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The Big 10 as a conference had a really bad day Saturday.
Seven, count it, seven Big 10 teams lost non-conference matchups in Week 3, and some of them were very embarrassing.
Let’s start off with the big one, No. 6 Wisconsin somehow losing to BYU. The Cougars were coming off a home loss to California in Week 2, and a loss on the road to a top 10 Wisconsin team seemed very likely.
Wrong.
While the Badgers dominated the Cougars in basically every major statistic, fifth-year senior Rafael Gaglianone couldn’t convert on a 42-yard field goal and the Cougars waltzed out of Madison with a 24-21 victory.
How about Northwestern? With their 39-34 loss, they became the first Big 10 team to lose to Akron this century.
Akron, which just beat Northwestern, hasn’t beaten a Big Ten team since the 19th century. (Akron, known as Buchtel College, beat Ohio State in 1894)
Tear down the John Heisman statue outside InfoCision Stadium and replace it with a Terry Bowden statue.
— Dan Kadar (@ByDanKadar) September 16, 2018
I don’t want to rag on Purdue too much since they are 0-3 and just lost to Eastern Michigan, but yeah they lost to Missouri on Saturday. Nebraska, the other winless team in the Big 10, lost to Troy today as well.
And Maryland, everyone was so high on them after their Week 1 win over ranked Texas, but they dropped the ball today in their home opener against Temple 35-14.
Kansas, the butt-end of every college football joke, destroyed Rutgers today 55-14. The Jayhawks have now beaten an FBS school in consecutive weeks for the first time since 2009!
Illinois finishes off this list with its 25-19 loss to South Florida.
It’s still early, but it’s been a nightmarish start to the 2018 season for the Big 10. These non-conference matchups at the beginning of the year are to prove your legitimacy as a program and as a conference, but these first few weeks for the Big 10 have done everything but that.
Jordan Dajani covers SEC football for Saturday Down South and is a University of Tennessee graduate. He also has experience working in the NBA and with ESPN.
