OTE’s Big Ten Players of Week 4

Every week in the Big Ten, there are outstanding young men playing football for our entertainment, and so we at OTE feel that it is only right to recognize the best and the brightest of these. Here now, the week 4 winners:

Offensive Player of the Week: Saquon Barkley, Penn State Running Back

When you are the reason why your team stayed in a game until the end, it’s quite likely that you earned Player of the Week. Even our Iowa writers agreed on Saquon getting this honor (at least, the ones we could reach for comment after the game).

Honorable mention goes to JT Barrett, for putting up 5 touchdowns in a single half against UNLV, and then not even needing to play the second half.

Defensive Player of the Week: Josey Jewell, Iowa Linebacker

The conference only awarded Jewell co-player of the week for this effort against Penn State, but here on OTE, he gets all the kudos for himself. Also, this may have helped his cause slightly:

Since we hadn’t prepared an honorable mention for this week, I’ll just give a shoutout to the other co-DPOTW from the conference, Michigan DL Chase Winovich. 3 sacks is a solid game against anyone, but in our opinion, Jewell gets the nod overall.

Special Teams Player of the Week: J-Shun Harris, Indiana

With this return, J-Shun tied the Indiana single season punt return touchdown record (which really feels like it should be higher than 2), a mark now held by 4 Hoosiers, including recent graduate Mitchell Paige. This return set the tone for IU’s romp over Georgia Southern, and is a pretty nice way to come back from two consecutive season-ending ACL tears (one in each leg).

Honorable mention goes out to punter Joe Schopper of Purdue, with a conference leading 11 punts totaling 439 yards against Michigan. #PuntingIsWinning

Fail of the Week: Michigan State’s performance vs. Notre Dame

Nearly 500 yards of offense (yay!) offset by 3 turnovers (boo!) and losing by more points than you scored (ouch!). That’s what we around these parts call “not ideal.”

Dishonorable mention goes to Nebraska’s Tanner Lee for trying really hard to throw away yet another football game. Fortunately for him, the rest of his team stepped in, but we were very close to having riots amongst the writing staff if this one had gone worse.

Catch of the Week: Jerome Washington, Rutgers TE

While the catch is definitely impressive, there’s some really easy and obvious jokes to be made from this moment as well. I will be generous and leave them for you to make in the comments.

B1Ggest Fan of the Week: This Maryland Girl

Dude’s face at the end says it all.