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B1G West: ‘You’re going to feel like you got in a car accident’
Sep. 2, 2015 4:19 pm
IOWA CITY - One night in Indy changed any notion of parity among Big Ten's East and West divisions.
On the eve of last year's Big Ten championship game, teams from the East and West divisions split their 14 games, and Wisconsin was favored to beat Ohio State by four points. But with a third-team quarterback at the helm, the Buckeyes crushed the Badgers 59-0 in a domination as complete as the score. The win propelled Ohio State to the inaugural College Football Playoff and the loss sent the Badgers back to the West Division boneyard.
Since that game, the divisions seemingly are on two different tiers. Ohio State dispatched Alabama and Oregon en route to the national title. Michigan State beat Baylor to claim the Cotton Bowl. Michigan became college football's top offseason story by hiring prodigal son Jim Harbaugh. Penn State's ascent under James Franklin appears imminent.
Those programs dwarf the profiles of their West Division brethren. Wisconsin and Nebraska each hired new coaches. Iowa continues to search for relevancy, while contenders Minnesota and Northwestern carry niche interest and support.
Ohio State is rated No. 1 and Michigan State is ranked No. 5. Only Wisconsin (18th) is ranked from the West.
BTN aired Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer's news weekly conference live on Monday. The network's only live telecast of a West Division news conference in August featured Illinois Coach Tim Beckman's firing. OSU gets 'Scarlet and Gray Days” on the league network. Since last December, it's been nothing but gray days for the Big Ten West.
'We've got to be the best we can be, and we've got work to do to close the gap that gap that's set most recently by Ohio State or Michigan State,” Wisconsin Coach Paul Chryst said.
While the East boasts Park Place prestige, the West has become a gravel road version of 'Road House.” It may not be as good, but it's damn sure entertaining. There's Division I's most-played rivalry between Wisconsin and Minnesota, whose winner-take-all meeting decided the West Division last year. Bitter feuds Minnesota-Iowa and Illinois-Northwestern have played 108 times. Nebraska and Iowa are inching toward the type of rivalry the Hawkeyes have with Wisconsin. Purdue and Illinois battle for a cannon. Iowa and Purdue nearly played for a trophy before the Hawkeyes backed out.
'It's cool to go down to Iowa, to Northwestern,” Wisconsin safety Michael Caputo said. 'It's a couple of hours away. Minnesota's a couple, Purdue. It's cool to play your neighbors.”
Some of the division's inexplicable scores last year were as unpredictable as the Ohio State-Wisconsin outcome. Northwestern beat both Wisconsin and Notre Dame but fell 48-7 at Iowa. As a four-point favorite, Iowa imploded 51-14 at Minnesota. That came after a Gophers' loss at Illinois, which lost to Purdue by double digits.
Nebraska gave up 408 yards rushing to one player in a 59-24 defeat at Wisconsin, then lost dramatically to Minnesota and trailed at Iowa 24-7 late in the third quarter. Somehow, the Cornhuskers rallied and won in overtime.
'I think that shows a lot about the teams in the Big Ten,” Minnesota defensive end Therein Cockran said. 'Any given Saturday you've got to come out and compete. So it doesn't matter who's on your schedule.”
The losses in those rivalry games stay with the players, too.
'We just didn't come to play,” Northwestern cornerback Nick VanHoose said. 'As you can tell, obviously from the score, it was like we were sleepy dogging everything. We just weren't aware. I can tell you that.”
'At Minnesota, it was just a big explosion,” Iowa cornerback Desmond King. 'I actually don't know.”
While the East Division's persona is pinstripe suits, the West resembles a leather boot. But that's one that can find any hole if one suggests the West is unequal of the East. 'Whatever you want to look at on paper, being on the field with those guys is completely different,” an irritated Caputo said. 'You can ask a lot of people which division is stronger but that was last year, the previous year and those were all different teams. No one's really played a game yet so to say someone is better than someone else is ... you just can't do it because no one's played a game.”
West Division players take offense with suggestions they can't compete with their eastern foes. Maybe they can't, at least at the top. But they're going to have fun fighting and trying.
'Ever since I've been with the Gophers, we've been underdogs,” Minnesota quarterback Mitch Leidner said. 'So that's just the way I'm going to continue to look at things and that's probably the way I'll look at things my whole life.
'It's a tough division to play in. You've got some tough, physical teams, and you're going to feel like you got in a car accident.”
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