Purdues chances. Haha
You sure Hazell didn't spring Freeman into that ND job? Someone had to show Freeman what not to do.
But seriously, the defense will take a step back solely because of how good leonard was as a DC.
Hasn’t a lack of “care” been our historical problem?
I get your schtick, but you have some reading to do.
If you want to be a respected naysayer...keep a shred of fact baked in.
Let’s leave Purdue out of it, since I’m a Purdue fan. Michigan state is going to be bad. Couldn’t you argue 13-14 bad?
Purdue is going to do a lot better than prognosticators are predicting .. and they are definitely better than Nebraska. People will tell you Purdue has a new coach and a new QB. So does Nebraska, the kid from Georgia tech isn’t a high level passer, and unlike Purdue, Nebraska has proven nothing positive in previous seasons. I’m just talking about this coming season. I agree with you.
Purdue is going to beat Illinois and Minnesota handily
New coach, new staff, new quarterback rarely equals good results, especially when your talent level is as modest as Purdue‘s is. Curious as to why you’re so optimistic for your team?
Not BC, but I think Purdue's team and coaching staff top to bottom are better than last year.
But Wisconsin, Nebraska meet the same criteria as above. Illinois meets two of 3. Minnesota and Iowa 1 of three. I know nothing about northwestern. West is seemingly wide open.
Both points are why I'm optimistic. Optimistic meaning, bowl game. I'm not predicting 8-9 wins.
All of those schools except NU have a talent edge and, in most cases, a staff edge (Rhule and Fickell are new to their schools, but both have considerable HC experience, while Ferentz, Bielema, and Fleck have seasoned staffs and systems). First time head coaches usually take awhile to get acclimated, and first year head coaches with talent in the bottom third of the conference usually take even longer.
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Most of the time when there’s a new coach, is it because the previous coach left a division champ for his alma mater?
When there’s a new QB, is he usually a guy who threw for 11 picks and 2 TD at a school like Texas … but was just beaten out by a guy like Quinn Evers?
I would say if our coach was just fired after a 5-7 season and the QB was Jack plummer as a rs fresgman.. sure, great analysis.
Keep in mind, when you guys were good in 2020, I didn’t try to analyze it for something it wasn’t.. I called it for what it was. My rival playing good football.
As for talent, are you talking rivals talent or guys panning out? I’ll take a solid 3 star who pans out and wants to be at my school over a bunch of rivals talent who whistle in the wind any day of the week.
Take Nebraska .. all of those four stars over the years, and did they recruit well? Well, their best player in the last several years was Jo Jo Domann.. so I’m not sure how much rivals signing day stuff mattered. Purdue has plenty of good players who have panned out and proven something.
Reason for optimism. I think Purdue under brohm actually struggled with a lot of the coaching positions putting players you could exploit on the field. Dale Williams wasn’t good and Eric Miller was exploited a lot. Got zero push in the run game. The portal is going to eliminate those trouble positions for a lot of teams.
The offense will be your typical Purdue offense that can pass the football. The defenses Walters coaches, wherever he goes, will be special. Purdue was the only big ten west team he didn’t hold to 14 points or less. And almost every team either failed to run the ball or pass the ball against Illinois last year. 5 teams rushed for 60 yards or less. Four more teams passed for 93 or less. When your defense can hold Wisconsin to 2 rushing yards and tanner morgan to 21 passing yards, you’re going to have a chance to win a lot of football games.
Purdue will go between 7-5 and 9-3. When I say that, keep in mind that I predicted the win totals on our site within 1 win.. in 4 of the last five years. The only time I was off was when I thought we wouldn’t be any good in 2021 and Oconnell saved the day. I still believe that was a 5 win football team without his emergence.
Indiana likely wins 4 over Rutgers, Michigan state, Akron and Indiana state. Illinois is the tossup and Maryland is doable because I don’t trust their coach. Thing is, long term you’re probably worse if Allen wins 6 and saves his job. I personally hope he stays at Indiana forever
Where are you seeing the lack of talent? What positions? The portal has made a lot of that an easy fix for teams
Walters held Ferentz to 3 points last year. Fleck to 14. Nebraska has no foundation:
Again, first time head coach, new staff, new quarterback and modest talent level almost never ends with 7-5 to 9-3. Not saying he won’t ultimately do well, but the odds of success in Year 1 aren’t great, due to all of the factors I mentioned.
