Big Ten expert picks 2025: Most overrated and underrated teams, projected order of finish, bold predictions

It’s been a great time to be in the Big Ten these last few years. While the conference has long been the leader in the race to accrue television revenue thanks to the transfer portal and NIL era, we’ve seen those financial advantages pay off on the field.

The most immediate change has been consecutive national titles for the conference, but it doesn’t stop with Michigan and Ohio State. The league has also seen the teams generally considered afterthoughts take a leap forward as well. Suddenly, Indiana is a football power, coming off a playoff appearance and ranked in the top 20 of both major polls. And the Hoosiers aren’t even the highest-ranked team of the league’s secondary tiers! Illinois, fresh off a 10-win season, is ranked No. 12, the highest it’s been in a preseason poll since 1990.

And I haven’t even mentioned the reigning conference champion, Oregon, which joined the league last year and decided to run through the regular season undefeated. The team the Ducks beat in the Big Ten Championship, Penn State, returns a large chunk of the roster that reached the College Football Playoff semifinals last year and enters the season at No. 2 in the AP Top 25.

The combination of new blood, new money and new quarterbacks around the league has the Big Ten feeling like it’s a more wide-open race than conference aficionados are used to. The uncertainty is reflected in the predictions of our panel of experts. While we generally agree on who the top two teams in the league will be, after that, it’s anybody’s guess.

That’s exactly what this is — a guess. At this time a year ago, nobody on our panel had Illinois finishing higher than ninth in the league. Indiana’s peak was 11th. We are going to get a lot wrong here, and you know what? It’s…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-expert-picks-2025-most-overrated-and-underrated-teams-projected-order-of-finish-bold-predictions/

Author : Tom Fornelli

Publish date : 2025-08-18 15:45:00

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