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Last year, we at InsideNU started putting out weekly Big Ten power rankings, not because they're super valuable content, but because they're fun for us to put together and they're fun for you to read. We all follow the Big Ten pretty closely, and we have some educated guesses about how the season might turn out, so even though we don't have a crystal ball, hopefully you'll find that we have reasons for who we choose.
Anyways, we'll be doing this once a week and we'd love your feedback in the comments. Feel free to provide your own rankings. We'll also be giving you our ballots each week, because as Josh said, "I kinda want the world to know that I think Michigan and Indiana are good at football." So without further ado, here are our initial rankings.
| Rank | Team | Votes |
| 1 | Michigan State | 95 (5 first place) |
| 2 | Ohio State | 91 (1) |
| 3 | Wisconsin | 86 (1) |
| 4 | Iowa | 75 |
| 5 | Nebraska | 71 |
| 6 | Michigan | 60 |
| 7 | Northwestern | 55 |
| 8 | Penn State | 48 |
| 9 | Maryland | 45 |
| 10 | Minnesota | 33 |
| 11 | Indiana | 32 |
| 12 | Illinois | 23 |
| 13 | Rutgers | 14 |
| 14 | Purdue | 7 |
And here's how we all voted:
A few notes:
- Josh, as noted earlier, likes Michigan and Indiana a lot.
- Everyone thinks Purdue is the worst team in the league and Rutgers is the second-worst team in the league.
- Michigan State took the top spot, but I'd imagine Braxton Miller's injury had something to do with that.
- If Northwestern finishes the season where we think it will, that means the Wildcats will probably be headed to a mid-tier bowl game that we discussed earlier this week.
So how'd we do? Let us know!