Big Ten Roundup - Week 8 Standings & More

Big Ten conference roundup, standings, player and game of the week

Click on each team for game recaps, thoughts, schedules and more and scroll down for the games, results, players of the week and the conference roundup.

Conference Roundups
- ACC | Big East | Big 12 | Big Ten | C-USA | Ind.
- MAC | M-West | Pac 10 | SEC | Sun Belt | WAC

Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Michigan | Michigan State | Minnesota
Northwestern | Ohio State | Penn State | Purdue | Wisconsin
- Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6
- Week 7

Big Ten Game of the Week

Penn State 46 … Michigan 17
Michigan was fantastic in the first half getting out to a 17-7 lead on two Brandon Minor touchdown runs and a 27-yard K.C. Lopata field goal, and then Penn State woke up. Jordan Norwood caught a three-yard touchdown pass with 23 seconds left in the half to spark a run of 39 unanswered points. Daryll Clark ran for two one-yard scores and Stephfon Green took a pass from Pat Devlin 80 yards for a score. Penn State ended up with 482 yards to Michigan's 291.

Big Ten Player of the Week
Iowa RB Shonn Greene ran 25 times for 217 yards and four touchdowns, and LB Pat Angerer made 16 tackles with two interceptions in the 38-16 win over Wisconsin

Standings	Conference			Overall
	W-L	PF	PA	W-L	PF	PA	STK
Penn State	4-0	152	54	8-0	363	94	W8
Ohio State	4-0	115	48	7-1	215	107	W5
Mich St	3-1	102	107	6-2	215	162	L1
Minnesota	2-1	64	61	6-1	209	131	W2
Nwestern	2-1	90	80	6-1	193	125	W1
Iowa	2-2	113	63	5-3	238	92	W2
Illinois	2-2	144	98	4-3	253	188	W1
Michigan	1-2	64	116	2-5	130	195	L3
Purdue	0-3	35	84	2-5	156	189	L4
Wisconsin	0-4	65	133	3-4	167	174	L4
Indiana	0-4	58	158	2-5	154	216	L5

Saturday, October 18

at Iowa 38 ... Wisconsin 16
CFN Prediction: UW 23-20  Iowa -3.5
- Iowa & Greene roll | UW is awful ... again

at Northwestern 48 ... Purdue 26
CFN Prediction: NU 24-17  NU -4
- NU's Bacher on track | Purdue D struggles

Ohio State 45 ... at Michigan State 7
CFN Prediction: OSU 17-13  OSU -3.5
- OSU running game rolls | Hoyer hurt for MSU
- Instant Analysis

at Penn State 46 ... Michigan 17
CFN Prediction: PSU 45-17  PSU -24
- PSU gets big 2nd half | Michigan starts hot

at Illinois 55 ... Indiana 13
CFN Prediction: Illinois 41-20  Illinois -16.5
- Illinois finds new star | IU misses Lewis

Games of the Week
Aug. 30 - Cal 38 - MSU 31
Sep. 6 - NW 24 ... Duke 20
Sep 13 - Oregon 32 - Purdue 26 2OT
Sep 20 - Pur 32 - CMU 25
sep 27 - Mich 27 - UW 25
Oct 4 - OSU 20 - UW 17
0ct 11 - Minn 27 - Ill 20
Oct 18 - PSU 46 - Mich 17

Players of the Week
Aug. 30 - PJ Hill, Wisconsin
Sep. 6 - Javon Ringer, MSU
Sep 13 - Javon Ringer, MSU
Sep 20 - Javon Ringer, MSU
Sep 27 - Michigan D line & Derrick Williams, PSU
Oct 4 - Juice Williams, Ill
0ct 11 - Simoni Lawrence, Minn
Oct 18 - Shonn Greene, Iowa

