Week 6 is in the books and it was a busy Saturday in the Big Ten with all 11 teams playing. Three teams — Northwestern, Penn State, and Indiana — took on out-of-conference opponents, with the other 8 battling each other.
The only real surprise from the Big Ten was the beating Indiana took against Virginia.Â
Indiana came into the game at 3-2, and while they have not beaten any particularly formidable opponents, they looked good against Michigan on the road in one of the hardest places to play a road game. Virginia came into the game at 1-3 with losses to William & Mary and Southern Miss.Â
However, Indiana’s offense could not seem to get anything going while Virginia amassed 536 total yards including 231 on the ground and five rushing touchdowns. Indiana fans were surely looking for a better performance from the Hoosiers than this 47-7 romp.
To start the day off, Northwestern took care of winless Miami(OH) 16-6 with quarterback Mike Kafka running for two touchdowns and Northwestern’s defense coming up with four turnovers.
Struggling would be an understatement for the Purdue Boilermakers, whose mistake filled day turned into an ugly 35-20 loss to Minnesota. Purdue actually won the first downs, total yards, and time of possession categories, but as we all know, that all important turnover stat killed the Boilermakers as Minnesota turned all 3 Purdue turnovers into touchdowns.
Penn State took care of business as expected in a 52-3 shellacking of Eastern Illinois with both offense and defense looking strong.
Michigan State continued its momentum from a crazy overtime win over Michigan last week with a win over the surprisingly bad Illinois squad. Both teams started new quarterbacks in this game with MSU trying out Keith Nichol and Illinois benching Juice Williams for Eddie McGee. Juice ended up finishing the game however as McGee completed only 2 out of 11 for 31 yards and an interception.
Ohio State’s defense (and special teams) continues to look amazing as the defense essentially won the game against Wisconsin. Ohio State intercepted and returned for touchdowns two Wisconsin passes and also had a kick return for a touchdown. Ohio State only had eight first downs and QB Terrelle Pryor completed only 5 passes, but with 21 pts from defense/special teams Ohio St wins 31-13.
The Big Ten came to a close on Saturday with a primetime, very exciting, and much anticipated Michigan – Iowa matchup. Both quarterbacks threw interceptions on their first pass attempts, with Michigan taking an early 7-0 lead returning Stanzi’s interception for a touchdown. Stanzi would calm down while Michigan’s true freshman sensation Tate Forcier looked rattled the entire game before eventually being pulled in the fourth quarter. Iowa survived a late push led by another Michigan freshman quarterback Denard Robinson to win 30-28 and remain the Big Ten’s lone unbeaten team.
That sums up this weekend of Big Ten football, stay tuned next week as Iowa gets a tough test traveling to Madison to take on Wisconsin, a team fresh off a loss to Ohio State that  I’m sure they think they should have had.
