The Big Ten East has been one of the top divisions in college football to start the season. Expected to be a two-man race, a third team has emerged as a scorching hot wildcard for the top spot in the conference.
After six weeks of play, the top four teams feature two undefeated teams plus two teams 5-1 teams currently riding five-game winning streaks after season opening road losses to still-unbeaten teams.
All four of those teams will collide on Saturday as Penn State travels to the Shoe for a primetime matchup with defending national champion No. 1 Ohio State. No. 7 Michigan State will visit in-state rival No. 12 Michigan earlier in the day.
Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer spoke Wednesday via teleconference about the competing in a rigorous conference, though, he has not lost a conference game since he took the head coach job in 2012.
“I was in the SEC East when Tennessee was really good and coach Spurrier went to South Carolina and Georgia, that was a real rugged conference,” Meyer said. “This side of our conference right now is every bit of that and you can see it every Saturday.”
One of the biggest reasons for the high level of play for the conference is each programs ability to bring in talent.
The competition goes well beyond the 14 or so games they play a year on the gridiron. The rest of battle is won off the field, in the recruiting war rooms. Michigan boasts the all-time winningest football program in the nation, while Ohio State and Penn State come in at Nos. 5 and 7, respectively; while Michigan State has six national championships. Recruiting for winning programs certainly has its advantages.
In recent years, Ohio State has long led the pack on the recruiting trail, annually reeling in a top-five class, while the remaining three shadowed closely behind within the top 25.
Penn State has seen a recent jump to the top as head coach James Franklin and his staff has had more time to work their recruiting prowess, after regaining lost scholarships from NCAA sanctions. And they’ve sometimes had to step on each other’s toes to get the advantage.
Most recently, Class of 2015 defensive back Garrett Taylor flipped his commitment from Michigan to Penn State two days after a visit to University Park. The four-star recruit turned down offers from Ohio State and Michigan as well.
“I do think theres a lot of crossover in recruiting,” Franklin said. “Its really completive and its a real challenge.”
Last week, 2016 four-star Penn State commits Quinn Nordin and Lavert Hill both took a trip to Michigan and witnessed the Wolverines’ 38-0 rout of Northwestern, according to multiple media reports.
So far these teams have been able to coexists on the recruiting trail, but Franklin does not see much longevity in that.
“There are enough players in our footprints to sustain it to a degree,” Franklin said. “What’s interesting to see is to look at it over the long haul over five to 10 years, if that’s still the case.”
The last time the Nittany Lions and Buckeyes met it a double overtime thriller in Happy Valley, as Penn State climbed a 17-point first half deficit to push Ohio State to the brink but failed to stop quarterback J.T. Barrett as he scored two touchdowns in overtime to propel the Buckeyes to victory.
Barrett, a national championship winning quarterback, isn’t even starting anymore. Cardale Jones has won the full-time quarterback position, but head coach Urban Meyer conceded Barrett may lead the charge as their primary redzone quarterback, a luxury of having an abundance of good recruiting.
Although this year’s matchup will feature many of the same players, Meyer said that game tape really wouldn’t affect their preparations too much.
“We watched [the tape] and schematically I think that appropriate for how that team developed last year cause up to that point we were good, but I never saw them fight and crawl out underneath a bad situation,” he said.
Although this weekend’s games will be of paramount importance in terms of making a statement to the conference, it won’t be the be-all and end-all to determining the frontrunners as all four of these teams will close the final two games of season with each other.