Conference
Roundup

Illinois … Illinois was in desperate need of a breather. Even the supposed layup games this year weren’t easy, and to rip apart Indiana with ease was a big boost after the painful loss to Minnesota. The more weapons, the better as Jason Ford now adds a new element to the mix to go along with Juice Williams, who was razor-sharp. Arrelious Benn came up with another huge day, catching seven passes for 130 yards to help balance out the running game. Now the team has to use this to come up big during a tough finishing kick.
Indiana … How valuable is Kellen Lewis? IU is struggling enough as is, but with Lewis out, the Hoosiers were blown away by Illinois; the offense simply couldn’t keep up. The defense continues to struggle to come up with a key stop, and now on a five-game losing streak, the season has completely slipped away. The team has yet to come up with a win over a FBS team, but now come three home games against Northwestern, Central Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Iowa … Much will be made of yet another fantastic game from RB Shonn Greene, and the defense dominated Wisconsin throughout, but the real story might be the play of Ricky Stanzi. He wasn’t out-of-this-world and he only threw one touchdown pass, but he was sharp early on and he finished completing 11-of-18 passes for 114 yards. He forced the Badgers to think about the pass just enough to take their eyes off Greene. Now the Hawkeyes can really start to think about big things ahead with Illinois and Penn State coming. A New Year’s Day bowl is a realistic goal.
Michigan … Look, Michigan is going to need a while; everyone needs to settle down. The offense showed a little bit of what it could do in the first half against Penn State, just like it showed signs of life in the second half against Wisconsin and in a spurt against Utah. The coaching staff finally decided to scale back Sam McGuffie and started to use Brandon Minor more. Good move. Minor, if he gets a chance to work on a regular basis will get 100 yards per game. Steven Threet even looked good at times, but he’s just not a spread quarterback.
Michigan State … Ohio State decided to play up to its talent level for a game, and Michigan State just so happened to be on the other end of the blasting. Brian Hoyer was under pressure when he was in the game, hurt his hand, and was out until late, but Kirk Cousins did a decent job of getting the passing game moving by spreading it around and using the short pass. The production didn’t lead to much, but at least Cousins got some good work in. Now the Spartans have to keep their heads up and regain their focus to get through the rivalry date with Michigan.
Minnesota … Didn’t Play This Week
Northwestern … Northwestern can come up with a big exhale after getting over the hump and becoming bowl eligible with a dominant win over Purdue. C.J. Bacher started to look like the C.J. Bacher of last year, while the offense was diverse and creative to blast away on the poor Boilermaker defense. On the down side, losing star LB Malcolm Arrington to an injury will hurt. The defense is playing well and it can’t afford to be without its key run stopper for too long.
Ohio State … Will the dominant performance over Michigan State be the game that kickstarts Ohio State on a run to yet another national title game?  That’s getting way ahead of the game, but for now, it was the sort of game the team had been missing for a while. The offense worked, the defense stuffed Javon Ringer, and everyone was moving around with a better energy and apparent confidence. At least that’s how the team looked compared to the way it played last week against Purdue.
Penn State … Penn State showed it could handle a little bit of adversity. Michigan had everything going its way and looked like it was ready to play at another level, but the Nittany Lions settled down, trusted the lines, didn’t ignore the ground game, and came away with the win. However, the team can’t do this against Ohio State, Iowa or Michigan State. The team needs to be focused and effective from the start against those three.
Purdue … Purdue doesn’t have a defense, and the offense doesn’t have a chance. LB Anthony Heygood is an All-Big Ten talent who’s trying to make every play, he made 14 tackles against Northwestern, but the rest of the defense is getting ripped up. Curtis Painter has to press, and it shows as he threw three interceptions trying to make big things happen to keep up the pace. At the moment, the team is completely unable to stop negative momentum, and that’s on the defense. Everyone’s putting up big numbers on this group.
Wisconsin … It’s not a question of fight and it doesn’t appear to be a question of overall effort. Right now, Wisconsin is playing poorly and it’s being poorly coached through this disaster. Getting blasted by Penn State is one thing, but to be embarrassed by Iowa is another. It’s not like Iowa isn’t good, but the Badgers didn’t do anything to adjust in the second half for a fourth straight game, the penalties were a problem, they almost always hurt, and the three interceptions helped make it a blowout. Dustin Sherer threw two picks, but he wasn’t awful. It was telling that it was Scott Tolzien came in when times got tough. This is a much, much better team than it showed.