2009 CFN Big 10 Expert Picks, Schedules, More

Big Ten 2009 Game of the Week, Player of the Week, Roundup & Standings

2009 Big Ten ... Week 12

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	CFN EXPERT PICKS	Fiu	Rich	Matt	Michael	Clucko	PICK
12:00	Minn at Iowa -10	IA	IA	IA	IA*	MN	IA
12:00	OSU -12.5 at Mich.	OS*	OS*	OS	OS	MI	OS*
3:30	Penn St -3 at MSU	MS	PS	MS	PS	MS	MS
3:30	Wisc -7 at NW	WI	WI	WI*	WI*	WI	WI
3:30	Purdue -3 at IU	IU	IU	IU	PU	PU	IU
	Straight Up	61-19	58-22	59-21	59-21	44-36	60-20
	ATS	34-34-3	33-35-3	35-33-3	31-37-3	37-31-3	35-33-3

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Big Ten Standings
	Conf.		Overall
Iowa	5	1	9	1
Ohio St	5	1	8	2
Penn St	4	2	8	2
Wisconsin	4	2	7	2
Mich St	3	3	5	5
NWestern	3	3	6	4
Purdue	3	3	4	6
Minnesota	3	4	5	5
Illinois	2	5	3	6
Michigan	1	5	5	5
Indiana	1	5	4	6
Players of the Week 11/14 N. Bowman, LB PSU 11/7 Cam. Heyward, DE OSU 10/31 Adam Weber, QB Min 10/24 Daryll Clark, QB PSU 10/17 Ryan Kerrigan, DE PU 10/10 Kurt Coleman, S OSU 10/3 John Clay, RB Wis 9/26 Pat Angerer, LB Iowa 9/19 Adam Robinson, RB Iowa 9/13 Tate Forcier, QB Mich 9/5 Tate Forcier, QB Mich. Games of the Week 11/14 OSU 27, Iowa 24 OT 11/7 NW 17, Iowa 10 10/31 Iowa 42, Ind 24 10/24 Iowa 15, MSU 13 10/17 Purdue 26, OSU 18 10/10 Iowa 30, Mich 28 10/3 MSU 26, Mich 20 OT 9/26 Mich 36, IU 33 9/19 ND 33, MSU 30 9/13 USC 18, USC 16 9/5 Minn. 23, Syr. 20 OT
Scoreboard Northwestern 21 at Illinois 16 - Northwestern & Kafka get by the Illini  - Illinois out of bowl hunt with loss to NU  CFN Prediction: Illinois 27-23 Line: Northwestern -5.5 at Penn State 31 Indiana 20 - Penn State & Bowman roll past Hoosiers  - Indiana starts hot, goes cold in loss to PSU  CFN Prediction: Penn State 34-10 Line: Penn State -26.5 at Ohio State 27 Iowa 24 OT - Ohio State smells roses with win over Iowa  - Iowa battles Buckeyes in overtime loss  CFN Prediction: Ohio State 19-10 Line: Ohio State -17 at Wisconsin 45 Michigan 24 - Wisconsin & Tolzien blow past Wolverines  - Michigan can't keep up in loss to Badgers CFN Prediction: Wisconsin 38-16 Line: Wisconsin -9 Michigan State 40 at Purdue 37 - Michigan St gets bowl eligible with late win  - Purdue loses shootout to the Spartans  CFN Prediction: Michigan State 38-30 Line: MSU -2.5 at Minnesota 16 South Dakota State 3 Minnesota gets bowl eligible in win over SDSU  CFN Prediction: Minnesota 38-17 Line: No Line

GAME OF THE WEEK

at Ohio State 27 … Iowa 24 OT
Devin Barclay hit a 39-yard field goal in overtime to send Ohio State to its first Rose Bowl in the Jim Tressel era. Iowa was able to force overtime on a ten-yard Marvin McNutt touchdown catch with just under three minutes to play, and each team played it safe in the final moments to force the extra time. Iowa got the ball first, but sacks forced a 4th and 26, well out of field goal range, with the attempt falling incomplete. James Vandenberg threw two touchdown passes to McNutt and Derrell Johnson-Koulianos returned a kickoff 99 yards for an Iowa score, while the Buckeyes got two touchdown runs from Brandon Saine, from 22 and 49 yards, and an 11-yard Dan Herron score on the way to a 24-10 fourth quarter lead before the Hawkeyes came back. OSU outrushed Iowa 229 yards to 67.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Penn State LB Navorro Bowman made12 tackles, an interception for a touchdown, a sack, a broken up pass, and two tackles for loss in the win over Indiana.

CONFERENCE ROUNDUP

Illinois … Northwestern 21 ... at Illinois 16 ... And there goes that. There’s no more pie-in-the-sky dreaming about going to a bowl, and the team turned out to be really as mediocre as it played early in the year. On the plus side, now it’s time to work for next year and not even think about trying to get by Cincinnati or Fresno State for nothing more than cosmetic record-padding. Jacob Charest wasn’t bad under center, and while he didn’t get the offense moving until it was too late, he showed promise and potential. It’s his show the rest of the way, and he needs to show he can be the main man for next year with a strong showing.

