Starting in early January 2010 and ending right now, it's been a wild time in the Midwest. We started last year by going a miraculous 4-3 in bowl games, welcomed Nebraska to the league in June, picked up a new logo in December...and then watched our top Heisman candidate get suspended for the first five games of 2011.
So yeah. Let's ask two simple questions.
Question 1: What did you learn?
I learned that a run-spread in the West Virginia mold just may not work in the Big Ten. Or maybe the quarterback just needs to be more durable.
I learned that the substantial air has been let out of the Michigan-OSU rivalry. At no time in the past three years have I thought that Michigan might actually win the game. Good that Hoke went and recruited defensively because it's going to take a lot of toughness to play on the same field as the Bucks.
Question 2: Will the Big Ten ever have a dominant bowl season...or was 2010 as good as it gets?
I remember the giddiness I felt after Iowa's domination of GT in the Orange Bowl. That, of course, capped the big time (?) wins over Miami (not even that good), Oregon (really good), and LSU (sort of an asterisk game because of the WW1 inspired field, the Tigers were still a year or two away, but still a good win).
Three times in the past 11 years has the Big Ten won more bowl games than it's lost (1999-2000, 2002-2003 and of course 2009-2010). Losing bowl season has followed losing bowl season. Will we ever get to four or five wins? What's it going to take?