Your two best offensive players are gone, as is the system that made them good. It will take more time than you think to create similar results.
And again, what about first time head coaches arriving for reasons other than the coach being fired? What about QBs who performed well at a big time program but were beat out by top 5 recruits?
I think if Walters had to set his defense up in 2005, you’d be right. Absolutely. Now, not just Walters, but a lot of coaches can do it in one offseason
What positions are you seeing low talent at?
What positions are you seeing a lack of talent?
Aiden Oconnell is gone. Hudson card is very talented. Give me positions?
For example .. Illinois doesn’t have a good tight end. I know that, their own fans know that. Their DL is scary good. Specifics
Jackson for Indiana may be very talented. But he’s got zero experience. That would scare me. Hudson card threw for 928 yards on 69.8% with 6 TD and 1 Int last year.
Why do you say they have more talent than Purdue? Maybe our offense takes a step back next year? Defense will take a step forward though. Still have a top tier RB, a QB, and a stable of WR's begging for a chance to step up. If one of them can make that jump, great! OL hopefully can be good enough. Had Walters not seemingly done well in the portal, I'd be way more pessimistic.
He didn't say "low" talent he said "modest" and I agree.
I probably know more about PUs players than any other BIG team just b/c you are our rival but I wouldn't even try to give you a list of who has how much talent. However, if you had upper level talent you wouldn't have been handled as easily by Wisc, Iowa, and Mich. And the epic beat-down at the hands of the LSU 2nd team speaks volumes, and I say 2nd team b/c they had as many players opt-out as PU.
PU has a modest level of BIG talent and so does IU. We don't like it but it's true.
I probably know more about PUs players than any other BIG team just b/c you are our rival but I wouldn't even try to give you a list of who has how much talent. However, if you had upper level talent you wouldn't have been handled as easily by Wisc, Iowa, and Mich. And the epic beat-down at the hands of the LSU 2nd team speaks volumes, and I say 2nd team b/c they had as many players opt-out as PU.
PU has a modest level of BIG talent and so does IU. We don't like it but it's true.
Card did that for another team, another HC and OC, in another system, and with far more talented players around him. I’m not saying Walters won’t do well at Purdue, but the odds of him doing well out of the gate aren’t good, for all of the reasons I’ve stated. To be fair, posters here play the upgrade card on coaches and players, too, and it’s typically just as invalid.
It’s a new mechanism. Put it this way. Not a lot of coaches could take a drastically different defense and install it in one offseason before the portal. That mechanism exists now.
And the same way Indiana can go get Andre carter.. a defensive end I’ll be watching, Walters has that mechanism too.
Incoming:
DE Jeffrey M’ba
DE Malik Langham
NT Isiah Nichols
NT Jamarion Harkless 2023
They’ll join Cole brevard, Demarje Lewis and Mo Omonode to complete a DL transformation that couldn’t have been attempted before the portal. Indiana will benefit from this as well. Schemes will become important, non big ten caliber starters will disappear across the conference
Iowa put it to Purdue last year due to high winds and Brohms stubbornness. Idk what caused the piss poor performance vs Wisconsin. Crapped the bed. Brohm played Wisconsin tough though, should have beat them twice. The team also started turning on Brohm at that point in the season.
Talent didn't lose those games. Brohms refusal to run or field a defense did. Brohm had some major faults.
LSU, hard to even bring that up. The shell of a staff was recruiting the team to Louisville vs prepping. Coaches didn't care. Should have had Brees coach and told every Brohm coach that stuck around to leave. Poor management. Luckily, most of the team had turned on Brohm and had no interest in following him. Purdue was within single digits of Michigan until into the 4th. Not bad for a team that knew their coach was gone and a coach that knew he was gone vs the 2nd best team in the country. Imo, the team was quitting on Brohm because he's had one foot out the door for 2 years and was destroying the culture he built early.
Not saying Purdue is world beaters, but there isn't anything to suggest Iowa and Wisconsin has way more talent. Otherwise, Purdue wouldn't have won the west last year. I expect Purdue to win 6-7 and not get smoked in any game.
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You’re not gonna have Aiden Oconnell leave a team that relied on him as much as they did, replace him with non g5 starter austin Burton, also lose half the coaches and stay on the field with LSU.
By modest you mean middle of the big ten ? Cool. I never thought we had Michigan talent. Talent to compete for another west title? Yes.
What positions does Purdue have a talent problem at?
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