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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
Aside from select ACC Atlantic members, there might not be anyone on the planet happier about the trend of ditching college football divisions than Penn State coach James Franklin. Over the last six full seasons (not counting the COVID year of 2020), Franklin’s Nittany Lions are 15-3 against teams from the Big Ten West, 21-4 in nonconference play and 21-3 against Big Ten East foes not named Ohio State or Michigan.
They’re just 3-9 against the Buckeyes and Wolverines in that span, however, and life in the East has required them to play both teams every year. They have been pretty easily the third-best team in the Big Ten, but they have just one Big Ten championship game appearance to show for it, and that was nearly seven years ago.
Last season, Penn State lost to Ohio State and Michigan — both of which ended up in the CFP — by an average score of 43-24 and beat 11 other opponents by an average of 38-14. It feels historically appropriate, then, that in the final East division race, Michigan and Ohio State start out far ahead of the pack and Penn State starts third, quite a few points behind the Big Two and way ahead of everyone else.
Can Ohio State turn the tables on Michigan after two straight losses? Are they both CFP contenders again? Can Penn State close the gap on the Big Two? Can anyone else close the gap on them? Let’s preview the Big Ten East one last time.
Every week through the offseason, Bill Connelly will preview another division from the Group of 5 and Power 5 exclusively for ESPN+, ultimately including all 133 FBS teams. The previews will include 2022 breakdowns, 2023 previews and burning questions for each team.
Earlier previews: Conference USA, part 1 | Conference USA, part 2 | MAC East | MAC West | MWC Mountain | MWC West | Sun Belt West | Sun Belt East | AAC, part 1 | AAC, part 2 | Independents | ACC, part 1 | ACC, part 2 | Pac-12, part 1 | Pac-12, part 2 | Big 12, part 1 | Big 12, part 2 | Big Ten West
2022 recap
In 2022, the East champion won the Big Ten title for the ninth straight year and made the CFP for the fourth straight season. Michigan walloped first Ohio State (45-23) to win the division, then Purdue (43-22) to win the conference and complete its first unbeaten regular season since 1997. Unlike 1997, they couldn’t avoid a bowl game upset, falling to TCU and missing a shot at the national title. At 12-1, Ohio State also made the CFP — making the East the first division to snare two of four spots in a single year — and came within an errant last-second field goal of beating eventual national champion Georgia.
Penn State blew out Utah in the Rose Bowl to finish in the AP top 10 for the fourth time in seven years. Maryland won enough close games to finish 8-5 — the Terrapins’ best season since joining the Big Ten in 2014 — while Michigan State saw its win total cut by more than half, falling from 11-2 and 25th in SP+ to 5-7 and 68th. Indiana and Rutgers finished with identical records (4-8) and nearly identical SP+ rankings (94th and 97th, respectively).
2023 projections
A group of just seven teams manages to break out into four clear tiers: Ohio State and Michigan (a combined 47-7 the last two years), then Penn State (18-8), then Michigan State and Maryland (31-20), then Rutgers and Indiana (15-34). There’s always a chance for variance based on close-game fortune or sparkly new quarterback play — both Ohio State and Penn State are breaking in new blue-chippers — but we start out in pretty orderly and logical fashion.
Burning questions
Who ends up on top this time in college football’s most important current rivalry? It’s incredible how rivalries magnify everything good and bad. The better both teams are, the higher the stakes and the bigger the disappointment (and occasional irrationality) for whoever loses.
Jim Harbaugh’s first five seasons as Michigan’s head coach were an undeniable success. The Wolverines had finished in the AP top 20 once in six years before his arrival, and he pulled it off four times. In 2016, just two years after going 5-7 under Brady Hoke, Harbaugh’s team came within millimeters of beating Ohio State and likely going to the CFP. But in those five years, the Wolverines went 0-5 against the Buckeyes, and Harbaugh was therefore labeled by many as a relative failure.
