An almost universally strong week for the Big Ten ended with only three losses. One was Indiana’s Thursday night home loss to the Buckeyes. The other two may have been two of the conference’s more encouraging performances of the weekend, with Rutgers holding its own against a top 10 opponent and Purdue putting a serious scare into Lamar Jackson and Louisville.
The upper crust had its share of scares. Most of the conference’s title contenders held their breath through some hiccups before pulling away from their first opponents of the year. All 14 teams have something positive to talk about after getting the season started, but that doesn’t mean that our preseason power rankings didn’t need a bit of adjusting after a first look at what the Big Ten has to offer.