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Why Big Ten Football Can Survive Another Slow Start

We're coming up on nearly a year—14 days, in fact—Sept. 7, 2014: the day, as B/R colleague Adam Kramer wrote at the time, the Big Ten died.

The losses, you know by now, were cringe-worthy: Virginia Tech 35, Ohio State 21; Oregon 46, Michigan State 27; Notre Dame 31, Michigan 0; Northern Illinois 23, Northwestern 15; Central Michigan 38, Purdue 17.

Even some of the wins weren't much better: Nebraska 31, McNeese State 24; Iowa 17, Ball State 13; Maryland 24, South Florida 17; Rutgers 38, Howard 25.

Of course, we also know that the Big Ten was never really dead.