With the Badgers knocking off Iowa yesterday, MSU seems to be in the drivers seat. The Hawkeyes travel to East Lansing next week. Northwestern gave MSU a scare in Evanston yesterday, but sparty scored 21 points in the final quarter to win. Buckeyes dismantled Purdue 49-0 with a decimated defense due to numerous injuries. We jumped out to an early score on the opening drive and never looked back. Our defense was able to stop their running game and it was all over.
Didn't even watch it...wouldn't have been a match even if both teams healthy, but...the decimated comment got to me a little. Would point out that Purdue's offense is even more decimated than OSU's defense...with much less depth to fall back on.
Stu, In rectrospect I think your offense was hurt worse than our defense, due to lack of depth. Injuries have a way of making or breaking a season, regardless of talent levels. Sorry to hear Hummel tore that ACL again!
Thanks, Don; They've been trying to come up for a marketing slogan at Purdue (truthfully). The suggestion on the Purdue Sports List is "Purdue...where ACL's go to die." Bolden, Marve, Smith, all ACL's (plus, as you say, Hummel on the BB team, which caused one writer to change our preseason ranking from 3rd to 25th) Lost 2nd string QB to academics. Also lost Dierking, and Siller...now hear that Rob Henry may be out with a hand injury so next week we may be down to our 4th string QB.
Don The Spartans travel to Iowa next Sat. If the Hawkeyes aren't too drained from their battle with Wisky yesterday I expect MSU to find a team a lot tougher than the Northwestern team they barely beat yesterday.
Speaking of the new and improved Big Ten there were some nice articles today in the Free Press covering the newest member: http://www.freep.com/article/20101024/SPORTS08/10240658/1354/SPORTS/Nebraska-excited-for-Big-Ten-in-11 Check out the related articles in the right hand corner.
Gipper, I knew that and just reversed the venue, sure can't blame that on the spell checker Thank for the heads up on the Husker Article. Nice reading and I agree they will enhance the conference.
Just read that Henry is out...so we're down to our fourth string QB, Sean Robinson (who played yesterday after Henry went down.) Next up is a walk-on. Might have to bring Siller back from wide receiver (after he recovers from his injury, which should be soon)...but he hasn't taken a snap in 2 years.
Boilers have been decimated to be sure....I actually felt sorry for the true frosh QB who replaced Henry. Poor kid had no chance. That said, this Buckeye defense has been as injury-riddled as any in my memory and while granted we have more quality depth than most, we are simply not the same caliber of defense without those kids....in some cases we are down to our third string guy... Conference race is still wide open......D'Antonio has Sparty playing well, but they've got some tough games coming up and Sparty can be had....just wish we had a shot at them.
Four Way Tie for Conference Title <t>With Iowa dismantling MSU yesterday, we now have four teams tied for first place, Iowa, Wisconsin, MSU and Ohio State.<br/> <br/> Iowa really looked good and we will have our work cut out for us there in a few weeks. (11/20)<br/> <br/> We have a bye for the coming week, which hopefully will allow some of the defensive back to become a bit more healthy.<br/> <br/> Another major surprise, at least to me, was Penn State dominating Michigan early with a walk on QB and hanging on to win in the second half.<br/> <br/> I venture there will be a co-championsip, but whom remains to be determined.</t>
It's a logjam to be sure....in terms of our consecutive conference title streak, we hold our own destiny. No team in the history of the conference has won or shared seven consecutive. If we win out, we'll have achieved what no other before us has....however, that's a big if.... Iowa is a very good football team and is playing very, very well. They're dismantling of Sparty and the OT game against us last season for the title will have them full of confidence....a tough trick to turn in Iowa City. The bye week will give us time to heal...I've never seen this many injuries on one unit in my memory. We've lost 5(!) DB's and two linebackers...the secondary has been decimated. I believe that 4 of the 5 are season enders, we might get one of them back, but the LB's should be good to go with the week off. I would expect Coach to use some of the time off to get a little xtra prep time for the Hawkeyes as well....it couldn't come at a better time. As far as the BCS stuff.....just win baby and we'll see what happens.
Read somewhere that the B10 record coming off of the bye week is in the 25 wins to 35 losses range. :shock: