The Badgers have made two straight trips to the Rose Bowl. And with Ohio State and Penn State ineligible for the postseason, their competition to reach the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis has been reduced to Purdue, Illinois and Indiana. No one expects a close race.
“I’m not blind and oblivious that we’re in a division with six teams and only four are eligible for the Big Ten championship game, but it really won’t change our approach,” Bielema said. “Everybody is like, ‘Coach, why have you had success, why have you won two championships?’ The No. 1 thing I believe we’ve had is the mentality that you take every day for what it is. On Aug. 5, we’re going to (make the most of) that day and then move on to Aug. 6 and Aug. 7.
“Every game on our schedule, I will definitely make note of the teams that are in our division, but it really doesn’t change what we do because we can never skip a step to get to where we want to be.”
Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald had a novel idea for solving the imbalance in the two divisions.
“Maybe our division winner should automatically be in the championship and you take the other teams that are eligible and put a committee together with the 12 ADs (to pick the opponent),” he said. “Commissioner (Jim) Delany would have the 13th vote.
“That would make sense to me. I like the idea of maybe having two guys from our division. Any way to get to Indianapolis, that’s what it’s all about.”
Illinois
Coach Ron Zook was finally fired after years of barely hanging on and was replaced by energetic Tim Beckman, who had prolific offenses at Toledo.
Beckman, a former Ohio State secondary coach, has enlivened the rivalry with Northwestern by channeling his inner Woody Hayes and calling the Wildcats “the Team Upstate.”
“I’ve been in those big rivalry football games. I think it’s something you breed through your program,” he said. “We call them the Team Upstate. I’m not scared to say that. That’s what we’re going to call it, and we’re going to make it a rivalry and make it very, very important for our football season.”
Indiana
The Hoosiers are the only team from one of the Big Six conferences that failed to beat an FBS team last season. Not exactly the debut first-year coach Kevin Wilson had envisioned.
IU has some Big Ten-caliber players — like Centerville High School grad Adam Replogle at defensive tackle – but not enough to be competitive every week.
The Hoosiers were gashed for 240 rushing yards per game last year and were one of only a handful of FBS teams to surrender more yards on the ground than through the air.
“We’re going to be a lot better defensively, but we’re not at a position in year two to play lights-out defense,” Wilson said.
Iowa
The biggest change in Iowa City isn’t on the depth chart but on the sidelines. Coach Kirk Ferentz, starting his 14th year, retained only two of his nine assistants from last season and has new coordinators in Greg Davis (formerly of Texas) on offense and Phil Parker (last year’s secondary coach) on defense.
Ferentz isn’t ordinarily one to revamp his staff, but he said most who left moved up in the profession.
After rebuffing some NFL offers over the years, Ferentz has become the dean of Big Ten coaches.
“I feel very, very fortunate to be at the University of Iowa. I have a 22-year history there,” he said. “I worked for a man (Hayden Fry) who was there for 20 years. (Former Iowa wrestling coach) Dan Gable had a long career. You can draw a parallel with the University of Iowa and the Pittsburgh Steelers – they stay with their people.”
Michigan
The honeymoon is far from over for Kettering native Brady Hoke, who led Michigan back to prominence with an 11-2 record and a Sugar Bowl victory over Virginia Tech last season.
Hoke stoked the embers in the Ohio State rivalry with a 40-34 win. Of course, he refers to the Buckeyes as “Ohio” and is training his players to do the same thing. Don’t think OSU fans haven’t noticed.
While the season was celebrated in Ann Arbor, Hoke wasn’t satisfied. He said in his trademark straightforward style: “We had a disappointing year a year ago. (It’s disappointing) when you do not win the Big Ten championship, and we haven’t won that championship at Michigan since 2004. We have direct goals ahead of us and know what we want to do.”
Michigan State
The Spartans were finally able to emerge from Michigan’s shadow and appear to have staying power under coach Mark Dantonio, the former Ohio State defensive coordinator who is in his sixth year.
Four straight wins over Michigan and three wins in five tries against Notre Dame have given them the kind of national respect that’s been missing since the Bubba Smith days in the 1960s. They’ve won 22 games the last two seasons and played in the inaugural Big Ten title game last season, losing to Wisconsin.
The Spartans and Wolverines have done some public verbal sparring the last few years. And Dantonio couldn’t resist firing a jab when asked about the likelihood of MSU being the underdog this year.
