My latest Big Ten football power rankings as Iowa enters its bye week
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa football team entered the bye week on a two-game losing streak, and with arguably the worst offense in the history of civilization, while I entered the bye week with Covid.
Misery loves company, or so they say.
Your’s truly and the Hawkeyes will spend the bye week resting and getting healthy.
The good news for me is that I don’t have to face Ohio State on Oct. 22 in Columbus.
Here is my latest Big Ten power rankings with Iowa at the halfway point of the regular season.
- Ohio State, 3-0, 6-0 – The Buckeyes are on a mission to earn back the respect from their fans after the disastrous 2021 season when they only won 11 games, including the Rose Bowl, and scored 45 points or more in just nine games.
2. Michigan, 3-0, 6-0 – The Wolverines now know that if they can win at Kinnick Stadium with Jim Harbaugh as their head coach, they can win anywhere.
3. Penn State, 2-0, 5-0 – Is it just me, or does it seem that Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford has been around longer the “Clifford, the Big Red?”
4. Illinois, 2-1, 5-1 – Some might say the pain that Bret Bielema endured while getting a tiger hawk tattoo burned into his calf as a 19-year Iowa Hawkeye football player was nothing like the pain that Hawkeye fans have endured while watching his alma mater’s offense this season.
5. Purdue, 2-1, 4-2 – After finishing with just three catches for 15 yards in this past Saturday’s win over Maryland, Charlie Jones thought briefly that he had returned to being a Hawkeye.
6. Minnesota, 1-1, 4-1 – I’m told P.J. Fleck spent the bye week P.J. Flecking.
7. Wisconsin, 1-2, 3-3 – Jim Leonhard figures if Wisconsin can win the rest of its games in similar fashion to how it demolished Northwestern 42-7 this past Saturday with him as interim head coach that he might have an outside chance to at least interview for the Nebraska job.
8. Iowa, 1-2, 3-3 – Kirk Ferentz will spend part of the bye week watching the movie classic “The Shawshank Redemption” over and over to convince himself that anything is possible when it comes to fixing his sputtering offense. The problem is that Andy Dufresne had 20 years to carve out that tunnel, while Kirk Ferentz has two weeks before facing Ohio State.
9. Maryland, 1-2, 4-2 – The Terrapins just lost at home to Purdue by two points and now they will have to travel to Bloomington, Indiana to face an Indiana team that as of Sunday has a new offensive line coach/running game coordinator. Sometimes, life just isn’t fair Mike Locksley must be thinking.
10. Nebraska, 2-1, 3-3 – Latest rumor on the Nebraska coaching search: Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Bill Belicheck, Andy Reid, Tony Dungy, Lincoln Riley and Kirby Smart are starting to worry about their chances of replacing Scott Frost with the Cornhuskers having won back-to-back Big Ten games under interim head coach Mickey Joseph.
11. Indiana, 1-2, 3-3 – Indiana head coach Tom Allen has gone from being named the Big Ten Coach of the Year and the AFCA Coach of the Year in 2020 to firing his offensive line coach/running game coordinator six games into the 2022 season.
12. Michigan State, 0-3, 2-4 – Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker has gone from signing a monster 10-year contract worth $95 million this past November to now being the symbol for buyer’s remorse with the Spartans having lost their last four games in a row by double digits.
13. Rutgers, 0-3, 3-3 – Greg Schiano has 32 million reasons why he doesn’t regret taking on the challenge of rebuilding the Rutgers football program for the second time.
14. Northwestern, 1-2, 1-5 – This is the point in the season when Pat Fitzgerald starts to remind his players about how much smarter they are than their opponents, and about how much money they’ll make with their Northwestern degrees.