Fast forward two years. Ohio State’s Ryan Day is 45-6 overall. In his four seasons as head coach, his Buckeyes have made the CFP three times. They made the national title game in 2020 and were unlucky not to do it in 2019 and 2022. He’s doing very, very well. But he has lost two in a row to Harbaugh and Michigan. That has created a bit of an existential crisis in Columbus. You can actually find “Ryan Day hot seat?” takes out in the wilderness, and it almost feels logical. Again: 45-6.
One of these two teams will again be very good and the other will end the year very unhappy.
In terms of known quantities, Michigan starts out with the edge. The Wolverines bring back their starting quarterback (J.J. McCarthy), maybe the best running back duo in college football (Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards), three starters (and five players with starting experience) from one of the nation’s best offensive lines, two outstanding linebackers (Junior Colson and Michael Barrett) and a secondary loaded with veteran safeties and one of the best young cornerbacks around (Will Johnson). They’re seventh overall in returning production, and since they’re coming off a 13-1 season, that seems like a pretty good thing.
In terms of closing the gap with Georgia, though, there are two primary concerns: Their explosiveness could stand to improve and their pass rush is getting rebuilt for a second straight year.
While the Wolverines were wonderfully efficient on both offense and defense last year (10th in success rate, 14th in success rate allowed), they were merely good in terms of explosiveness. In my marginal explosiveness measure, which looks at the magnitude of your successful plays and adjusts for down, distance and field position, Michigan was 32nd on offense and 42nd on defense. The passing game needs a few more chunk plays — it certainly found them late in the 2022 season and should benefit from another year of experience for McCarthy and receivers Cornelius Johnson (15.6 yards per catch) and Roman Wilson (15.0) — and while the secondary didn’t suffer many breakdowns, the ones that came were large.
As for the pass rush, things can get dicey when you double-dip in the turnover department. In 2021, Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo combined for 25 sacks, then went pro. In 2022, Mike Morris and Eyabi Okie led the way with 12 combined sacks, and now they’re both gone. Morris’ 15% pressure rate was excellent for a down lineman; no returnee topped 9%. Be it veteran Jaylen Harrell, sophomore blue-chipper Derrick Moore, junior Braiden McGregor or someone else, Michigan needs a breakthrough from someone up front.
Ohio State has a few more holes to fill, but strong recent recruiting has provided Day with plenty of blue-chip options for filling them.
The offense has to replace three top-20 NFL draft picks and longtime offensive coordinator (and new Tulsa head coach) Kevin Wilson. The Buckeyes still have the best skill corps in college football, of course, led by receivers Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka (combined: 2,414 yards and 24 TDs last year) and running backs TreVeyon Henderson (1,255 yards, 6.8 per carry in 2021) and Miyan Williams (825 and 6.5 in 2022). Henderson was injured for a good chunk of 2022, and Ohio State still ranked seventh in rushing success rate.
But there are red flags. Losing three starting linemen (including two All-America tackles) is suboptimal, and the addition of two less-than-amazing transfers — San Diego State’s Josh Simmons (17 penalties last year) and Louisiana Monroe’s Victor Cutler Jr. (six sacks allowed) — doesn’t lend optimism. Plus, of course, quarterback C.J. Stroud is gone. He will likely be replaced by either junior Kyle McCord or redshirt freshman Devin Brown, both of whom were top-five QB prospects in their respective recruiting classes; Brown missed spring ball with a finger injury, though, and McCord failed to light the world afire.
These are pretty big issues. Then how are the Buckeyes still projected second in offensive SP+? Track record. They have been in the top five for six straight seasons, and again, for every hole there is a recent star recruit.
The defense doesn’t get the same benefit of the doubt. The Buckeyes have ranked in the defensive SP+ top 20 just once in six years, and while it improved significantly last year, from 62nd to 23rd in ultra-aggressive coordinator Jim Knowles’ first season in charge, the glitches were costly. They were 119th in marginal explosiveness, meaning the successful plays they allowed were massive. In their two losses, they gave up eight plays of 45 or more yards, three of 75 or more. They forced three-and-outs like crazy, but it came with a cost.
