Now that the 2023 Big Ten season is over and the bowl games are underway, it’s time to take a look at what happened. Michigan went through and ran the table again and won the conference en route to another CFP appearance.
As one of the best conferences in college football, there have been a handful of surprising teams, for better or worse.
Most Surprising Big Ten Teams This Season
Northwestern
The most obvious choice is Northwestern. The Wildcats have been, save for a few overachieving years, one of the worst programs in the Big Ten. With such stingy academic requirements from the University, the selection pool is a tad more narrow. Then, prior to the 2023 season, long-time head coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired following a hazing investigation.
Enter David Braun. All Northwestern did under Braun was vastly overperform their expectations. The best bets were going toward the Wildcats winning fewer than two games. As the season ended, Northwestern finished with a 7-5 mark and an appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Naturally, Braun’s interim tag was removed and he will be the guy moving forward. With the Big Ten’s divisions dissolving, it will be interesting to see where Northwestern falls in the grand scheme of things. Either way, they were, by far, the most impressive and surprising team of 2023.
Ohio State
From a positive to a negative. Ohio State came into the season with CFP aspirations yet again and was a missed field goal away from, realistically, taking home the title last year. They had to replace a top-two NFL Draft pick but with how the Buckeyes recruit, it should have been easy.
OHGamblers had Ohio State as the favorite to take home the Big Ten all year. The defense took another step forward, led by defensive coordinator Jim Knowles. Ohio State was home to a top-three defense and shut down offenses week in and week out.
Then, yet again, Michigan happened.
Ohio State had NFL talent up and down its roster but still could not get past its hated rival. Kyle McCord was a vast step back from C.J. Stroud and the offense squandered all of that talent.
The surprising bit was how far that drop was. Ohio State had an elite defense and at least one first-round receiver out wide with a handful of NFL-bound running backs. And yet, when the game needed them most, nobody stepped up. The defense needed just one stop and couldn’t get it.
Iowa
If you said a team could average 16.6 points per game, would you believe they could win 10 games? They scored more than 26 points once and were held under 23 points nine times. The Iowa Hawkeyes had one of the most pathetic offenses in the history of college football for a Power 5 team and still won 10 games and made it to their conference championship game.
What wasn’t surprising was the Iowa defense. It was well known that the Hawkeyes possessed a serious defense. It was due to that defense that Iowa was able to win so many games.
Being able to win so often with a bottom-tier Group of 5 offense was, by far, the most impressive thing in all of college football.
Penn State
Finally, another disappointingly surprising team. Penn State came into the year as one of the three teams who could take the Big Ten. There were a number of simulations that had Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State splitting their round-robin series. When the dust settled, Michigan came away unscathed, and Penn State faltered.
As with the other two, Penn State’s defense meant serious business. However, the offense could not follow suit. Drew Allar was lauded as one of the next great college quarterbacks. He ended the regular season with 2,336 yards and 23 touchdowns, well below the lofty expectations. He struggled against the best teams and looked incredibly bad against both Ohio State and Michigan.
If it weren’t for the running back duo of Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, this Nittany Lions team likely would have lost a couple of more games.
With a team having CFP expectations, dropping to the Peach Bowl against Ole Miss is surprising. Penn State was expected to take a step in 2023 but instead, they fired their offensive coordinator and lost their defensive coordinator to another job.
Main Image: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
