NCAA Football

Big Ten Football Preview '07: The Mediocre

Posted Aug 02, 2007 10:44AM By Brian Cook (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Iowa Football, Big 10, Purdue Football, Illinois Football

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They aren't the dregs but nor are they real threats to win the league. They could lose to Iowa State or a MAC team and I will watch their crappy December bowl games pulling for them to win just so everyone can finally shut up about how much the Big Ten suxxxx; I will usually be disappointed about the outcomes of these games. Ladies and gentlemen: the mediocre of the Big Ten. A veritable cornucopia of the average. A smörgåsbord of the typical. A vast array of another noun used to denote something sort of good and sort of bad.

THRILL to the sartorial stylings of Illinois linebackers

BOGGLE at just how Joe Tiller hasn't yanked his starting quarterback over and over the past few years

WONDER what is up with Iowa, anyway? Shouldn't they be better?

All of this... and more! After the jump.
Iowa Hawkeyes
Last year: 6-7 overall, 2-6 Big Ten

WHY THEY'LL WIN: There was a single year in which Notre Dame was being driven into the ground by Ty Willingham, Illinois was still pre-Zook, and Chicago was laden with a veritable smorgasbord of talent, all of which Tom Lemming overrated badly. This year those kids are juniors and redshirt sophomores. Also, there's talent at the skill positions with true sophomore Dominque Douglas, and the next Inexplicably Good White Iowa Receiver Andy Brodell, verteran, slashing tailback Albert Young (right), and a line full of the very highly touted. On defense, they have a pair of standout defensive ends in Kenny Iwebema -- now being touted as a potential first-round pick in some circles -- and the underrated Brian Mattison.

WHY THEY WON'T: There's help coming in the secondary in the form of Jordan Bernstine and loopy Detroit product Cedric Everson, who claimed offers from six billion schools and committed to a dozen of them before finally settling on the Hawkeyes right before signing day, but it still looks very grim unless the freshmen light the world on fire. There is also the matter of replacing Drew Tate, though that's less of a big deal than it might have been if Tate had lived up to the expectations heaped upon his senior year; he did not. Jake Christensen, a member of that heralded recruiting class, will take the reigns. There should be a requisite amount of new starter moments.

PROGNOSIS: Who knows? The last couple years of the Tate era were unexpected disappointments after Kirk Ferentz became everyone's it coach by leading the Hawkeyes to back-to-back-to-back final rankings of #8. If Christensen can match Tate's production, or even vaguely approach it, a major leap forward in the standings is absolutely going to happen as Iowa takes up Purdue's mantle as the Big Ten scheduler's favorite son: no Ohio State, no Michigan. With no non-conference opponent looking dangerous (NIU, Syracuse, Iowa State, WMU) Iowa could be on its way to 9-3 or even 10-2, hollow though that record may be.

Illinois Fighting Illini
Last year: 2-10 overall, 1-7 Big Ten

WHY THEY'LL WIN: Jesus, did we really put these guys in "the mediocre"? I guess so. Well, there is the matter of returning 19 starters from a team that went from a traveling bye week to, like, a tough traveling bye week. Middle linebacker J Leman is awesome for many reasons:
  • He rocks a Joe Dirt mullet,
  • While doing this he wears an American flag tie,
  • His first name is "J", just "J", and...
  • He is quite good at football.
And this is so weird, but they now have VHTs at quarterback, wide receiver, and running back. If Juice Williams can complete significantly more than 37% of his passes and the line can block, there is the chance this offense goes nova. Meanwhile, the defense was secretly very good last year; horrible punting and the offensive ineptness obscured that in the scores but in terms of yardage the Illini shot up from amongst the very worst in D-I to a downright respectable 31st.

WHY THEY WON'T: Their starting quarterback completed 37% of his passes! Thirty seven! Percent! Of his passes!

!!!

Even if he improves radically, vastly, more than any other quarterback in D-I this fall, he will still suck. It would take a truly epic leap to reach competence. And it's possible that the Illinois defense was overrated by the numbers. Maybe their yardage totals are low not because they were good but just because teams faced with starting at the 50 all the time were forced to stop by that endzone thing? And for all the hype associated with the last couple of recruiting classes, all the hyped recruits save tailback Rashard Mendenhall are still underclassmen.

PROGNOSIS: The internet is filled with reflexive Zook bashing after his Florida teams lost a few games in spectacular fashion, but the guy can put together a fierce defense out of old sticks of gum, empty egg cartons, and Joe Dirt, middle linebacker. I assume Williams will get up to, like, a 50% completion rate. I assume that having a team that returns 19 starters is good, especially when a lot of them are three year starters. I think Mendenhall is pretty dang good. So... it's bowling for the Illini, somewhere in the 6-6 to 8-4 range.

Purdue Boilermakers
Last year: 8-6 overall, 5-3 Big Ten

WHY THEY'LL WIN: Curtis Painter is a senior quarterback with multiple years of starting under his belt and the array of weapons at his disposal is frightening. Dorien Bryant, this year's Brooks Bollinger Memorial Eighth Year Senior Award winner, returns after reeling in 87 catches for 1038 yards last year. Greg Orton, Selwyn Lymon, and tight end Dustin Keller round out the deepest and most frequently used receiving corps in the Big Ten. Kory Sheets and Jaycen Taylor are an impressive 1-2 punch at running back. Jordan Grimes is a potential All-American at guard. Oh, and they return a lot of starters on defense.

WHY THEY WON'T: 5-3 in the Big Ten looks impressive, but guess who's back on the schedule? Michigan and Ohio State. Purdue is fortunate to see Wisconsin and Illinois rotate off instead of, like, Minnesota and Michigan State, but that's still a way to seriously harsh your buzz. And about those defensive starters: they suck hard. Miraculous defensive end Anthony Spencer is about the only guy who departed, but he was also the only guy to do anything good on the nation's fifth-worst defense.

Also, though Curtis Painter is the Big Ten's second most-experienced quarterback behind Chad Henne, he's not very good. Despite having the above-cataloged panoply of weapons at his disposal, Purdue finished but 46th in passer efficiency without having to face two of the league's four really good defenses; the nonconference was also full of totally lame pass defenses. There's no excuse for that level of mediocrity when you're in the Tiller system. Painter is a spray passer who almost single-handedly lost Purdue its bowl game; Drew Brees he ain't.

PROGNOSIS: Purdue might actually be rocking one of the tougher nonconference schedules in the conference even if it has a I-AA team and two MAC snacks on it. This is a depressing acknowledgment of the current state of college football scheduling, yes, but also a nod to the non-crappiness at the top of the MAC. Taking on Toledo and Central Michigan isn't a walk for anyone outside of Michigan and Ohio State these days; there is also the annual showdown with the Irish. They should go 3-1, but 4-0 or 2-2 OOC is possible. Then wicked, tricksy Big Ten schedulers deliver a double oomph of revenge for missing the Big Two the past couple years: Purdue's Rose Bowl run figures to be over before it starts as Ohio State and Michigan kick off the Big Ten schedule. Yikes.

The defense should be less clueless; Painter should be marginally better; this is still going to be a pretty meh team, but one that goes 8-4 in the regular season and wins a bowl game. Maybe?

Tags: albert+young, AlbertYoung, big+ten+football+preview+07, BigTenFootballPreview07, brian+mattison, BrianMattison, curtis+painter, CurtisPainter, dorien+bryant, DorienBryant, drew+tate, DrewTate, j+leman, jake+christensen, JakeChristensen, JLeman, juice+williams, JuiceWilliams, kenny+iwebema, KennyIwebema, rashard+mendenhall, RashardMendenhall

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