Friday, September 21, 2007

The Big Ten Season Begins

Following its impressive win over Washington, Ohio State takes on Northwestern for its Big Ten opener tomorrow. Northwestern did lose to usually lowly Duke last week. But the Wildcats feature a spread offense, the very brand of offense that gave Michigan fits in its opening losses to Appalachian State and Oregon.

Nonetheless, I believe that Ohio State's defense is sterling and will be prepared for the spread. OSU's offense, under the leadership of QB Todd Boeckman also appeared to take a quantum leap forward in last week's win in Seattle. The Buckeyes, still I will remind you in what can only be described as a rebuilding year, should win.

[Photo credit: OSU Quarterback Todd Boeckman from Yahoo]

Of course, there's a lot of interest in how the Penn State-Michigan game will turn out tomorrow. The match will be a major test for both schools, for different reasons. For Michigan, it'll be a chance to prove that their win over Notre Dame, so far one of the worst teams in the country this 2007 season, wasn't a fluke. But they'll have to beat a Penn State team that many expect to win the Big Ten and to play in one of the BCS bowls at season's end. It's no gimme for Penn State either, because they'll have to play in Ann Arbor. But I expect Penn State to win by about ten points.

In other games...
LSU should handle an improving South Carolina team.
Michigan State should beat Notre Dame.

That's as bold as I'll get. After all, I'm just a preacher, not a football expert.

[See Tim May's always interesting comments here.]

Go Buckeyes!

[UPDATE: As a friend of mine said today, "Ohio State's win over Northwestern yesterday is like the games the two teams played back when we were students at OSU." Todd Boeckman seemed to become a big time college QB during the third quarter of last week's game against Washington. His work yesterday seemed to confirm that.

[I was shocked by Michigan's win over Penn State. But Michigan does have a lot of returning talent and Lloyd Carr is no slacker as a coach. Also, Penn State doesn't really play a spread offense. Nonetheless, yesterday's game seems to indicate that Michigan, along with Penn State and Wisconsin, have legitimate shots at a share of the Big Ten title this year. While my beloved Buckeyes made huge strides forward yesterday, they beat an obviously weak Northwestern team, and there are still big question marks about how really good they are.]

2 comments:

Tina Boyer said...

Congratulations!

You certainly called Ohio State-Northwestern right!

P_J said...

45-0 at the half. Ouch.

I'm not sure Northwestern had an offense for State to defend against.