We are less than seven weeks away from the start of the college football season and a little less than eight weeks away from the start of the Ohio State schedule.

Over the coming days and months there will be plenty of content to get you ready for the rapidly approaching season as the Buckeyes look to make it five straight Big Ten Championships and get back to the College Football Playoff for a third consecutive year.

But none of those things are given and you have got to get through your schedule.

Something that people will appreciate more now than ever, after seeing a 2020 season that was in a constant state of flux and at one point, did not appear to even be in the cards.

Schedules are planned out years in advance, sometimes non-conference games sit on the schedule for more than a decade. For 2021 we have had the chance to pour through the schedules for the entire Big Ten, look in-league and out-of-league games and just try to predict who will step into key roles by recently departed players.

It all of course leads up to the first Saturday of December in Indianapolis, as two teams play for the silver football trophy and hopefully a call about 14 hours later for inclusion into the four-team (for now) College Football Playoff tournament.

Without the benefit of fall practice, seeing depth charts and really knowing the answer to a lot of questions, we are making our calls for what the final standings will look like at the end of November as the Big Ten East and the Big Ten West champs will be getting set to meet at Lucas Oil Stadium.

We will start with the Big Ten West, the ‘other’ division, the division that has not won a single Big Ten Championship game since moving away from Leaders and Legends many years ago. Then later today, we will roll out the much more familiar Big Ten East and show our work there.

Iowa has its usual in-state game against Iowa State and this year the Cyclones could be really good under Matt Campbell. We are not sure that the Hawkeyes will be able to win this game in week two, but we don’t see the Hawkeyes losing many more along the way.

With no Ohio State or Michigan on the schedule, that appears to be a win in terms of what the Hawkeyes have to contend with but who really knows what the Big Ten West will look like this year, Northwestern shows up to the party from time-to-time, Wisconsin is Wisconsin and inexplicable upsets happen come mid-October on that side of the division.

There are just no obvious losses out there but concerns about how many points the Hawkeyes may be able to put up will plague them in a couple of games this year, Penn State could prove to be a problem and Northwestern has won four of the last five in this series. We see both of those games being the league games that Iowa can’t solve but a head-to-head win against Wisconsin will send Iowa to Indy for a date with the Big Ten East winner.

Yes, the same record as the Hawkeyes but a head-to-head loss is going to be the difference here as chaos could ensue based on our model. We would not be surprised to see Wisconsin get past Notre Dame in the non-conference schedule and actually had the Badgers coming out on top in that game until it was time to sit down and write the piece. The Badgers have owned the series with Iowa recently, winning four of five and seven of nine and the game is in Madison (Wis.) and the last time that Iowa won in Camp Randall was back in 2015. There is just a feeling that this is the year that the Hawkeyes become road warriors and pull it off.

Now, even with that loss, we don’t see Wisconsin having an additional league loss on the schedule going into the final week of the season with a trip to Minnesota in that final weekend of games. The Badgers have just owned the series as of late, even if the overall record is 62-60-8, but as of late it has been 17-2 in favor of the Badgers. Could all the pressure of “win and you are in” get to the Badgers, on the road? Could PJ Fleck get one of those signature wins that he desperately needs to vault his program to the next level, or at least out of the middle of the pack?

Does Northwestern take a step back on defense after the retirement of defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz? After making it to the Big Ten Championship Game in two of the past three seasons, the Cats are not sneaking up on anybody and there is just not enough offense on this Wildcats team to win those critical games. Northwestern’s non-conference schedule includes Duke, a team that won the last two meetings of a series that is knotted-up at 10-all. The Cats will host Iowa in November in Evanston (Ill.) and for some reason we could see this being the type of game that Northwestern wins but unfortunately for them, we see a pair of losses going into that game with stumbles at Michigan and vs. Minnesota. A loss at Wisconsin on the other side of the emotional win will end aspirations for Indy but the Cats are becoming more of a player in the Big Ten West on a weekly basis.

No chance to ease into the season with a game against Ohio State, and even if it is at home, no chance for PJ Fleck to really see what he has on his team in week one. It is a very manageable non-conference schedule after that with Miami (Ohio), Colorado and Bowling Green. Each year we expect the Gophers to really take that next step into the limelight and then it is just never there. Minnesota has to do a better job with its special teams, that has been an issue for some time now and until proven otherwise, call us skeptical of the Gophers in close games. This will also come down to defense, will the Gophers be able to play it on a consistent basis? Projected losses to Ohio State, Purdue, Nebraska, Iowa and Indiana give you our answer.

Well, this does not appear to be the year either for the Huskers as the Scott Frost hire has yet to bear any fruit, or blackshirts or championships. The good news is that Nebraska should have some experience on defense with super-senior returns including Cam Taylor-Britt and JoJo Dormann. The bad news is that Nebraska is not exactly deep with offensive playmakers, at least ones that we are aware of at this point. Adrian Martinez is back again and does not have Luke McCaffrey to push for playing time with the latter transferring out. If the transfer market does not work out for Nebraska, the five projected wins could shrink as an immediate infusion of playmaking ability is past due. Just not sure it is there with projected losses to Oklahoma, Michigan State, Northwestern, Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Iowa all on the table. But at least Nebraska will start on a three-game winning streak with a week zero win over Illinois and non-con wins over Fordham and Buffalo projected.

David Bell will be the best player in the league that nobody will be talking about as the junior receiver really could have gone anywhere in the nation out of high school and has flourished, even if he has not had a steady quarterback during his playing days with the Boilers. Will Purdue be able to run the ball this season? Put us down as a no, for now. Purdue will not be able to win shootouts this season and will need the defense to step up in a major way. The schedule sets up right for a good start of the season, we have the Boilers winning four of the first five, only dropping a game to Notre Dame and even pulling off an upset of Minnesota but then things fall apart as Purdue will only win one game the rest of the way, beating Michigan State.

Welcome back Bret Bielema. You don’t have half the roster you had at Wisconsin, or even at Arkansas. The good news is that people around that program know it won’t be a quick fix and 2021 could be an ugly year with projected wins against UT-San Antonio and Charlotte. Sure, we don’t have to go that far back to see an upset of Wisconsin in Champaign (Ill.) by the Illini and we play these games for a reason because upsets do happen, but that first-year transition under a new coach, especially with a roster that just did not seem to work, often spells for a long season and this could be a really long one for the Illini.