Weekly what to watch in the Big Ten for 2021(Part One)

We are inside of three months to the start of the 2021 football season with a “Week Zero” game between Nebraska and Illinois on the books to take place in late-August with the rest of the conference set to start action the first weekend of September.

It will be quite the return to normalcy to see 12-game schedules, non-conference opponents and most importantly the hope and knowledge that a game that has been on the schedule for months and years will not suddenly be cancelled hours before kickoff.

It got us to thinking about what the ultimate viewing schedule would be for the course of the regular season, from week one to week 13. Some weeks are going to be stronger than others with league play taking place, open weeks being accounted for and just a couple of weeks that are not all that compelling.

And then on other weeks, it really came into a coinflip situation to decide which game might mean more, does history outweigh recent success? We had to make that decision early in the season on a week with a great slate of games.

We know not everyone will agree with our picks and we know that many people in the community will have all 12 Ohio State games on their own personal list, and that is fine too.

With 13 weeks to talk about, we decided to break this into three pieces to keep it from getting too overwhelming. We start with the first five weeks and then will hit the next two pieces in four-week chunks.

Yes, Ohio State at Minnesota is a great game as well, but we will see plenty of the Buckeyes along the way and this will be a great chance to see what the 2021 edition of Penn State will look like, will the Nittany Lions gets off to a slow start like they did in 2020 or will they pick up from the finish of the same season?

Wisconsin on the other hand salvaged a disappointing finish to the season with an overtime win over Minnesota to end the regular season and then beat Wake Forest in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl to end on a two-game winning streak.

Big Ten fans will not forget Graham Mertz getting off to a fast start against Illinois in week one, only to come back to Earth and struggle for much of the season. For Penn State, it is kind of a now-or-never season for Sean Clifford. Jahan Dotson may be the best receiver in the league not named Chris Olave or Garrett Wilson, but will a running game find its way back to Happy Valley?

You certainly did not think we were going to pick Washington at Michigan here, did you? This was supposed to be a game of the year candidate in 2020 out in Eugene (Ore.) but fate intervened, and that game was called off. Now it is a single-play game, in Columbus and will show the college football world where Ohio State stands early along with the Ducks of Oregon.

One way or the other, Ohio State’s starting quarterback in this game will have no more than one start under their belt and the Ducks will be much stouter on defense than on offense. It will be an early measuring stick as to where the Ohio State offense may ascend to as the year goes on.

On the other side, the Ducks will be breaking in a new quarterback as well and that is just fine with an Ohio State defense that will largely be retooling its back seven with graduation gutting the starting linebacker corps from a year prior and a secondary that is still looking to find its BIA status.

Ohio State is still close to an early two-touchdown favorite in this one, so the oddsmakers believe Ohio State is much closer to finding its stride than Oregon, but you play the games for a reason and this is one to be excited about.

Okay, we know that Nebraska has not been living up to its legacy since coming over to the Big Ten but call us traditionalists. This game has all the name value you could ask for. Sure, Auburn at Penn State will be a better game as will Cincinnati at Indiana. But this is Nebraska at Oklahoma. These two teams have not played since December of 2010, and that has been way too long of an absence.

The Sooners will presumably be fighting for that fourth College Football Playoff spot nationally while the Huskers would love nothing more than to vault into the Big Ten West race with the monster upset.

Oklahoma probably should have lost to Kansas State or Iowa State last year, but it happened. Kansas State got them the year before as well. Army played well enough to win in 2018 but it was not meant to be. The point is, early in the season you never know what may happen.

On paper, Oklahoma should make quick work of the Huskers, but who knows what could happen with an 11am (CDT) kick and the ghosts of this series surrounding the game.

It is a thin week with a lot of Group of Five games on the schedule as teams get towards the end of their non-conference schedule and while this is a non-conference game (don’t get us started on where Notre Dame should be in terms of league play) it should be a good one.

If you are an Ohio State fan, or a Big 12 fan or a Pac-12 fan, you need to be rooting for Wisconsin in this one. Hanging a loss on Notre Dame at any point is good for business if you are concerned about the Fighting Irish crashing the CFP party. And while Ohio State’s path is laid out, win and you are in, the rivalry between Ohio State and Notre Dame fans is real, and it is spectacular.

Notre Dame will have close to a month to break in some new names at key positions and could really need to rely upon Kyren Williams at running back and the ground game. That could play right into Wisconsin’s hands, as a Big Ten team that sees the run on a weekly basis and practices against the run on a daily basis.

We really thought about Wisconsin at Michigan here, but we just saw the Badgers the week before and there will be plenty of time to check out the Wolverines as the season goes on.

The season is now several weeks old, hot-and-cold starts have been worked through and it is time to start learning about teams and these are two teams out of the Big Ten East that will be very much in Ohio State’s crosshairs.

Michael Penix has dealt with the injury bug though his college career, will he be able to buck that trend? Will the Hoosiers find a consistent ground game to go with an aerial attack that proved to be problematic for many opponents last year, Ohio State included?

Penn State will be a couple of weeks further down the line from the first time that we have seen them. Will their next great defensive player have emerged by this point? Penn State went without Micah Parsons for the entire 2020 season, is a disruptor like that on the roster, ready to emerge?

Plus, there is that whole 36-35 overtime game, did Penix get into the end zone or not? Penn State is going to have revenge on its mind while the Hoosiers will be looking to show that was not some sort of fluke.