Experience should help. Ends JT Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer return, as do linebackers Tommy Eichenberg and Steele Chambers and three of the top four tackles. The secondary lost four of last year’s top six but added high-upside cornerback Davison Igbinosun (Ole Miss) and safety Ja’Had Carter (Syracuse). And of course there are young blue-chippers everywhere you look. We might learn what we need to know about this defense only in the biggest games — trips to Notre Dame and Michigan and a visit from Penn State — but I’m cautiously optimistic.
How does Penn State bridge the gap? I do wonder sometimes how much James Franklin thinks about 2017. After riding a midseason ignition to a surprising Big Ten title in 2016, Penn State fielded an even better team the next year. The Nittany Lions moved to No. 2 in the AP poll, pummeled Michigan by 29 points and held an 11-point lead at Ohio State with five minutes left. But Ohio State scored twice late and stole a 39-38 win. Penn State fell victim to a long storm delay the next week at Michigan State, then found their form again, winning out to finish a bittersweet 11-2.
They’ve been chasing that opportunity ever since. The Nittany Lions suffered another 1-point loss to the Buckeyes in 2018, then won 11 games again, with another tough loss to a particularly brilliant Ohio State team in 2019. After a series of miscues in 2020 and ’21 (in which they went just 11-11), Franklin got his ducks in a row — big-time recruiting class, big-name defensive coordinator hire (Manny Diaz, replacing Virginia Tech-bound Brent Pry) — and fielded another top-10 team. But Ohio State and Michigan were both CFP-worthy, and the Nittany Lions were not. Another 11-win season out of the playoff picture.
Few coaches have performed better than Franklin over these past seven seasons. But we might find out over the next two years if his program has the extra gear required to catch the Big Ten’s two heavyweights. His 2023 team will have more upside than any since 2017, and sophomores are a huge reason for that.
• Sophomore running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen combined for 2,201 rushing and receiving yards and 24 touchdowns (plus a kick return score from Singleton). The blue-chip duo somehow vastly exceeded massive expectations out of the gate.
• While three of last year’s top four receiving targets are gone, junior KeAndre Lambert-Smith (16.2 yards per catch), tight end Theo Johnson (16.4) and Kent State transfer Dante Cephas (15.5) are all in town.
• Left tackle Olu Fashanu allowed zero sacks and committed just one penalty as a sophomore in 2022.
• Ends Adisa Isaac and Chop Robinson combined for 23.5 TFLs, 17 run stuffs and 9.5 sacks, while linebacker Abdul Carter, another incredible freshman, contributed 10.5, 8 and 6.5.
• Corners Kalen King and Johnny Dixon combined for 5 interceptions, 23 pass breakups, 7 TFLs, 3 sacks and a 16.3 QBR allowed as primary coverage guys.
The star power is immense. If sophomore quarterback Drew Allar lives up to the hype in the same way classmates Singleton, Allen and Carter did last year, this team has top-five potential. No pressure, Drew.
Allar is a 6-foot-5, 242-pound playmaker with all the arm strength in the world, and he threw for 344 yards and four touchdowns while serving as veteran Sean Clifford’s understudy in 2022. After improving PSU’s offense from 72nd to 31st in offensive SP+ last year, offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, part of the Ohio State braintrust during the Buckeyes’ 2019 CFP run, will field a unit with a higher ceiling and — thanks to Allar’s inexperience — lower floor this season.
On defense, it’s all about stopping the run. PSU ranked 12th in defensive SP+ in Diaz’s first season as DC, but while they dominated against the pass, they ranked just 76th in rushing success rate allowed. They aren’t light in the trenches, but they are lighter than most elite teams, and Michigan was particularly able to push them around, to the tune of 418 rushing yards. If a team wants a bit more margin for error for its young quarterback, trench play will provide it.
