This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/trumpet_23 on 2023-08-31 16:31:59.
Preseason Power Rankings:
We did it! Big Ten football officially starts tonight! Good job everyone for making it through our long and agonizing offseason.
Preseason rankings are always quite the crapshoot, and this season is no different. Some initial thoughts:
- Michigan is the favorite to win the conference, and no surprise there. They’ve won the last two championships and seem to have the fewest question marks of the top teams in the conference. So, knowing how the B1G tends to go, they’ll manage to lose 4 games somehow (I kid (but also I hope I’m right)).
- Congratulations to Wisconsin and Purdue for grabbing the largest jump and largest fall, respectively, from the end-of-season rankings last year. Particular props to Purdue for going from B1G Championship Game to 10th place.
- Iowa managed to snag a 1-vote from someone for…some reason. I’m a lifelong Hawkeye and even I think that’s overkill.
- We have a few effective ties in these rankings: Wisconsin/Iowa, Illinois/Maryland (with Minnesota nearly putting themselves in there for the triple-tie), Michigan State/Purdue, and Rutgers/Indiana.
- 5 of the 14 teams stayed put: 1-3 Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State, 11 Nebraska, and 14 Northwestern. Four teams that make complete sense and then Nebraska, just standing still in the middle of the bottom while everyone around them moves.
Don’t forget, voting for these power rankings occurs over in /r/TheB1G every week. I try to get the voting posts up every Sunday or Monday, and I plan to post the results on Thursdays.
| Rank | Team | Points | Average Rank | Prev. | Change | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michigan | 304(162) | 1.35 | 1 | 0 | 0.38 |
| 2 | Ohio State | 432(54) | 1.91 | 2 | 0 | 0.40 |
| 3 | Penn State | 646(9) | 2.86 | 3 | 0 | 0.45 |
| 4 | Wisconsin | 1139 | 5.04 | 9 | +5 | 1.59 |
| 5 | Iowa | 1151(1) | 5.09 | 8 | +3 | 2.19 |
| 6 | Illinois | 1603 | 7.09 | 5 | -1 | 3.46 |
| 7 | Maryland | 1625 | 7.19 | 6 | -1 | 3.85 |
| 8 | Minnesota | 1691 | 7.48 | 7 | -1 | 2.88 |
| 9 | Michigan State | 2109 | 9.33 | 10 | +1 | 3.36 |
| 10 | Purdue | 2129 | 9.42 | 4 | -6 | 3.12 |
| 11 | Nebraska | 2238 | 9.90 | 11 | 0 | 2.67 |
| 12 | Rutgers | 2753 | 12.18 | 13 | +1 | 0.82 |
| 13 | Indiana | 2767 | 12.24 | 12 | -1 | 1.61 |
| 14 | Northwestern | 3124 | 13.82 | 14 | 0 | 0.47 |