Breaking B1G: Week 4 Bowl Projections

B1G Rank	Bowl	This Week (Week 4)	Previous Week (Week 3)
1st	vs Pac-12 #1
2nd	BCS At-Large vs. BCS At-Large
3rd	vs SEC #2
4th	vs SEC #4
5th	vs Big 12 #4
6th	vs SEC #6
7th	vs Big 12 #6
8th	vs Conf-USA #4
9th	vs MAC #1

• Week 3 was a mess. For example...
- Michigan just barely scraped by Akron.
- Purdue let ND slip away in the 4th after playing a pretty good game.
- Michigan State has an offense all of the sudden...against Youngstown St.
- Wisconsin was screwed in their game.
- Northwestern eventually pulled away from Western Michigan.
- Ohio State has a ton of offense and not much else.
- Nebraska had UCLA where they wanted them then gave up 38 straight points.
- Jerry Kill suffered another seizure on the sidelines.
- Indiana throttled a good Bowling Green squad.
- Illinois...is Illinois again.
- Iowa...won.
- And Penn State...still doesn't matter.

• Given the screwy nature of what happened last week, I'm leaving the top of the heap unchanged. If Michigan State can prove that Connor Cook is the real deal against an actual opponent, then they could move higher. They travel to South Bend to take on what I still think is a good Notre Dame team. We'll see how Cook performs in that environment.

• Michigan, well, I just don't know. I was tempted to knock them down to a Cap One Bowl and eliminate the BCS At-Large game, but I'm going to stick with it for now until I see what happens against UConn.

• Ohio State has the best two QBs in the league, which could be both a blessing and a curse. They'll need to shore up that defense though. Not a lot of good defense was played in the B1G as a whole in week 3 anyway...when was the last time Indiana led the league in points against?

• Purdue impressed me, but not enough to crack the list. They have Wisconsin this week as B1G play starts up. We'll see how they do there.

• Illinois showed some signs of life against Washington, but Scheelhaase had a bad game throwing just 9 for 25 for 156 yards and a TD and a pick. He only ran for 21 yards on 12 carries. That's not going to cut it if they hope to compete in the league. Illinois is only going as far as Scheelhaase can carry them.