Can Maryland avoid a collapse in the trenches? There’s a lot to like about the trajectory of the Maryland football program at the moment. After going just 5-12 in Mike Locksley’s first two seasons, the Terps jumped to a semi-fortunate 7-6 in 2021 (they were only 71st in SP+), then a downright good 8-5 and 29th in 2022. They were excellent on special teams and fielded their best defense in nine years in Brian Williams’ first season as solo coordinator. The offense was a little weird — the big plays came from the run game, the efficient plays from the passing game (which isn’t usually how that works) — and mostly ineffective against particularly good defenses. But the Terps went 8-2 against teams that weren’t Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State and enjoyed their best year in the Big Ten.
There are enough players returning that could make for another fun year. Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa has thrown for 6,868 yards and 44 touchdowns over the last two seasons, most of his running backs return (led by sophomore Roman Hemby), and while the receiving corps lost four of last year’s top seven, they still have high-efficiency targets in slot man Jeshaun Jones and Corey Dyches, and Locksley brought in two high-usage receivers in West Virginia’s Kaden Prather and Florida International’s Tyrese Chambers. They fit the efficiency mold, and the defense boasts a potential star in sophomore linebacker Jaishawn Barham, plus veteran safeties and ultra-aggressive cornerback transfer Ja’Quan Sheppard (Cincinnati).
One huge issue: I haven’t mentioned any linemen yet. Seven offensive linemen recorded at least 140 snaps last season, and only right tackle Delmar Glaze returns; six interior defensive linemen recorded at least 220 snaps, and none return. That’s massive turnover.
Now, Glaze is very good, and another high-upside offensive tackle, former blue-chipper Marcus Dumervil (LSU), arrives via the portal. On the defensive side, tackles Tommy Akingbesote and Quashon Fuller were good in smaller samples, and Angelo State transfer Tre’Darius Colbert was a standout Division II playmaker at 346 pounds. It’s possible that the starting lineup could end up solid, especially on the D-line. But depth will likely be a massive issue, and, well, the god of injuries is frequently unkind to the Terps.
SP+ sees Maryland as a sort of lower-grade Penn State; the Terps are favored by double digits over six opponents, with three relative tossups (at Michigan State, Illinois, at Nebraska) and three very likely losses against the three teams above them in the East. That slaps a pretty hard ceiling on what they might be capable of, but they’ll need line play to approach even that eight(ish)-win ceiling.
Can transfers save Mel Tucker and Michigan State (again)? I don’t want to tell anyone how to spend their money (and if I did, I would absolutely tell everyone I know to buy an ESPN+ subscription), but if I were in charge of a major athletic program, I would generally want to watch a guy succeed twice before giving him an almost market-shifting raise.
Michigan State, however, was far more aggressive. The school responded to an 11-win 2021 season — replete with a 4-0 record in one-score games and a good-not-great No. 25 SP+ ranking, both signs that repeating the feat would be tricky — with a 10-year, $95 million contract for Mel Tucker. Tucker’s Spartans proceeded to regress in every way in 2022 — from 24th to 51st in offensive SP+, from 40th to 86th on defense and from 11 wins to five.
In four seasons as a head coach, Tucker has won 23 games, and 11 came in one season. Until otherwise noted, 2021’s surge was the outlier, not 2022’s stumble. But Tucker is aggressively trying to prove otherwise. By my count, he brought in 15 transfers, plus a freshman class that includes eight blue-chippers. Of course, he also lost key transfers in quarterback Payton Thorne and receiver Keon Coleman.
The defense fell further than the offense in 2022, but it seems like it has more coming back. The D-line returns a solid junior in Simeon Barrow Jr. and adds both a number of enticing transfers — Dre Butler (Liberty), Jalen Sami (Colorado), Jarrett Jackson (Florida State) and blue-chip sophomore Tunmise Adeleye (Texas A&M) — plus blue-chip freshmen Bai Jobe and Andrew Depaepe. Junior linebacker Cal Haladay (12 TFLs, 19 run stops) awaits to clean up messes behind them, and edge rushers Jacoby Windmon and Aaron Brule are good.
