2007 Big Ten College Football Predictions


June 5, 2008 | Posted By Larry Cook

With the college football season right around the corner, it is now time for us to make our 2007 Big Ten football predictions. This is perhaps the toughest conference in all of the college football ranks so each year the title is up for grabs. In 2007, we will take Michigan to win the Big Ten Title and earn a trip to Pasadena. They have the best offense in the league by far with Chad Henne, Mike Hart and Mario Manningham returning. Their defense needs a little work, but there are several soon-to-be stars on that side of the ball as well. Being tabbed the favorite to win the Big Ten has never been kind to the Wolverines, but the 2007 season will see Michigan flourish at the top.

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The Ohio State Buckeyes and Wisconsin Badgers will be battling it out for second place in this conference. We will give the Buckeyes the nod in the second slot due to the fact that they play the Badgers at the Horseshoe. Ohio State has the best linebacker in James Laurinaits along with the best cornerback and a superb offensive line to block for Chris Wells. They have many reasons to expect to win the Big Ten Title, but only one not to, which is their Novembers 17th meeting with Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Wisconsin brings back nearly as much talent as Michigan as a whole and no Big Ten team has won more games over the past three years than the Badgers. Breaking in a new quarterback will bring some headaches though. We expect the Badgers to struggle in two road meetings with Penn State and Ohio State down the road in 2007. The Badgers will finish 3rd in the Big Ten race.

We take Iowa to finish 4th in the race and Penn State to follow. Iowa’s schedule has no Ohio State or Michigan this year, so that fact alone will produce more wins for the Hawkeyes. They also break in a new quarterback though so we are expecting Jake Christensen to gain much needed experience early after logging a win in his only start last season. The Hawkeyes always compete and their schedule helps. Penn State has a talented quarterback in Anthony Morelli and supposedly their best receiving corps ever. So Penn State should be able to finish far better than 72nd in scoring offense with 22.3 points per game this season. The problem is that Penn State is weak in the trenches where it matters most on both sides of the ball.

Purdue will finish in the sixth spot, followed by our surprise team in Indiana and then Illinois takes over the eighth spot when the season is over. Purdue has Curtis Painter back at quarterback and a plethora of receivers for him to throw to. Scoring will not be a problem for the Boilermakers. Purdue led the Big Ten in yards and yards allowed last season and you can expect a repeat performance in both categories this year. They are only good enough to stay in the middle of the pack. Indiana has the Lewis-to-Hardy connection and could be the league’s most potent combination. Throw in Thigpen in the backfield, and this team will do some damage on offense. Illinois returns 19 starters so their progress will be tremendous from a year ago. Ron Zook is one of the best recruiters in the land. We are still not sold on quarterback Juice Williams with his 39% completion percentage last season though.

Minnesota will hold down the ninth spot followed by Michigan State and Northwestern. The Gophers have a new staff with NFL experience in cleaning up things in Gopher country. Pinnix returns in the backfield and Minnesota will install a spread attack offense that will cause opposing defenses fits. Games at Michigan and at Iowa are sure losses, but they have home meetings with Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Illinois. They just have to win two of those games and they could possibly be bowl eligible. Michigan State just has too tough of a schedule for head coach Mark Dantonio to be successful. They are at Wisconsin, Ohio State, Iowa and Purdue. You can chalk up four losses on their Big Ten schedule right there. Northwestern turns the ball over far too much to be a winner in the Big Ten. They finished 106th in points scored last season with just 16.5 per game. The Wildcats can’t make enough improvement over the course of one season to be successful, thus finishing in last place in the Big Ten conference.

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