By Dave Woolford (ToledoFreePress.com) —
It’s time everyone stopped picking on Big Ten football.

It’s time the Big Ten stopped giving everyone reason to do just that.

And it’s time, again, for Ohio State to be the Big Ten’s head of state. Conference credibility will start and end in Columbus. Sorry Bucks, but that’s what you get for being the best, by far, the Big Ten has to offer this season.

The burning Big Ten question is: “Who will finish second?” when you factor out overwhelming OSU and grossly undermanned Michigan.

Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said it’s too bad the league took a big reputation hit just because his team got pounded in the past two national championship games.

“Should that paint a picture of our whole conference? I don’t think so,” he said.

Sorry coach, but it does authorize the Big Ten antagonists to hone their skills.

The No. 3-ranked Buckeyes should win a fourth consecutive Big Ten championship this time around and an unprecedented third straight outright Big Ten title.

Tressel, entering his eighth year at OSU, has 20 returning starters back from a team that surprised many by going 11-2 and competing in its second straight national championship game last year. Tressel has 40 players who are entering a fourth or fifth year with the Buckeyes.

If there were any excuses before, there’s little room for forgiveness this season.

Illinois coach Ron Zook, a former Buckeye assistant coach and Florida head coach, is brutally honest about the Big Ten’s lack of respect, unlike some of his conference contemporaries.

“There’s not a whole lot we can say until we win,” he said. “There’s no doubt that the Big Ten is a great, great conference. Now, until we go and do that, there’s not a whole lot we can say.”

Tressel, trying to tiptoe around an overconfidence menace, said football folks are overlooking the overall strength of the Big Ten. He stated that the Big Ten will be better this season than it was the last two. He based that on the number of returning players. While he has 20, Michigan has nine, the lowest number of veteran players in the conference.

And while Ohio State boasts of Heisman Trophy candidate in tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells, potential high-round NFL draft picks and all-Americans, the Wolverines have been promoting their strength coach and their “Apostles,” while praying for miracles.

Tressel might be right in stating that the Big Ten can be better this season than at least last year when the conference posted a 3-5 bowl record, produced 28 draft picks, which was only fifth best of all leagues, and had only one team in the top 10 at the end of the year with OSU losing its ninth straight bowl game to an SEC school, this time LSU, 38-24.

So who is flaunting the, “We’re No. 2,” label in the Big Ten? It’s probably a grab bag between Wisconsin, Penn State and Iowa.

The Badgers are again big and powerful, but again without a proven quarterback.

Coach Bret Bielema said his team will be hard to prepare for because, while eight of his Big Ten contemporaries are going over to the dark side and making use of the spread offense, his team will still be of stick-in-the-mud Big Ten mentality, with 17 returning starters and a bevy of running backs.

There’s Penn State, or is that “Pen” State following a number of arrests? It was recently reported by ESPN that 46 Penn State players have been charged with 163 criminal counts since 2002. Of those, 27 players pleaded guilty and were convicted of 45 counts.

That’s enough to make a coach grow old in a hurry, with one exception, 81-year-old Joe Paterno, who starts his 43rd year at Penn State. He’s seen it all, and with a very talented team he should see his 35th bowl game. PSU’s biggest problem is two-fold, Ohio State and Wisconsin, both on the road in a three-week span. Paterno’s 372 wins are one behind Florida State coach Bobby Bowden as the most among major college football coaches.

The schedule helps make Iowa a contender for second in the Big Ten. The much-improved Hawkeyes don’t have to play the Buckeyes or Michigan. Not meeting the Wolverines used to be a godsend. This season it’s a pity.

There’s very little that separates the middle of the pack in the Big Ten as evidenced last year when four teams tied for seventh.

Illinois lost 24 lettermen, most in the Big Ten, and that includes running back Rashard Mendenhall, who left a year early or otherwise might have given OSU’s Wells a run for his money as the Big Ten’s best running back. Michigan State, under second-year coach Mark Dantonio, should be much improved.

Dantonio had just 12 starters to work with last season. He has very good talent in quarterback Brian Hoyer and tailback Javon Ringer.

Michigan is rebuilding under new coach Rich Rodriguez, who is installing a spread offense without a spread-offense quarterback. None of UM’s quarterback candidates has ever taken a snap in a Michigan game.

While Steven Treet will probably be the starter; he’s a big, pro-style quarterback without much mobility. Look for others to jump in and out of the position as situations dictate.

Purdue coach Joe Tiller, from Toledo, will retire after this season and needs just two victories to become Purdue’s all-time winningest coach. Quarterback Curtis Painter will assure that. He needs 3,030 yards to break Drew Brees’ conference career mark of 11,792.

There’s football talk at Indiana, and for once it’s not just idle chatter to kill time until the basketball season begins. The Hoosiers went to a bowl game last season; the basketball team has been decimated and might not win as many games as the football team. But like Illinois, IU is probably a one-season wonder.

Minnesota and Northwestern have key skill players, the Golden Gophers in quarterback Adam Weber and Northwestern in Tyrell Sutton. Weber passed for a school-record 2,895 yards and 24 touchdowns last season as a red-shirt freshman. Sutton is the Big Ten’s leading active career rusher with 2,996 yard despite missing five games last season with an ankle injury.

Count them totally out of the race for the highly coveted No. 2 prize in the Big Ten this season.

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