It’s pretty easy to be optimistic about the front seven, but the secondary warrants suspicion. MSU ranked 127th in passing success rate allowed last year and lost three of last year’s top five (relatively speaking). None of three incoming transfers really shined last year at their previous schools, and nickel Chester Kimbrough is the only semi-proven disruptor. SP+ likes the experience levels enough to project big defensive improvement, but that will require big work from the secondary. I’m skeptical.
It was easier to be optimistic about the offense before Thorne and Coleman transferred. The passing game provided most of the decent moments for coordinator Jay Johnson last year. Slot man Tre Mosley is the only returnee or transfer who had 20-plus catches in 2022, and while tight end Maliq Carr averaged a solid 13.1 yards per catch, it was in only 16 catches. Lots of youngsters will need to come up big. That includes at quarterback, where probably either Noah Kim or Katin Houser will start. They’ve thrown 21 career passes between them, though Kim was pretty fantastic in garbage time last year.
The good news about the run game is that it almost can’t be worse. Michigan State ranked 105th in rushing success rate. Leading rusher Jalen Berger is back, and transfers Nathan Carter (UConn) and Jaren Mangham (South Florida) might help, as could a line with four returning starters. But the bar’s low here.
Who has more hope of a (good) surprise, Rutgers or Indiana? Indiana’s Tom Allen and Rutgers’ Greg Schiano are on different steps in their respective journeys, but they find themselves in the same spot in 2023. Indiana peaked in 2019 and 2020, going a combined 14-7, but the Hoosiers are just 6-18 since. Allen pushed a pretty difficult boulder up the proverbial hill, but it’s rolled all the way back down to the bottom.
Schiano is still pushing. In three years since his return to Rutgers, he’s just 12-22 with an average SP+ ranking of 86.3; that’s not great, but he gets points when you consider that the Scarlet Knights were 9-39 (average ranking: 109.5) in the four years before his arrival. He has made solid headway on defense … and absolutely none on offense.
After each team won four games in 2022, both Indiana and Rutgers are projected to do the same this year. Allen is taking desperate measures to change IU’s fate — he brought in more than 20 transfers — while Schiano brought in just eight, attempting instead to continue leaning on the culture he hopes he’s creating.
(It’s hilarious, by the way, that signing eight transfers is preceded by “just” now. Five years ago, that would have been a massive total.)
Indiana showed a bit of offensive potential in Walt Bell’s first season as offensive coordinator, but the defense has completely disappeared. The Hoosiers ranked ninth in defensive SP+ in 2020 and 109th two years later. And now they’re replacing a whopping 13 of 16 players who had 300-plus snaps in 2022. An almost total transfusion.
Linebacker Aaron Casey and nickel Noah Pierre are aggressive and exciting, but that’s it from a known quantities perspective. There are some intriguing newbies up front — end Andre Carter (Western Michigan), tackle Philip Blidi (Texas Tech), tackle Marcus Burris Jr. (Texas A&M) — but Indiana will need newcomers to come through everywhere.
The Hoosier offense isn’t dealing with the same level of turnover, but Indiana will be without last year’s leading passer and rusher and two of its top three receivers. Wideout Cam Camper is awesome, Clemson transfer E.J. Williams is a former top-150 recruit, and the line will be bolstered by the return of injured guard Matthew Bedford. But the running backs are unproven (or, perhaps, proven in an unflattering way), and with last year’s backup quarterback, Dexter Williams II, still working back from a 2022 knee injury, Bell will have to go with either of two redshirt freshmen (Brendan Sorsby or Tennessee transfer Tayven Jackson) or freshman Broc Lowry. None of this screams “major rebound coming.”
