Big Ten: Week Five Predictions

Big Ten play opened last week and we get some more interesting match-ups in Week 5. Michigan at Northwestern - For the first time this season, the Wolverines will play a game outside of Ann Arbor. Michigan got back on track with a 14-9 victory over Penn State while Northwestern got blown out of the water by Ohio State. The Wolverines will continue to use Mike Hart 35+ times a game, keeping it simple for Freshman Ryan Mallet. Northwestern is riding a two game losing streak and needs to find some semblence of an offense if they want to keep it close. Michigan will win this game and the memories of the first two games will start to fade away. Michigan 37-7 Penn State at Illinois - This game will tell a lot about the rest of the season for the Nittany Lions. Will they regroup like in 2005 after losing to Michigan or will they go into the tank? Illinois is no push over team and they have a strong one-two punch with Juice Williams and Rashard Mendenhall. The Illini rushing offense will go up against the strength of the Lions' defense, their rush defense. Like last week, the Penn State offense will be under the microscope and will tell the tale if they win this week. I predict this game will go down to the wire with a late field goal being the tiebreaker. Penn State 20-17 Notre Dame at Purdue - The Boilermakers continue to score, score, and score more points against their opponents, and that is not good for the Irish who seem to have trouble stopping their opponents. Take a look at this stat after 4 games, Purdue averages 48.5 points per game while the Irish only average scoring 9.0 points per game. Curtis Painter threw his first interception last week but he does have 16 TD passes in 4 games, while his counterpart Jimmy Clausen is still looking for his first college touchdown pass. This is not going to be pretty for Irish fans, and Purdue continues to make a case for being a true contender in this conference. Purdue 41-17 Indiana at Iowa - This will be a really good game between two middle tier Big Ten teams. The Hoosiers' suffered their first loss last week against Illinois while the Hawkeyes lost a heartbreaker to Wisconsin in Madison. Kellen Lewis continues to impress me with his passing and rushing abilities but he needs to get the ball to WR James Hardy as much as possible since he is their playmaker. Jake Christensen struggled against last week, but this week it should get better because Indiana's defense is not as strong as Wisky's. This game will be won by the Hawkeye defense. Iowa's offense will not score much but they will score enough to pull out a victory, by a few. Iowa 17-14 Michigan State at Wisconsin - Wisconsin is looking to extend the nation's longest winning streak to 14 games this weekend when the Spartans come to town. This will be Michigan State's first test of this season while Wisconsin won a tough game last week against Iowa. This will be another tough fought Big Ten game. Both teams are very physical and both have good runners with Javon Ringer and PJ Hill. This will come down to which QB, either Wisconsin's Tyler Donavan or Michigan State's Brian Hoyer, makes the least mistakes. I like Wisconsin at home on this one, but it will be a late 4th quarter score that wins them the game. Wisconsin 28-24 Ohio State at Minnesota - The Buckeyes have to be thought as the favorite in the Big Ten right now while the Gophers are going to end up fighting with the Wildcats for the worst team in the conference. Minnesota gives up a lot of points and the Buckeye offense will not let their fans down this week. Chris Wells will score at least 2 TDs and Todd Boeckman will have a few TD throws. To stop the Gophers, Ohio State will key on RB Amir Pinnix. Ohio State 48-13 Last Week: 5-1 (.833) Overall: 32-7 (.821)