It was the end of an era after 2018 as Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer was forced to resign had another mysterious ailment that no one can prove or follow up on stepped down in Columbus leaving behind a scorching 83-9 overall record and 54-4 mark in Big Ten play. The Buckeyes completed back-to-back league championships in 2018 and completed a 7-year run without losing more than 1 game in the Big Ten in any given year.
Obviously, the loss of Urban Meyer could have a massive ripple effect across the Midwest.
2018 Finish
Team – Overall – League – F/+ Rank
* Division Champion
$ Conference Champion
Ohio State, 13-1, 8-1, #5 * $
Michigan, 10-3, 8-1, #9
Penn State, 9-4, 6-3, #14
Iowa, 9-4, 5-4, #20
Northwestern, 9-5, 8-1, #49 *
Wisconsin, 8-5, 5-4, #33
Michigan State, 7-6, 5-4, #29
Minnesota, 7-6, 3-6, #45
Purdue, 6-7, 5-4, #46
Maryland, 5-7, 3-6, #81
Indiana, 5-7, 2-7, #68
Nebraska, 4-8, 3-6, #53
Illinois, 4-8, 2-7, #108
Rutgers, 1-11, 0-9, #112
Ohio State’s dominance masked what was a very successful 2018 for the Big Ten featuring 10 teams inside the Top 53 of the F/+ rankings. The changes in Buckeye Land will surely have many other programs hoping the opportunity to climb to the top of the league exists as early as this fall.
New Coaches
Mike Locksley – Maryland
Ryan Day – Ohio State
Locksley was hired at Maryland following a tumultuous season in College Park that saw head coach D.J. Durkin placed on administrative leave (reinstated October 30th, fired the next day!) with offensive coordinator Matt Canada running the team for the whole season. Locksley was OC at Maryland for 4 seasons under Randy Edsall and was previously interim head coach of the Terps following Edsall’s firing in 2015.
Day was hired in Columbus less than 36 months after coming aboard as co-offensive coordinator and now finds himself as the heir apparent to Urban Meyer’s legacy at Ohio State. Day did go 3-0 as interim head coach last year while the offense averaged 53.3 points and its his offensive mind that the Buckeyes are hoping continues their schools strong run.
Easiest Schedule: Rutgers
Most of the Big Ten schedules are strong to quite strong featuring at least one or two quality tests outside of league play. Rutgers has Boston College at home plus UMass and Liberty also at home. They will also miss our top 4 teams in cross-divisional play, as well.
Toughest Schedule: Ohio State
There are a few reasons to sell OSU stock this year and their schedule is right up there at the top. The Buckeyes won’t have much breathing room with a decent FAU squad in the opener and last year’s 6th best G5 team in Cincinnati lined up for week two. The next 2 weeks should be easy (at Indiana and Miami [OH] although their last 3 visits to Bloomington have been tight games) and early November (Maryland and at Rutgers) but the rest is tough facing 6 out of the top 7 projected teams in league play.
Stock Up: Nebraska
It’s time to jump on the bandwagon but maybe be ready to jump off at any time. Yes, Nebraska was better than their record showed last year and yes they will improve. However, this has as much to do with a really wide open division that is lacking anything close to a sure-thing team at the top. This does seem kind of crazy to have this much confidence in a 4-win team it’s just someone has to finish in first of the West and so many teams have major question marks.
Stock Down: Maryland
I’ve been adamant that Maryland is the worst Power 5 job in the country and their 2018 season certainly doesn’t make things any easier. Then they went ahead and hired someone whose previous head coaching tenure regularly pops up on the worst ever lists in college history who also had his own personal baggage in the past. You can’t stress it enough that Locksley has coached 34 games in his life and won only 3 of them.
Burning Question: Is a New Era Upon Us?
Ohio State has shared or outright won the Big Ten on 9 occasions since 2002 compared to three times for Michigan State, three times for Wisconsin, twice for Iowa, twice for Michigan, and once for Penn State. Michigan hasn’t won the league over the last 14 years and is on a 7-game losing streak to Ohio State, including defeats in 14 out of the last 15 meetings. The Big Ten is replacing long-time commissioner Jim Delany with Minnesota Vikings COO (and Notre Dame law grad) Kevin Warren, will the football league be going through a major change this fall too?
Top League Game: Ohio State at Michigan
It’s easy to envision Ohio State taking a step back in 2019 and Michigan continuing on their path as underachievers with Jim Harbaugh. It’s also easy to see how the rest of the Big Ten has a lot of quality but far from dominant teams that will keep Ohio State and Michigan still atop the league. Therefore, I don’t see either the Buckeyes or Wolverines heading into the final week with more than 2 league losses which likely makes The Game for all the marbles in the East Division.
Worst Team: Rutgers
Artur “Don’t Call me Arthur” Sitkowski’s freshman campaign at quarterback was truly something special, in fact it was an artistic performance of the highest degree aided by the fact that he played so poorly and was allowed (forced?) to continue starting. Two-hundred and seventy-three pass attempts for a 49.1% completion rate with 1,158 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 18 interceptions. A glorious passer rating 30 points lower than the second-worst finisher in the Big Ten! Best of all, a game that would make Nathan Peterman blush from November 13, 2018: 2 of 16 for 8 yards with 0 touchdowns and 4 picks.
Anyway, Sitkowski is lined up to start again in 2019. It can’t get worse, right? Right?
