Paul Sullivan: Wildly successful Big Ten regular season ends with a shocker in ‘The Game’ and frozen tundra at Wrigley Field

CHICAGO — The Big Ten expanded from 14 to 18 teams this year, watched Curt Cignetti revive an Indiana program that’s been underground for more than half a century, and arguably established itself as the nation’s dominant college football conference with three of the top four-ranked College Football Playoff teams entering the final weekend of the regular season.

Everything was falling into place before Saturday’s regular season-ending shocker — Michigan’s 13-10 win over No. 2 Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio — followed by the viral video of the teams brawling in the middle of the field after Wolverines players attempted to plant their flag.

The Ohio State loss opened the door to the conference title game to No. 4 Penn State, which beat Maryland 44-7 on Saturday to advance to Indianapolis.

For too many years to mention, it’s been Ohio State, Michigan or punt for the Big Ten title. And since both played in the same division, “The Game” typically served as the de facto conference championship game. This year’s matchup was supposed to be devoid of drama, a punctuation mark on the Buckeyes’ regular season as it prepared for next week’s title game in Indy and the CFP beyond.

But Saturday’s epic reboot, after Michigan entered the Horseshoe as 23 1/2 point underdogs, was further evidence nothing else matters in the Big Ten when the Buckeyes and Wolverines kick off.

Northwestern and No. 23 Illinois attempted to disprove this theory at the friendly, frozen tundra of Wrigley Field, where the Illini won 38-28 to capture the Hat and leave the Wildcats 0-5 in their years hosting games on the city’s North Side.

No matter how it all ended, the first Big Ten football season with 18 teams showed that bigger really is better, under the right circumstances. With conference realignment, dissolution and overall…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/paul-sullivan-wildly-successful-big-034700201.html

Author : Chicago Tribune

Publish date : 2024-12-02 03:47:00

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