The Iowa football team takes the field later today and hopefully they can put on a much better showing than their Big Ten counterparts have so far.
I know it’s tough and painful, but if we want the Iowa football team to have national respect, we need the Big Ten conference to have respect so until we get to conference play, we should all be rooting for the success of Big Ten opponents. Then, let all hell break loose, but until then, they need to take care of business in the non-conference portion of the schedule.
So far, not so good.
To be fair, a few teams are taking care of business. Maryland destroyed the FSC Howard Bisons football team 79-0 and Wisconsin spanked the University of South Florida 49-0. Hell, Rutgers even won.
But three teams, in particular, have struggled despite high expectations entering 2019.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers had to score the game-winning touchdown with under six minutes left against the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, an FCS program. Minnesota has been a trendy sleeper pick to win the West, but they didn’t look the part Thursday night. The receivers were fantastic (as expected), but the quarterback play was suspect at best.
Purdue continued being Purdue and dropped another non-conference game, this time losing to Nevada 34-31. Nevada isn’t down to the level of South Dakota State but they are a midlevel Mountain West team.
And most media member’s Big Ten West darling, Nebraska, struggled to seal the deal against South Alabama. Offensively, the Cornhuskers struggled with “Heisman Trophy Candidate” Adrian Martinez throwing for under 200 yards, no touchdowns, and 1 interception, and the running game certainly didn’t do much either as they averaged just 2.2 yards on the ground. Nebraska’s defense and special teams gave them this win as they had a punt return for a touchdown and an interception return for a touchdown in addition to three total forced turnovers. However, considering the spread was nearly 40 points heading into this game, winning by 14 is quite the disappointment for Nebraska.
There are just four remaining games this afternoon in the Big Ten, and there is still an opportunity to close the weekend out strong. Michigan gets Middle Tennessee, Penn State gets Idaho, Northwestern gets a tough battle against Stanford, and the Iowa football team plays Miami (OH). Four wins from these four games for the Big Ten would be huge, especially a Northwestern victory over Stanford.