The Bone Yard

Nebraska, Michigan State, and Ohio State were the most impressive in the first week of play for B1G teams.

However, each showed some weaknesses in their wins. Either way, I'm not going to read too much into the first game of the year for any school other than maybe Michigan's complete domination at the hands of Alabama.

Maxwell showed sharpness early and when he had time in the pocket, but under pressure, he certainly has to scare MSU fans. While 2 of his 3 INT's were tipped passes, his decision-making and throwing of balls into double coverage, and blanketed coverage, has to be unnerving. I was also thoroughly unimpressed by Adams and Dennard in coverage against the rather average WR's from Boise State. If the Broncos had solid QB play like in years past, that game could well have gone differently.

Hard to gauge much from Ohio State's win other than the fact that Braxton Miller looked great, and the offense put the hammer down on a completely overmatched opponent. We'll certainly learn more about them in a game this week against a pretty good UCF team.

For Nebraska, it was a spectacular performance by Taylor Martinez and a deep WR/TE unit. The Huskers certainly put on display an array of offensive talent. On the bad end, the DL still struggled with quick and elusive QB's. A number of times contain was lost, and a true freshman QB really gouged our defense a number of times on scrambles and designed QB runs. If Southern Miss had some better WR's and weren't running a 3 man rotation at QB to try and find their true starter, we may have been able to gauge a bit more from the defense as a whole.

We saw how much Penn State will struggle this year.

Iowa had a nice 4th quarter comeback against a decent UNI squad, but they still needed to overcome a 4th quarter 8 point deficit.

Northwestern blew a 22 point lead and needed a backup QB to come off the bench when Colter went down to pull out a near miracle against Syracuse.

Wisconsin was on the fringe of blowing a 19-0 2nd half lead over an FCS opponent. Northern Iowa is a good FCS team, but they aren't THAT good. Danny O'Brien certainly isn't Russell Wilson, and the defense still has holes.

Purdue had a nice win over a bad FCS team. We certainly need to see more from them. A trip to Notre Dame this weekend will tell us a bunch about that team.

Illinois ground out a solid win over Western Michigan, but that was a team with a 1st year coach. We may not get all their questions answered when they travel to Arizona State, but anything short of a win in the desert certainly shouldn't scare anybody.

All in all, it was a fairly poor combined effort from the B1G this weekend. If Michigan ends up seriously contending in the Legends division, it would certainly give the conference a black eye after their effort against Alabama.

If we can beat down UCLA then I think people will start talking about us again. UCLA has a few players that are going to really test us though.

A few, but overall I think they are going to struggle a bit on defense. Just too hard to make huge strides under a new coaching staff. UCLA will definitely be better, and a tougher opponent in the Rose Bowl venue.

If the Husker D can improve from week one, we should be able to outscore them.

Unfortunately, we will probably lose Joe after his two year GA gig. Someone else will realize his coaching abilities.

Because I'm such a blind homer, I've got Nebraska #1 and MSU #2.

Agree with your assessment of that game. As I saw it, MSU won two games, Saturday. They beat Boise and they beat themselves. They were easily the better team but their true victory was winning the game in spite of themselves. This will pay dividends for them as the year go on.

It looks to me like MSU will be playing a lethal 'ball control' game this year. They will rely on their defense (no doubt with success) and, offensively, on LeVeon Bell. They're going to have a minute-chewing offense that will severely limit their opponents time of possession. They will win a lot of games.

We'll have to beat them with speed, a hurry-up offense and our 'new' Martinez. I think we can.

hmmmm...

Re-bump.

At this point in time, I'd have to say Michigan to be honest. Then Nebraska, then MSU.

Michigan's D is solid and their O was at least decent once Gardner got his shot. I think they would have played a close game with Wisconsin.

Best team in the Legends shouldn't give up 70 to a 7-5 team. Period. (Not that MSU would have won either).

I'm an MSU fan and I'm going to defend Michigan here. They played their backup QB and the two games against MSU and PSU were pretty questionable outcomes. Especially PSU.

Add in the BTCG performance and I think michigan should have won the division and is a better team at this point in time, with Nebraska a close second.

Their back up Qb that started the rest of the season? Yea we are still the best team in the legends.

We won. There was plenty of time on both games for us to still win regardless of those calls