Pickin' On the Big Ten Report Card Part 2

In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.

Even though it wasn't a great year overall for the conference, there were plenty of bright points and hopeful signs and "wait until next year" moments which should have Big Ten fans excited for next season. Either that, or we'll all look like Charlie Brown did five seconds after Lucy teed up the football. But I digress. Let's take a look at the teams in the second drawer of the Big Ten file cabinet, shall we?

NORTHWESTERN: B+

I'll grant that this grade could be higher, but let's face it, they lost to Indiana. Injuries or no, a nine-win Big Ten team shouldn't have lost to the 2008 Hoosiers. In fact, a nine-win MAC team shouldn't have lost to the 2008 Hoosiers. The Wildcat record goes deeper than that, of course, including a win over Iowa in Iowa City and a truly astonishing come-from-behind win at Minnesota. That almost makes the pants-blasting 45-10 loss to Ohio State go down a little easier. Almost.

The key to the Cats' success was defense. New coordinator Mike Hankwitz had an immediate effect, turning Pat Fitzgerald's team from defensive have-nots into haves. The offense wasn't prolific but took a full blast from the Injury Fairy's magic wand. The Cats scored, on average, five more points than they gave up, which usually indicates a decent season. They took Missouri to overtime in the Alamo Bowl but couldn't finish them off. They held the Tigers to 30 points, though, which is something only Oklahoma and Oklahoma State accomplished during the season. That has to count for something.

2009 outlook: Mostly positive. The Wildcats lose their quarterback, running back, and three of their top four receivers, but offense isn't going to be their strong point anyway. They will return eight starters on defense, and that's how they're going to win their games.

OHIO STATE: B+

No, the better-than-expected performance in the Fiesta Bowl doesn't erase 35-3. It doesn't mitigate surrendering the Horseshoe to the Nittany Lions, either. And, of course, the Buckeyes lost to Texas anyway. "Lost" is the proper word for that defeat, but the other two weren't losses; the Bucks just plain got beat.

While Terrelle Pryor and Beanie Wells were getting all the attention, the real story of the Buckeyes' 2008 season was the continued mind-warping performance of the defense. Only USC and Texas scored more than 21 against them. If an opponent has to be in the top five to get more than three touchdowns, it's safe to assume the defense was fundamentally sound.

2009 outlook: Slight regression. No Big Ten team will have to replace more playmakers next season than the Buckeyes will. The loss of Beanie Wells, Brian Robiskie, and Brian Hartline will obviously affect the offensive plan for 2009. Less obvious is the effect of losing Todd Boeckman. He was the true X factor in this season's offense, not Terrelle Pryor. With all those guys gone, the Bucks need Pryor to become a deep passing threat early in the season, or they're going to be in trouble. (See Illinois, 2008 season, for further details.) Likewise, no matter how much Buckeye fans talk about "reloading, not rebuilding," you can't lose the people they're losing on defense and expect to pick up where you left off. I could see them winning eleven games in '09 ... but I could also see them only winning eight.

PENN STATE: B

In case you're wondering, yes, the Spread HD Kool-Aid left a bit of a bitter aftertaste on my palate. I don't know if Jay Paterno's whiz-bang scheme got figured out, or stopped working, or both, but there were several points down the stretch where it became clear that the Spread HD was primarily effective against weak defenses. The same could be said of the triple option, the wishbone, or even the single wing.

And yeah, there's now an answer to my perpetual question "When have you ever known Penn State to have a bad defense?" In the first half of the Rose Bowl, that's where. Still, the Nittany Lions lit up scoreboards for most of the season, and their defense was simply suffocating. The two losses were to two good teams, but the scope of the collapse in the Rose Bowl drags down the overall grade quite a bit, I'm afraid.

2009 outlook: Murky. The Nits might have to revert to a more traditional offense in 2009. Quarterback Daryll Clark will return, but key backup Pat Devlin is gone. Running back Evan Royster was hurt in the Rose Bowl but not severely. Killer linebacker Sean Lee returns from a torn ACL which kept him out all season, but the secondary loses all its starters. Prior to the Rose Bowl, that secondary only gave up six passing touchdowns in 2008. Look for the new guys to be tested early and often.

PURDUE: D

As Leonard Cohen once said, "Hey, that's no way to say goodbye." The Boilermakers bid farewell to Joe Tiller with a totally wretched season. They had a tough schedule, perhaps the toughest in the Big Ten. However, all season long, the Boilermakers displayed all the consistency of Depression-era soup. The same defense that held Penn State to 20 points and Ohio State to 16 gave up 42 to Michigan. The conference's third-best pass defense finished dead last against the run, giving up 4.5 yards per attempt. At least they had the decency to send Tiller back to the Rocky Mountains on a good note, with a 62-10 win over Indiana that was vintage Joe Tiller football.

2009 outlook: Impossible to determine. Exit Tiller, enter Danny Hope. Exit 11 of 22 starters, including Curtis Painter, Kory Sheets and the entire starting receiving corps. Exit defensive coordinator Brock Spack, gone to take over at Illinois State; enter ... have they hired anybody yet? Either my Google-Fu has grown weak, or the job's still open. There are too many unknowns. There's a lot of room for improvement. Up isn't the only direction they could go from here. We'll just have to see.

WISCONSIN: F

"Bumbling" is a harsh word, but somehow it seems to sum up the Badgers' 2008 season. It started with a terrible decision to get rid of defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz, who was unemployed for about the length of a commercial break. (See Northwestern above.) It continued with a thoroughly inexplicable preseason ranking of No, 13. Toss in Bret Bielema's misplaced loyalty to quarterback Allan Evridge, woeful special teams play, and a defense no better than mediocre, and you've got a formula for disappointment.

The Badgers got flogged by Penn State, 48-7, and by Iowa, 38-16, in the midst of a 1-5 stretch. Those were good teams, however. The Badgers also lost to Michigan in there, and would have lost to Cal Poly if not for the Mustangs having special teams problems of their own. Then in the Champs Sports Bowl they got cratered by what was probably the weakest Florida State team since the 1970s. It wasn't the Badgers' fault they were overrated in the preseason, but this team didn't get better as the season went on.

2009 outlook: Gut check. Bret Bielema will be on the hot seat at the start of the season. Bank on it. Since his first season the Badgers have lost more and more games every year. The Badgers will be shockingly young next year, which isn't a good sign for them. The only thing the Badgers can be sure of is that in 2009, they won't have to overcome a too-high preseason ranking.

OVERALL CONFERENCE GRADE: C-. What else can you give a somewhat below average conference? At least as we head toward the 2009 season, we know that this is a wide-open conference without a dominant team. The league's top two finishers, Penn State and Ohio State, have serious questions about their ability to maintain their 2008 performance levels. There's a thick clot of pretty good teams right beneath them, but none of them are sure things to move up or down. Finally, for the Big Ten teams left out of the postseason this year, there's comfort in knowing that a few lucky breaks might get them right back in the thick of things. It's early, I know, but I think it's going to be that kind of a season in the Big Ten.