Indiana … at Penn State 31 ... Indiana 20 ... The Hoosiers aren’t going to beat anyone on talent, but once again, they showed they could at least hang around with the big names. Matt Mayberry was terrific making 15 tackles, but the defense couldn’t slow down the Penn State balance after the first quarter and the offense didn’t get anything out of the running game. Ben Chappell is a nice passer to build the offense around next year, but he needs playmakers around him. Primarily, he needs RB Darius Willis back and healthy. This might be a losing season, but the team certainly didn’t play like it.

Iowa … at Ohio State 27 ... Iowa 24 OT ... Iowa stepped up and played like the Iowa that was supposedly in the national title hunt a few years ago. Pat Angerer made 13 tackles, and DE Adrian Clayborn made 12 tackles, a sack, and three tackles for loss, but the defense couldn’t slow down the OSU running game early. Offensively, James Vandenberg played better than anyone could’ve hoped for, and now there has to be some excitement about what he can bring to the attack over the next few years. This might have been a disappointment, but if the Hawkeyes can blow away Minnesota, they should get an at-large BCS slot.

Michigan … at Wisconsin 45 ... Michigan 24 ... It was supposed to take a while for the offense to produce under Rich Rodriguez, but it wasn’t bad against Wisconsin as Tate Forcier kept things moving, but the defense has athletes and was supposed to be ahead of the curve when the season started. That hasn’t happened, and it got gashed yet again as the Badgers were never stopped cold all game long. The playmakers on offense showed speed and potential, and the line provided a nice pass rush, but it’s going to take a perfect game to beat Ohio State next week and get bowl eligible.

Michigan State … Michigan State 40 ... at Purdue 37 ... Bowl eligibility. It hasn’t been pretty and there have been some major disappointments, but MSU is going to a bowl by showing its resiliency. The defense has gone into the tank in Big Ten play, and the offense couldn’t stay on the field with only 12 first downs and just over 19 minutes of possession time against Purdue, but after the bleakness of the Minnesota loss, MSU has rallied. A win over Penn State would put a tremendous cap on the rocky regular season, but to get that, the secondary needs to come up with a strong performance after getting ripped up by Joey Elliott and the Boilermakers.

Minnesota … at Minnesota 16 ... South Dakota State 13 ... Yeah, Minnesota is bowl eligible, but yeeeeeesh. Having lost three of their last four games, the Gophers should’ve lost to South Dakota State, but the defense came up big when it had to, didn’t allow an offensive touchdown, and got the win it needed to get to six before dealing with Iowa. However, the team is a mess. It should be getting better at this point in the year, and the offense is getting worse. The running game is non-existent and Adam Weber appears lost at times without having Eric Decker to throw to.

Northwestern …Northwestern 21 ... at Illinois 16 ... Northwestern is up to seven wins with Wisconsin coming to Evanston next week, so going bowling is now assured, but to get closer to the level that head coach Pat Fitzgerald wants to get to, there’s a lot of work to be done. The running game wasn’t miserable against the Illini, but there were too many plays stuffed and not enough consistency. The bigger issue going forward might be the field goal kicking. Northwestern could’ve put this away without any drama, but Stefan Demos missed three field goals.  

Ohio State … at Ohio State 27 ... Iowa 24 OT ... After all the screaming and all the problems after the Purdue loss, Ohio State rallied and is going to the Rose Bowl. Terrelle Pryor wasn’t magnificent, but against the deadly Iowa D, he didn’t make any mistakes, was accurate, and he’s now the starting quarterback of a Rose Bowl team. The defense wasn’t a rock, but it was great when it had to be, especially in overtime. While there’s nothing to play for at this point bowl-wise, a good season can become fantastic with a blowout win over Michigan. That shouldn’t be a problem if the team can be focused.

Penn State …at Penn State 31 ... Indiana 20 ... Penn State might not be playing like a world-beater, and it was certainly sluggish coming off an ugly loss to Ohio State, but Navorro Bowman and the defense put the clamps down in the second half and Daryll Clark overcame the rocky parts to finish strong. There’s still a chance at an at-large BCS bid by beating Michigan State and getting a little bit of luck, but it would help to be impressive in East Lansing. This hasn’t been looking like a top-shelf, BCS team this year, and the record is strong only because of a mediocre schedule.

Purdue …Michigan State 40 ... at Purdue 37 ... Purdue might not be bowl eligible and it might have to beat Indiana to avoid an ugly-looking 4-8 record, but this team sure is fun. Joey Elliott and the offense were fantastic at keeping the chains moving and coming up with the big scores needed to have control of the game. And then Michigan State went nuts and pulled out the win in the fourth. As disappointing as the year has been, there were positive strides made under Danny Hope. But now the secondary has to come up with a big performance against Ben Chappell and IU or the offseason isn’t going to be fun with three losses in the final four games.

Wisconsin … at Wisconsin 45 ... Michigan 24 ... The Badgers keep on rolling towards a possible 10-2 season needing to win at Northwestern next week before closing up at Hawaii, and with the was Scott Tolzien is throwing, that shouldn’t be a problem. Michigan hung around for a while, but Tolzien was too sharp and too good at keeping the chains moving to provide the balance the team has been striving for all year long. The D needs to be better on third downs, it struggled for the first three quarters allowing the Wolverines to stay alive, but the offense made up for the problems.

Saturday, November 21
Purdue at Indiana
Minnesota at Iowa
Ohio State at Michigan
Penn State at Michigan State
Wisconsin at Northwestern

Saturday, November 28
Illinois at Cincinnati

Saturday, December 5
Fresno State at Illinois
Wisconsin at Hawaii