“They’ve been favored pretty much the last four years,” Dantonio said. “It’s a competitive game, a big rivalry game. They do an outstanding job there. But it only matters whether or not they’re favored in the locker room. And in our locker room, they won’t be favored.”
Minnesota
Second-year coach Jack Kill appears to have gotten over his health scare after a series of epileptic seizures last season, but the Gopher personnel isn’t likely to provide much comfort.
Minnesota finished 3-9 last season and appears destined for another bottom-tier finish, although quarterback MarQueis Gray shows promise, rushing for nearly 1,000 yards.
“We’ve got to get people around him, receivers and running backs, to make plays. We feel like in recruiting we’ve done that,” Kill said.
Nebraska
Hmmm. Nebraska fires Frank Solich after he won 75 percent of his games over six years. Coach Bo Pelini, heralded as a great hire after a stint as defensive coordinator at national champion LSU, has won 70.1 percent of his games in four years.
The seat under Pelini, who was on Solich’s staff, may not be toasty, but he knows all too well that nothing short of greatness will do in such a football-crazed state.
The Cornhuskers finished their first Big Ten season 5-3, including a loss to Northwestern.
“I don’t think there’s anything that really surprised us,” Pelini said, “but having a year under our belt and having some familiarity with the conference and the teams and with the style of offenses and defenses – it’s one thing seeing it on film and another thing living it – I think will help us going into year two.”
Northwestern
The Wildcats haven’t been able to duplicate those Rose Bowl seasons of the 1990s, but they’re far removed from the days when they seemed misplaced in the Big Ten. Fitzgerald, a former all-conference linebacker, gives them their pluckiness.
Northwestern, which has been to a school record four straight bowls, can put up points, but the defense is an issue. Opponents racked up an average of 407 yards per game last season.
“We gave up way too many explosion plays a year ago,” Fitzgerald said. “And with all the issues we have, first and foremost, we start with us as coaches. Are there schematic issues? Are there teaching issues? … Looking in the rearview mirror, we feel like we’ve created solutions.”
Purdue
The Boilermakers won three of their last four games a year ago, beating Ohio State and posting a bowl victory over Western Michigan. That should provide some momentum going into coach Danny Hope’s fourth season.
The defense has some depth, and Raheem Mostert led the nation in kickoff returns. But the offense probably won’t thrive unless the QB spot is cleared up. Caleb TerBush was the starter last season, and Robert Marve and Rob Henry are coming off knee injuries but have been starters in the past.
“There is a competition at the quarterback position, but we have a plan to utilize all three of those guys throughout the course of the season in different facets of our offense,” Hope said.
Wisconsin
The rest of the Big Ten broke out into collective groans when Maryland quarterback Danny O’Brien transferred to Madison. He’ll be eligible immediately because he’s a grad student and will have two years with the Badgers.
Comparisons to Russell Wilson, who led Wisconsin to the Rose Bowl last season after transferring from North Carolina State, are inevitable and fitting. O’Brien was the ACC’s rookie of the year in 2010 but was out of his comfort zone when the Terps switched to a spread offense last season. He won’t have to worry about that with the smashmouth Badgers.
Running back Montee Ball, a Heisman candidate, is back after leading the nation in rushing with 1,923 yards.
The 42-year-old Bielema got hitched in the offeseason. “For 19 weeks and five days, I’ve been in this relationship – I get reminded of that (tally) on a daily basis,” he joked.
“Hopefully, it will make me smarter, wiser and more mature as a coach.”
Penn State
Coach Bill O’Brien had the understatement of the day: “This is a little different media day than the last one I was at with the Super Bowl.”
The first-year Nittany Lions coach and former New England Patriots offensive coordinator has a monumental job in keeping his team together with the NCAA having granted players the right to transfer without sitting out.
He said no one has opted out yet, although star running back Silas Redd reportedly is leaving.
“We’ve got a bunch of kids back in State College right now that are going to stick together, that have been through a lot of tough times the last six months but have turned the page. They’ve moved forward,” he said.
“All I can tell you is that we have a great staff. We’ve got a tough, smart football team. Our fans need to get on board. Our alumni need to get on board. And our lettermen need to get on board.”
O’Brien was emphatic that the scholarship limits of 65 per season for four years won’t be a crippler, even though that’s 20 fewer than the maximum. He pointed out NFL teams dress 45 players each game.
As for the four-year bowl ban, O’Brien said of his players: “Without a shadow of a doubt, they’re going to play six to seven ‘bowl’ games a year in front of 108,000 screaming fans in Beaver Stadium – and I expect it to be 108,000 screaming fans.”
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