Predicted 2019 Finish
East Division
Ohio State 10-2
Michigan 9-3
Penn State 8-4
Michigan State 7-5
Indiana 5-7
Maryland 3-9
Rutgers 2-10
West Division
Nebraska 8-4
Wisconsin 7-5
Purdue 7-5
Northwestern 6-6
Minnesota 6-6
Iowa 5-7
Illinois 4-8
This is a weird time for the Big Ten in the playoff-obsessed era as they’ve missed the Final Four in each of the past 2 seasons. Yet, their league is in a pretty healthy place overall. You have a few basement-dwellers (Rutgers, Maryland, Illinois) but pretty much everyone else (excluding Indiana) has a believable shot at winning their division. That should make for good college football.
Like I’ve said, if playoffs are the only thing you care about 2019 will come down to Michigan or Ohio State it seems. Otherwise, it should be a very fun year with a lot of different teams jockeying for position.
This is especially true in the wide open West Division where Iowa through Nebraska in our predictions will compete for the title with plenty of fun storylines.
Can Nebraska really turn things around this quickly like Scott Frost did at UCF? Has Wisconsin started to fall back or was 2018 just a blip? Can Purdue live up to the hype Jeff Brohm has been building? Are we short-changing defending divisional champion Northwestern who welcomes their biggest quarterback recruit ever via transfer? Are we hilariously underrating an Iowa program that is usually solid and will have an experienced quarterback? Is P.J. Fleck’s super young team ready to take a leap or two and surprise as he enters an important third season in Minneapolis?
This does feel like a pressure-filled 5th season for Jim Harbaugh at Michigan as an improved 2018 fell flat on its face with back-to-back blowout losses to end the season and the frustration of Ohio State dominance continuing. At the same time, the Ryan Day hire has extremely large shoes to fill and can certainly be classified as a risky decision from the Buckeyes brass. Ohio State may very well take 2019 again in the form of a divisional title and win over Michigan but it wouldn’t surprise me if 2020 and 2021 we see the Wolverines slowly chipping away at the Ohio State grip in this conference.
The West here is going to be fun for as wide open as it could be. I could be talked into any of them (except Illinois) winning it, only to be thumped by whomever comes out of the East. I really kinda hope it’s Purdue or NW or someone out of no where. Nebraska being relevant again would be fun too.
Also Maryland the worst job? I wouldn’t think that personally – if you get it going you will get Under Armor support big time (Kevin Plank is an alum) and would have upward potential, though that division is tough. I’d say Rutgers, Kansas and Wake are all worse P5 jobs to have than Maryland…Maybe Duke, Oregon State too just for hopelessness and unlikelihood anyone will ever care or be able to build it. I think Maryland, despite tons of problems and turmoil, would be somewhat of a hidden gem if they had the right caretaker to fix it. That said, yeah probably not Locksley.
That IU job might be cursed too. Every time it looks like they might be close to breaking through to mediocre, disaster hits. Make a bowl game; coach gets cancer. Rebuild with a seemingly great hire, turns out the guy wants to murder his players. Make a game-saving field goal in a bowl game; have the officials miss the call and rule that it actually didn’t go in.
I love watching IU football. Every single week, you never know if they’re going to lose by 40 to Ball State or lead OSU by 21 in the 2nd half. But you know they’re probably going to lose in hilarious fashion.
I love everything in this comment.
IU made a bowl game after their coach had already died of cancer. Although their coach at the time was Bill Lynch and they felt obligated to give him an extended look afterwards (which predictably went poorly), so in some ways that was worse for their program long-term.
I think Maryland specifically because the “Under Armour support” increases expectations or the mythical program ceiling in a way that isn’t healthy or frankly realistic.
Duke has been better recently and of course there’s almost no expectations. Oregon State has reached higher heights this century than Maryland and still doesn’t have the same expectations.
Maryland is in this horrible spot of being just high profile enough, virtually no prospects of winning your division, lots of blue-bloods have circled your region over the last 10-15 years to grab talent, and the Terps have a sneaky poor football history anyway. No top 10 finishes since 1976. I’d rather coach at Kansas.
Joining Big 10 is certainly a bad move (aside from $ then it’s a good move). I’d def never coach at Kansas, you will never, ever be relevant at a basketball school that’s never going to recruit well. I agree with you that the expectations might make the failures worse for UMD, and I wasn’t trying to say that Duke/OSU hasn’t been better of late…Just that overall no way I’d want to work at a totally hopeless place like Kansas.
Maybe it makes Maryland more disappointing to never get anywhere, but I wouldn’t rank them at all as the least desirable P5 job personally.
5 wins at Kansas right now and you’re a hot commodity! And you’d be making more than coaching at Maryland! Taking the Terps job is literally all down side.
Yeah, we’re talking about a bunch of jobs with nearly no upside. But of all of those jobs, only one comes with expectations! If I could have a 5 year contract at any of those places with the same amount of money per season, Maryland would for sure be last on my list.
Plus Maryland is in a good spot to go after the DC-MD-VA recruiting area, which they of course won’t dominate because they suck, and the coach will probably get flack for that after some borderline five star from DC commits to Ohio State.
Sitkowski completed a higher % of his passes as a freshman than Brady Quinn 😉
This feels like a Michigan State year. One of those seasons where I expect them to go 6-6, then they finish with 8 or 9 wins, never winning by more than a score or two, and knocking off Michigan in some stupid fashion.
I have a hard time placing confidence in a 4 win team from last year, but Nebraska probably returns the best QB in the conference, so this is probably the best pick for Big Ten West Champion. This could end up being the most competitive P5 Division this year, even if the winner doesn’t end up playing in a significant bowl game this year.
I don’t know about Michigan State. Have they changed up anything on offense? That part has been absolute disaster the past few seasons, and I can’t see them digging themselves out of it enough to contend.
Honestly Maryland would have been better off rehiring Randy Edsall.