In Piscataway, it’s been the same story for a while: The defense has major promise, and the offense has no traction. The Scarlet Knights battled injury and finished just 57th in defensive SP+ last year, but ace pass rusher Mohamed Toure returns from an ACL tear and joins a unit that was drastically reliant on freshmen and sophomores in 2022. The line was particularly young, and ends Wesley Bailey and Aaron Lewis could be awesome with more experience. If the run defense holds up — not a given — the secondary could be dynamite. Corner Max Melton is one of the league’s best, and corner transfers Eric Rogers (Northern Illinois) and Charles Amankwaa (Akron) were among the MAC’s best. I’m guessing this is a top-40 defense, or close to it.
I’m also guessing Rutgers has another bottom-40 offense. The Knights ranked 89th in rushing success rate and 122nd in passing success rate last year, and while new coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca has been around the block, he usually requires a sturdy run game for success. None of the young backs who saw action last year were particularly impressive; the best runner, actually, was quarterback Gavin Wimsatt, who averaged 6.4 yards per (non-sack) carry but only 4.1 yards per dropback. His receiving corps is about as unproven as it gets.
Wimsatt is a former four-star recruit, and Rutgers has both experience and size up front. It might not be completely hopeless. But you like to enter a new season with more than about two proven entities. (Center Ireland Brown and guard Curtis Dunlap Jr. are good enough to call them that.) Such is life for a school that has averaged an offensive SP+ ranking of 109.6 over the last seven years.
My 10 favorite players
QB Taulia Tagovailoa, Maryland. A quick, efficient passer with the soul of a playmaker. He sometimes runs himself into (7.6% sack rate) and out of trouble (7.4 yards per scramble), but most of the time he’s slinging the ball from side to side and stealing defenders’ legs.
RB Blake Corum, Michigan. His full-season numbers are incredible — 1,463 rushing yards, 19 total touchdowns — and that’s with him missing almost all of the last three games with a knee injury. Corum and Donovan Edwards are an unfair combination for opponents.
WR Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State. Ohio State lost the best receiver in the country (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) to injury, so Harrison … became the best receiver in the country instead. He caught 77 balls for 1,263 yards and 14 scores, including 12 for 226 against Michigan and Georgia. What would have happened in the national semis if he didn’t suffer a second-half concussion?
LT Olu Fashanu, Penn State. A 6-foot-6, 319-pound redshirt junior, Fashanu had the chance to go pro last year after a nearly flawless 2022 campaign. Instead, he returned to protect the blindside of golden-boy sophomore Drew Allar.
DE Aaron Lewis, Rutgers. A junior from Williamstown, New Jersey, Lewis led the team in TFLs (nine), was second in run stops (14) and, with a solid 11% pressure rate, was unlucky to manage only 1.5 sacks. That total will likely go up this year.
LB Tommy Eichenberg, Ohio State. He is in no way the first Buckeyes star from Cleveland’s St. Ignatius High, but his value cannot be overstated: The senior is one of the Big Ten’s best run defenders (21 run stops) and both an A-grade blitzer and coverage guy. He does it all.
LB Jacoby Windmon, Michigan State. The UNLV transfer did a little of everything in eight games before injury. He made 5.5 sacks as primary edge rusher, but he also made seven run stops, forced a nation-leading six fumbles and, when dropping into coverage, picked off one pass and broke up two.
LB Aaron Casey, Indiana. The Douglasville, Georgia, product is asked to do a lot and comes through. He made a tackle every 6.7 snaps last year while also making 9.5 TFLs and 13 run stops and breaking up four passes.
CB Will Johnson, Michigan. The former top-25 recruit shined as a true freshman, with three interceptions, four breakups and a paltry 11.9 QBR allowed as primary coverage guy. And he should only get better.
CB Johnny Dixon, Penn State. In the last 10 years, only one player has combined at least two interceptions, eight pass breakups, three sacks and a completion percentage of under 30% in a single season: Dixon in 2022. Losing ace corner Joey Porter Jr. hurts, but PSU still has two more in Dixon and Kalen King.
