The whirlwind the Big Ten conference has endured from the College Football Playoff Selection Show on December 4 when the league had, for the first time, two participants make the playoff to heartbreaking losses in the College Football Playoff Semifinals to Kevin Warren‘s resignation on January 12 as Big Ten Commissioner to become the President and CEO position with the Chicago Bears.
In between, Penn State highlighted the bowl season for the Big Ten winning the Grand Daddy of Them All against the Pac-12 Champion Utah Utes. Outside of that win, the league was a huge disappointment on New Year’s Day and CFP bowls, having lost the other four games.
For a league that is aspiring to unseat the SEC as the top conference in college football, it has several key issues it must address before making that move. Here are five of them.
#1 Find a New Commissioner
Kevin Warren oversaw a very tumultuous time over the last three seasons. Overall, Warren has pointed the conference into the right direction, most notably through a new media contract with NBC, CBS, and FOX that will emphasize and make the conference a priority. Expanding the conference into the Los Angeles market with brands as strong as UCLA and Southern California was the answer to the SEC getting Oklahoma and Texas.
Poor leadership at the top can be detrimental to a conference. Just ask Pac-12 fans about the Larry Scott now George Kliavkoff commissionerships.
The Bit Ten position is widely seen in the industry as an extremely desirable one every athletic director would covet.
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The odds on favorite is former Northwestern AD and current ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips. Phillips was in the running for the Big Ten commissioner’s job in 2019 which eventually went to Warren. It would be unprecedented for a Power 5 commissioner to leave for another Power 5 job, but Phillip’s ties to the league makes him a prohibitive favorite.
The other names to look out for are:
- Gene Smith: Athletic Director at Ohio State – Arguably the most powerful AD in the Big Ten with the most successful football program during his tenure.
- Bernard Muir: Athletic Director at Stanford – During Muir’s tenure, Stanford has won 28 NCAA national championships, 37 national championships overall, plus seven Learfield Directors’ Cup championships in 11 seasons for top overall athletic department. Muir’s predecessor Bob Bowlsby left Stanford for the Big XII Commissioner position.
- Mark Silverman: President and COO of FOX Sports – If the conference is seeking a media vision, Silverman would be the ideal candidate. He was one of the key players who helped broker Southern California and UCLA to the Big Ten from the media perspective.
- Kerry Kenny: SVP of Television Media Analytics and Emerging Platforms for the Big Ten – If the conference is looking for a fast riser internally, Kenny is the name most industry insiders are saying he is destined for a major job. Kenny has been with the conference for 15 years and is not 40 years old yet, but has been a pivotal component to the league’s media negotiations and streaming strategies.
- Chris Howard: ASU Public Enterprise executive VP/COO – Howard is another fast riser in the higher education community for major jobs because of his pristine resume: He is a former student athlete as an Air Force running back, served as President at Robert Morris University, and while President of RMU served on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is a Rhodes Scholar with an MBA from Harvard who was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan. He took a run at the NCAA President’s job before pulling out early.
#2 Restoring The Pride In Wisconsin and Nebraska
The major knock on the Big Ten is that the West Division hasn’t held up its end of the bargain on the national scene. Even in the conference championship game, a team from the west has yet to win against their counterpart from the East since the conference moved to the current alignment (0-9).
Two programs who were expected to be the anchors of the Big Ten West are Nebraska and Wisconsin, who have a combined 2-5 record in the Big Ten Championship Game since its inception in 2011.
After firing Bo Pelini, who went 67-27 and never won less than nine games in a season, Nebraska suffered through the failed Mike Riley and Scott Frost tenures which had losing records in seven of eight seasons.
Enter former Temple and Baylor head coach Matt Rhule, who is on the path to be this generation’s version of Lou Holtz. Much like Holtz, Rhule seems to reinvigorate dormant or downtrodden programs and gets them to reach heights that were only dreams for their programs.
For Temple he took a program that hadn’t won 10 games in a season since 1979 and did it twice in his tenure. For Baylor, after the Art Briles fallout, he took a program that won a single game in 2017 to the Big XII Championship Game and a Sugar Bowl berth two seasons later.
Nebraska hasn’t played in a New Year’s Six bowl since the 2007 Cotton Bowl, hasn’t participated in a conference championship game since the 2012 Big Ten Championship Game. The Cornhuskers haven’t won a New Year’s Six bowl since 1999 season when they won the Big XII Championship and won the Fiesta Bowl against Tennessee.
On the recruiting trail, Rhule has Nebraska in an intense recruiting showdown for Nebraska legacy five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola. A commitment from Raiola would show Rhule is leading a strong resurgence at Nebraska.
For Wisconsin, it never reached the depths of ineptitude that Nebraska has felt, but athletic director Chris McIntosh decided a change needed to be made in Wisconsin.
With Southern California and UCLA coming to the Big Ten, the teams in the western part of the league know things just got a lot harder and for Wisconsin, the program has seemed to slip under Paul Chryst.
In Chryst’s first three seasons, the Badgers were 34-7, played for two Big Ten Championships, and won two New Year’s Six Bowls. However, the program noticeably stepped backwards over Chryst’s final four plus seasons, as the Badgers went 33-19, with a 4-12 record against ranked opponents. As a result, recruiting began to slip each season, and with Iowa, Northwestern, Minnesota, and Purdue all rising to the same level as Wisconsin, McIntosh decided to cut ties with Chryst.
McIntosh also decided to not go with the prohibitive hometown favorite, former defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, to replace Chryst in Wisconsin. Leonhard, who is a Wisconsin native, was a former three-time First Team All-American at defensive back, who had been coaching the Wisconsin defense since 2016, and was being looked at for NFL head coaching jobs, most in Wisconsin was anticipating Leonhard to become head coach.
