By Woodrow Carroll
The Big Ten Conference made this season’s football debut Friday evening in Madison, Wis. with the University of Illinois at Wisconsin. The season opener was not pretty for Illinois. Wisconsin had things pretty much under control from start in a 45-7 victory.
Illinois will seek to get back on track when it plays host to Purdue at 11 a.m. Saturday. The Boilermakers defeated Iowa 24-20 Saturday.
Northwestern University may have received little attention in its opener with the important results of the other opening games, however, the host Wildcats defeated visiting Maryland, 43-3.
Northwestern was 309, 1-7 in the Big Ten last season. Only a season-ending 29-10 conquest at Illinois kept the Wildcats from a winless Conference season. It was a big comedown for a program that was the Big Ten West Division champion in 2018.
Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald, in his 15th season as head coach a better test of the Wildcats are may come Saturday in a 2:30 p.m. game at Iowa. Is Northwestern vastly improved from last season? Or, is Maryland just a nondescript team?
There was a sense of anticipation around the Conference leading up to last weekend. Would all 14 teams in the Big Ten play, given the COVID-19 strength? Yes was the answer! All seven games were played.. Better yet, there was the usual mix of routs, close games, and controversy we have come to expect.
It was October 19 of last year that Illinois’ kicker, James McCourt’s 39-yard field goal as time expired gave the Illini a shocking 24-23 victory over heavily-favored Wisconsin. It was Wisconsin first defeat after six victories. The conquest was the first of four straight victories and helped to propel the Illini to an unexpected bowl game in the Redbox Bowl. However, there was nothing close or shocking about Friday night’s Illinois game.
The Illinois-Wisconsin game was settled early. Illinois did receive a 39-yard return of a Badgers’ fumble by Tarique Barnes for a touchdown in the second quarter for a 14-7 score. But that was it for the Orange-and-Blue.
The nasty virus has changed things for sure. It’s a strict conference-only, eight-game schedule in the Big Ten. Given the Big Ten’s history of easy non-conference games to start the season, the realization that seven Big Ten teams opened the schedule with defeats is something to ponder. Only one Big Ten game in week two features two undefeated teams, Saturday’s Indiana-at-Rutgers meeting. Few saw that coming.
Rutgers raced to a 28-13 halftime lead at Michigan State Saturday and was in command the rest of the way in beating Michigan State, 39-28. Indiana benefitted from some exotic late-game clock management by Penn State and a close call in overtime that gave Indiana a two-point conversion to defeat the Nittany Lions, 36-35.
It’s a relief to see the Big Ten listed in the standing. For weeks it has been ACC, SEC and Big 12. The major independents in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) are 18-2 combined. Brigham Young University is 6-0, Liberty is 6-0, and Army is 6-1. The slacker in the group is UMass 0-1.
• Wednesday Nov. 4, the Mid-American Conference will start play and Northern Illinois will play a 6 p.m. home game against the University of Buffalo. A victory over Buffalo, a program Northern Illinois defeated in all 10 previous meetings, would go a long way in getting Northern Illinois back on the winning track. Northern Illinois was 5-7 last year and did not qualify for a bowl game.
Starting with the 2010 season, the Huskies have forged a 91-44 overall record, best in the MAC.