Anniversaries
In 1938, 85 years ago, a Hoosier went No. 1. A 5-foot-11, 212-pound fullback — equivalent to, what, 6-foot-2, 245 pounds today? — Corby Davis was selected by the Cleveland Rams with the first pick in the 1938 NFL draft. He played four seasons, served as a rifleman during World War II and eventually became a referee. Indiana would provide seven other top-20 picks between 1938 and 1988 but hasn’t had a first-rounder since receiver Thomas Lewis in 1994.
In 1988, 35 years ago, Rutgers beat Penn State. Something that has happened once in 100 years is worth commemorating, yeah? After upsetting Michigan State with a big passing game two weeks earlier, Rutgers leaned instead on the run (fullback Mike Botti: 12 carries, 112 yards), a fierce pass rush (five sacks) and a late goal-line stand. The Scarlet Knights stopped PSU at the 2 with less than a minute to play and enjoyed their first and only win in the series that began in 1918.
In 1993, 30 years ago, Penn State began Big Ten life. The modern realignment race officially began in 1990, when the Big Ten elected to expand and extend an invitation to Penn State and the SEC signed up South Carolina and Arkansas and made plans to add a conference championship game. The latter move might have been more impactful long term — everyone’s got a conference title game now — but adding Penn State, a two-time national champ in the 1980s, was huge. And the Nittany Lions brought their A-game from the start. They went 10-2 with losses only to Michigan and Ohio State in 1993 (hmm, that sounds familiar), then ran the table with probably their best offense of all time in 1994.
In 1998, 25 years ago, Michigan State wrecked Ohio State’s plans. Ohio State is one of the most consistently elite programs in the sport’s history, and when that’s the case you’re going to end up with both (a) a lot of rings and (b) some particularly painful and costly losses. In regard to Ohio State and (b), it’s hard to top 1998. A long building process for John Cooper in the early 1990s all led to this season, when receiver David Boston and cornerback Antoine Winfield headlined a team that began the season No. 1 and looked the part for basically all but about 20 minutes.
The Buckeyes were 27.5-point favorites against Nick Saban and Michigan State, and they bolted to a 17-3 early lead. But thanks to a miscue on a punt, 213 receiving yards from Plaxico Burress and Gari Scott, four sacks from Julian Peterson and a late Renaldo Hill interception, the Spartans ended the game with a 19-0 run and an all-time smash-and-grab win. The loss ended up just barely keeping Ohio State out of the BCS championship game. Cooper went just 14-10 over the next two years.
Also in 1998, Tom Brady started his first game at Michigan. After throwing 20 passes as a backup to Brian Griese for two years, Brady outlasted blue-chipper Drew Henson to win the starting job as a junior. He threw for 2,247 yards and 14 touchdowns, but in three losses he threw three interceptions and took 10 sacks. He ended up platooning with Henson for much of 1999 and fell to the sixth round of the NFL draft. As we know, sixth-rounders almost never make it big in the NFL.
In 2003, 20 years ago, Maryland posted double-digit wins again. The Terrapins had averaged just four wins over the 15 seasons before Ralph Friedgen’s hire in 2001, but they caught lightning in a bottle and held on to it for a while. From 2001 to 2003, they went 31-8, winning the ACC in 2001 (their only conference title in the last 37 years) and finishing 11th, 13th and 17th in the AP poll. Friedgen’s tenure was up and down after he went 10-3 in 2003, and in one of the most unfortunate moves you’ll ever see, he was fired after going 9-4 and being ACC coach of the year in 2010. He was replaced by Randy Edsall … who averaged 4.6 wins a year.
In 2013, 10 years ago, Michigan State wrecked Ohio State’s plans. Again. The Buckeyes weren’t as good as they were in 1998, and they’d have been underdogs against Florida State in the BCS championship game, but that doesn’t change the fact that, 15 years after their epic upset in Columbus, Michigan State did the deed again, both starting and ending the game on a 17-0 run, winning 34-17, snaring their first Big Ten solo title in 26 years and knocking Ohio State out of national title contention.