McIntosh’s assessment of Leonhard’s 4-3 regular season record in relief of Chryst was that despite being a program legend, he was not the man for the job to achieve his vision for the Badgers. Instead, McIntosh went with Luke Fickell, who had guided Cincinnati to the College Football Playoff in 2021 as right choice.
The vision McIntosh has for his football program is one that is a perennial contender for the College Football Playoff, Wisconsin was the No. 8 winningest program from 2012 to 2021.
#3 Achieving “Designated Performance Objectives”
I highly doubt when classic playwright William Shakespeare composed “The Comedy of Errors” in 1594, he had envisioned a situation made amusing by bungling and incompetence that was the 2022 Iowa Hawkeye offense.
The defense was performing at a championship level allowing only 13.3 points per game (2nd in the nation), 270.8 total yards per game (2nd in the nation), and top ten in rushing and passing yards per game.
The offense scored 17.7 points per game (123rd in the nation), gained 251.6 yards per game (130th in the nation) and was in the bottom ten in rushing yards and passing yards per game.
Had Iowa finished in the median in offensive categories and scored 28 points in every game and the defense maintained its efforts, the Hawkeyes would have gone 11-1.
Realizing the blown opportunities of the 2022 season, Iowa restructured the often scrutinized offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz with strategic clauses in the contract deemed “designated performance objectives.” Ferentz is under an ultimatum, he will take a $50,000 a year pay cut and must meet the following to earn a contract renewal, if not Ferentz is terminated:
- Average 25 points per game (keep in mind the median last season was at 28 points per game).
- Iowa must win 7 games including a bowl game.
All Ferentz has to do is be just below average and he keeps his job. Not sure if this is in the best interest for Iowa and its fanbase.
#4 In Allar We Trust?
Penn State’s 35-21 Rose Bowl win over Utah highlighted the bowl season for Penn State. The momentum seems to have Penn State fans dreaming of the College Football Playoff. To get there, Penn State has to see elite quarterback play, something that hasn’t happened in the James Franklin era.
Penn State hasn’t had an All-American at quarterback since Kerry Collins in 1994 and arguably one of the most anticipated quarterback prospects Penn State ever received will take over this season.
Drew Allar was a five star quarterback and ranked just behind Cade Klubnik (Clemson), Connor Weigman (Texas A&M), and Ty Simpson (Alabama) in 247 Class of 2022 rankings.
Allar will have an excellent supporting cast with a two headed running back attack in Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen that combined for over 2,000 yards from scrimmage and 24 total touchdowns, left tackle Olu Fashanu who is rated as the No. 4 returning tackle by Pro Football Focus and is complemented by the top offensive line recruiting class this season. The losses of Parker Washington and Mitchell Tinsley will sting, but getting Dante Cephas and Malik McClain in the transfer portal with KeAndre Lambert-Smith returning should bode well for Allar.
It is no disrespect to record breaking quarterbacks Trace McSorley and Sean Clifford, who both rewrote the Penn State record books for passing, but they never possessed the ability to take Penn State to a national elite level. That is the expectations of Allar, and this off-season he needs to get in sync with his teammates to make James Franklin’s “Good to Great To Elite” rant come to life.
The Nittany Lions have been good and great, but have failed to be elite, can Allar be the difference maker?
#5 Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
Over 40 years ago, the iconic punk band The Clash released their hit single “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” This is in many ways the perfect allegory for the situation that Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh finds himself in. He doesn’t seem to know whether the best has already happened for him at Michigan or if the best is yet to come.
The Wolverines had a disappointing defensive effort and was missing its Heisman finalist running back Blake Corum in the Fiesta Bowl against TCU. While they came up short in a 51-45 loss in the Fiesta Bowl, the positives to take away from the game was quarterback JJ McCarthy’s elevated play.
McCarthy entered the Fiesta Bowl completing 52.4% of his passes in the month of November and in the Big Ten Championship Game against Purdue. During that same span, he averaged 182.4 yards per game, and while his touchdown to interception ratio was 10 to 1, it was a dominant Michigan ground game that was the reason for Michigan’s run to its second consecutive Big Ten championship and College Football Playoff berth.
When Michigan dug themselves a hole early, with the TCU defense seemed to have answers for running back Donovan Edwards, McCarthy seemed to elevate his play on the biggest stage unlike anytime in his young Michigan career. McCarthy finished the game with nearly 400 yards of total offense (343 passing 52 rushing) and three total touchdowns.
Michigan will have a three headed running back attack with Corum and Edwards returning to school with sophomore C.J. Stokes averaged nearly five yards per carry in limited action.
The Wolverines also return an excellent offensive line led by Zak Zinter, who was part of Michigan’s 2021 and 2022 Joe Moore Award winners for best offensive line unit in the nation. Additionally, they also landed in the transfer portal two offensive line studs who will look to extend the Wolverines dominance with the Moore Award for a third season in a row.
Center Drake Nugent, who transferred in from Stanford, is rated as the No. 5 returning interior offensive lineman. Nugent with the Cardinal allowed a total of eight sacks in nearly 1,000 pass blocking snaps. Tackle LaDarius Henderson, who transferred in from Arizona State, has extensive experience playing left tackle (10 games) and left guard (19 games) for the Sun Devils. In the past seasons, Henderson allowed two sacks on 619 pass blocking snaps.
The answer for Harbaugh should be stay in Michigan, and a long term commitment to the Wolverines should bolster a recruiting class that struggled to finish in the Top 20 for the 2023 recruiting cycle.
For Harbaugh, getting the offense to realize its fullest potential is what separates the Wolverines from getting to the National Championship Game and ending any flirtations with the NFL.
