USC proved that it can beat a decent team on the road; this time it was Nebraska. Indiana continues to thrash most of their opponents while Penn State, Michigan State, and Purdue continue to lose. However,
Purdue hung with Michigan, proving they aren’t a push-over.
Polls
This week we saw the initial CFP rankings for 2025. These rankings are obviously the most important to watch over the next 5 weeks.
A total of 7 Big Ten teams are ranked in the initial CFP rankings, including 3 in the top 10.
- Ohio State: 1
- Indiana: 2
- Oregon: 9
- USC: 19
- Iowa: 20
- Michigan: 21
- Washington: 23
The full list of rankings can be found here: https://collegefootballplayoff.com/rankings.aspx?year=2025
Here are the ranks in the other two major polls. (AP/Coaches)
- Ohio State (1/1)
- Indiana (2/2)
- Oregon (6/6)
- USC (20/21)
- Michigan (21/20)
- Washington (24/NR)
- Iowa (NR/24)
Iowa is getting votes in the AP (#26) while UW is getting votes in the Coaches (#26). Illinois is also getting votes in both the AP (#34) and in the Coaches (#35). Minnesota is getting votes in the Coaches poll (#38).
You can see the same 7 teams in all 3 of the rankings-although Iowa and Washington are each just outside of the top-25 in one of the polls. Iowa is higher in the CFP ranking than they are in either of the polls while Oregon is lower in the CFP than the polls. We’ll see how that looks after this weekend when those two teams play each other.
Composite Ranking
This week the Massey Composite (https://masseyratings.com/ranks) includes 45 different rankings (as of the writing of this article), including the AP and Coaches polls. The following “Cool Chart” shows the changes since the preseason for the teams in the Big Ten.
The top 2 teams in the Big Ten remain the top 2 teams in these rankings, but this week they switched places. Indiana is now the top team. Eight Big Ten teams are in the top-25 in this ranking. Illinois is the team in the top-25 here that isn’t in the top-25 in the CFP, or the other major polls. Nebraska is drifting down toward the middle of the Big Ten. Purdue, Michigan State, and Wisconsin remain at the bottom.
All but a handful of the rankings in the Composite have UW in the top-25, and all but one has UW in the top 30 (Mike DeSimone has UW at #53!).
Other Rankings
The table below lists the rankings for each of the Big Ten teams in the Massey Composite plus 7 other rankings: SP+, FEI, ESPN’s FPI, Sagarin, CBS Sports, Kelly Ford (KFord), and SRS.
Penn State continues to be an anomaly; ranked in the top-25 in some of the rankings, but below 50 in the others. Wisconsin is another team that has a lot of variability; they are as high as #61 (Sagarin) and as low as #96 (CBS Sports).
Not a lot of notable changes since last week in any of the rankings. Maryland did go down in all of the rankings; they went down by 10 or more in a couple of them (SP+ and CBS Sports).
You’ll notice that UW is now in the top-25 in all of these rankings. They are consistently between #19 and #25.
F+ Rankings
We’re far enough into the season that the advanced stats should give us a good idea about which teams are good and which are not.
All 4 of the top offenses are in the Big Ten: Indiana, USC, Oregon, and Ohio State. Another two (UW and Illinois) are in the top-25.
Four of the top-10 defenses are in the Big Ten: Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon, and Iowa. And two more (Michigan and Maryland) are in the top-25.
Four of the top-10 special teams are in the Big Ten, and 7 of the top-25.
Ohio State and Oregon are in the top-5 in both offense and defense. Indiana is in the top 5 in all 3 phases.
For UW, so far they have scored at least 38 points against all of the defenses they’ve played that are not in the F+ top 25. The good news is that their next 3 opponents all have defenses that are not in the top 50. But then they have to again play a top 5 defense in their final game.
Week 11 Games
There are 7 Big Ten conference games this week. Just one ranked team is off this weekend: Michigan.
There is some disagreement about the Maryland-Rutgers game; two sites have Maryland favored while the other two have Rutgers as the favorite.
Final Notes
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon are all favored in all of their remaining games. Michigan State, Purdue, UCLA, and Wisconsin are currently underdogs in all of their remaining games.
Maryland may have to win this weekend at Rutgers if it wants to make a bowl game. They are favored in their final game at Michigan State, but they are underdogs at Illinois and against Michigan.
Indiana seems almost a lock at this point to make the Big Ten Championship game. They already have 6 conference wins and are heavily favored in 2 of their 3 remaining games (vs Wisconsin and at Purdue). Even if they lose this weekend to Penn State (they are still favored), they would win the head-to-head tie-breaker with Oregon. If Ohio State wins out, as they are expected to do, they would also make it to the Big Ten Championship game.
Oregon’s best hope for making the Big Ten Championship again is if Ohio State loses to Michigan; but Oregon would also have to win all of their remaining games, which won’t be easy: at Iowa, vs Minnesota, vs USC, and at UW. Iowa, Michigan, and USC also have just one conference loss and could sneak into the Big Ten Championship-assuming each wins out and Ohio State loses a game (or two) and/or Indiana loses a game (or two).
Penn State played Ohio State tough for the first half, so they may yet get another win this season. It may not come this weekend since they are playing Indiana, but their remaining games (after that) are at Michigan State, vs Nebraska, and at Rutgers. They should win at least two of those games; they’ll need to win 3 more to make a bowl game.
Dylan Raiola’s season-ending injury against USC could really hurt Nebraska down the stretch. The game at UCLA this weekend was going to be difficult anyway because of the travel. Their game at Penn State will not be much easier. And their final game against Iowa could be very difficult with a freshman QB. They do get a ‘bye’ between the UCLA and Penn State games, so that may help. It’s a good thing for them that they are already bowl-eligible because they may be lucky to win one more game.
Purdue must have the toughest final stretch of games of any team in the country. After playing at Michigan last weekend, they host Ohio State this weekend, then they head to Seattle to take on the Huskies before hosting Indiana in their final game. That’s 4 top-25 teams in a row, including games against both the (current) top 2 teams.
UW’s win over Illinois continues to look like its best win of the season. UW had a chance to have another win over a team with a winning record, but WSU ended up giving Oregon State just its second win of the season. WSU can get revenge when it plays Oregon State again later this month-this time in Pullman.
