The most-anticipated nonconference week of the season has arrived for the Big Ten. Week 3 brings a trio of high-profile matchups: No. 3 Ohio State at No. 14 Oklahoma; No. 12 Michigan State at No. 18 Notre Dame; and No. 22 Oregon at Nebraska.
Every time this kind of week has rolled around in the recent past, we’ve usually talked about the same thing: The Big Ten needs to win these games to earn respect, blah blah blah.
We're not going to do that now. The conference has climbed back out of the hole it dug for itself during the early part of this decade.