John Tsarouchas, Football Analyst

So here we are about halfway through the college football season and we’ve separated a few contenders from the pretenders…

Best In Class:

#3 PENN STATE: The Nittany Lions are the conference’s most dominant team. Joe Pa’s squad sports a physical defense and an offense littered with playmakers. Quarterback Daryll Clark and running back Evan Royster lead an offense full of speed and talent. Receivers Derrick Williams and Jordan Norwood are explosive athletes providing match up problems for opposing defenses. At this point, PSU looks poised for a run at the national title game.

#9 OHIO STATE: The Bucks looked awful at USC, but the development of Terrelle Pryor as OSU’s starting quarterback is going well. Pryor’s been the x-factor for OSU. When he plays well, the Bucks look great, when he struggles, OSU looks mundane. There’s talent all over the field with guys like James Laurinaitis and Malcolm Jenkins and Beanie Wells, but the Bucks need to prove they can put it all together in the big game. They’ll get their shot when they welcome PSU to the ‘Shoe.

 

Apt Pupils:

MICHIGAN STATE: Javon Ringer has statistically been one of the most dominant players in the country, propelling the Spartans to six-straight wins before a letdown at home against OSU. Quarterback Brian Hoyer has been the game manager coach Mark Dantonio needs, but the Spartans will need a big win over Michigan if they want to consider 2008 a success.

#22 NORTHWESTERN: The ‘Cats are near the top of the standings with only one loss in the Big Ten and they believe if they focus on one game at a time they’ll be in the thick of things at the end of the season. The defense is what’s doing it for NU these days. Led by a solid defensive line, Northwestern is consistently in the opponents’ backfield–leading the conference in sacks. The ‘Cats are a great second half team, never count them out.

#24 MINNESOTA: Who’d have thunk it. Tim Brewster has his Gophers 6-1 and in the thick of things in the Big Ten. The Gophers are home to the Big Ten’s best QB/WR tandem in Andrew Weber and Eric Decker. The defense isn’t too shabby either. Brewster likes Minnesota to be “relentlessly optimistic” and his team is playing like they believe they can beat anybody. It’s a young team, but a team that isn’t afraid to compete. Their only loss is by 13 at Ohio State.

 

Best of the rest:

ILLINOIS: The Illini are 4-3, but don’t have a quality win yet. All three losses come to teams currently in the Top 25. The Illini need to shore things up defensively because when the Juice gets loose, the Illini can play with anybody.

IOWA: The Hawkeyes lost three straight earlier in the year to quality competition by a combined nine points. The Hawks have the best offensive and defensive lines in the conference and one of the biggest, baddest backs in Shonn Greene. Ricky Stanzi has a firm hold on the QB job now and the Hawks will make some noise in the second half of the season.

 

Needs Improvement:

MICHIGAN: Hopefully the transitional phase of the program ends better than it started. Rich Rod consistently looks like he’s going to explode. They just can’t seem to put together four quarters of solid football.

INDIANA: I didn’t expect the Hoosiers to be so inconsistent. The only thing they’ve done consistently is find ways to lose games. An injury to QB Kellen Lewis hurts, but the Hoosiers have more problems than that.

PURDUE: Joe Tiller’s final season isn’t going as planned. The defense has issues, and Curtis Painter inexplicably has accuracy problems during his senior season. Painter is one of four Big Ten quarterbacks to pass for more than 10,000 career yards, and he’s been pulled from games twice this season.

WISCONSIN: After a failed comeback at the Big House, the Badgers let a freshman, Terrelle Pryor, lead a game-winning drive against them in the fourth quarter at Camp Randall. That was crushing for them. Then UW had to play Penn State. Now they’ve been roughed up real nice by Iowa and are losers of four-straight conference games. The Badgers, once ranked as high as 9th, are a major disappointment.