According to Bill Connelly’s SP+ ratings, the Big Ten has become the most predictable Power Conference in college football. That sounds absurd on its face, considering the chaos everywhere else and the league’s own weirdness - a preseason top-five team sitting at 4-3, plus UCLA, Wisconsin and Northwestern hanging around as legitimate College Football Playoff threats - but here we are.
Even with all the noise in the middle, the top and bottom of the conference are still pretty easy to spot.
At the very bottom, Maryland sits at 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the league after its bye, while Rutgers dropped to 2-5, 1-3 after a 42-14 loss at Northwestern. Michigan State is 2-6 and 0-5 after falling 28-10 at UCLA.
The Spartans stayed in it for about a quarter and a half against the Bruins before the roster attrition caught up with them, including at quarterback, and the game got away from there. Rutgers, meanwhile, had no real answer for a Northwestern team that looks legitimately good.
Maryland’s week off at least gave it a chance to step away from the mess.
The middle of the standings is where the real chaos lives.
Illinois moved to 4-3 overall and 2-2 in conference play with a 21-10 win over Oregon. Purdue is 3-4, 2-2 after its bye.
Washington is also 4-3, 1-3 and had the week off, as did Penn State, which is 3-4 and 0-4. Iowa fell to 5-2, 2-2 after losing 13-10 at Minnesota.
Michigan is 4-3, 1-3 after a 13-6 loss to Indiana. Minnesota improved to 5-2, 3-1 with that 13-10 win over Iowa.
Nebraska is 5-2, 2-2 after a bye. USC sits at 6-2, 3-2 after a 24-7 loss at Wisconsin.
Oregon is 4-3, 2-2 after the defeat at Illinois. Wisconsin, now 5-2 and 3-1, has suddenly forced its way into the conversation.
That Wisconsin rise is hard to ignore after a 24-7 win over USC in Madison. It might feel like a leap to place the Badgers this high in the tier, but a defense that can hold Lincoln Riley’s team to seven points is going to get attention. On the other side, Colton Joseph finished 12-for-14 for 58 yards, and the offense averaged fewer than three yards per dropback.
Michigan belongs in that same neighborhood, even if its quarterback situation remains shaky. The difference between the Wolverines and Wisconsin is not all that obvious beyond Wisconsin’s friendlier schedule. And the gap between the teams in this tier is thin overall, especially after Illinois handled Oregon by multiple scores while also averaging fewer than three yards per dropback.
Oregon is a tough one to place. The Ducks are, in the words of the ranking, dead.
Elevating Drew Mehringer to replace Will Stein as offensive coordinator wasted the season, and with the starting quarterback out, the whole operation has fallen apart. Still, even after Mehringer was fired on Sunday, the talent on the roster is enough that Oregon would still be the pick on a neutral field against every team below it.
That’s the difference between a power ranking and an AP-style ballot.
Illinois has won back-to-back games, though those wins came against two of the league’s most depleted rosters: Michigan State and Oregon. That’s not enough to make a contender out of the Illini, but Bret Bielema does appear to have them headed to a bowl game again.
Minnesota also has two important wins after taking the Little Brown Jug and Floyd of Rosedale, but there’s nothing especially flashy about a team that beat Iowa by three on a walk-off field goal while managing only 208 total yards.
At the top of the second tier, Northwestern is suddenly impossible to dismiss. The Wildcats are 6-1, 3-1 after a 42-14 win over Rutgers, and after surviving the emotional edge of the Pat Fitzgerald reunion against Michigan State in Week 7, they went right back to doing what good teams do: smashing bad ones.
This is a real CFP contender, whether people are ready to say it out loud or not. Chip Kelly has also seemingly coached all the chaos out of Aiden Chiles.
UCLA is right there too at 7-0, 5-0 after beating Michigan State 28-10. The Bruins may not look as overwhelming without Nico Iamaleava at quarterback, but they remain one of just three undefeated teams left in the FBS. That counts for a lot.
At No. 2, Ohio State is 6-1, 4-0 after a bye.
Indiana stays at No. 1 at 7-1, 4-1 after an overtime win at Michigan, 13-6. There are real concerns about the Hoosiers’ offense, and the offensive line is a bigger worry than it was in 2025, but Josh Hoover was at least healthy enough to play, even if he wasn’t good against Michigan.
Until Ohio State shows what it looks like with Luke Fahey at quarterback, Indiana remains in the top spot. Fernando Mendoza’s ceiling is clearly higher, but the guess here is that Hoover keeps getting better as he gets healthier.
The concern is up front, where Indiana’s offensive line is not as strong as it was in 2025. Even so, it was close enough to beating Ohio State two weeks ago, and there may not be a defensive line that will stress it the way the Buckeyes and Wolverines have over the last two weeks, though Minnesota does bring real juice up front.
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