This Week(-ish) in Big Ten(-ish) Football History, Part IV

Last week when I questioned the concept of September Maryland and told you all about El Assico:

“Save for one or two great games, even when they’re close it’s usually kind of boring. Usually either Iowa suffers an embarrassing loss or Iowa State looks like crap. This game featured both.”

Low and behold, what transpired last Saturday?

I’m not saying I’m a prophet or that I have any control over results. But you might want to be nice to me in the comments...just in case.

2014

Remember when Wisconsin had an identity? Well, an 83-20 blowout of Indiana notwithstanding, no game might have better demonstrated that than their 68-17 demolition of Bowling Green. Remember Bowling Green’s shootout win over Indiana this year, as recounted last week?

The Falcons won the MAC East, and a bowl game, in 2014, so they weren’t a pushover. No matter, though, when the other team brings a road grader and just masses forward with inevitability. 62-10 after three quarters. 8 rushing TDs on the day. 60 carries for 644 yards. Dare Ogunbowale was six yards away from giving the Badgers four 100-yard rushers. Two fourth quarter FGs and three turnovers mean that 90+ points was theoretically in play. Yeah, Wisconsin once had an identity...

The Badgers did not, however, have a monopoly on impressive performances. Indiana bounced back from their loss to Bowling Green by defeating #18 Missouri 31-27. D’Angelo Roberts punched in a three-yard TD with :22 to play to give the Hoosiers their winning points in a game that featured 996 yards of offense. Given that Missouri would go 11-3 on the season and win the SEC East this was one of the more impressive—and, frankly, befuddling—results for a B1G school in 2014. Ah, heck Hoosiers, let’s give you an embedded video:

Finally, Nebraska and Miami played the first game in a home-and-home. It was the first meeting since Miami eviscerated the Huskers in the 2002 Rose Bowl to win the 2001 national title, and the first regular-season matchup since 1976. This game also cleared 900 yards of offense, and the Huskers, led by 229 yards rushing by Ameer Abdullah, emerged with a 41-31 victory.

2004

Twenty years ago this week both Wisconsin and Iowa headed West to Arizona to finish the non-conference season. Neither team looked all that impressive, especially on offense. But the outcomes varied because one team also looked atrocious on defense.

The Badgers defeated Arizona (who was to go 3-8 on the year) in a 9-7 slugfest that featured an hour-and-a-half weather delay in the second quarter (the teams agreed to forego halftime...it was a weird game). Wisconsin surrendered a 44-yard TD pass in the last minute of the first half, the first TD they gave up on the year (in three nonconference games, Wisconsin surrendered 16 points). However, the Badger offense was pretty rank. They did manage to score early in the fourth on a Booker Stanley TD, but the PAT was missed, so Arizona was clinging to a 7-6 lead. Later in the fourth, Wisconsin put together a 16 play drive that culminated in a short FG to account for the final score. But they weren’t out of the woods until Nick Folk missed a 48 yard FG on the Wildcats last possession. Winning ugly...

...beats losing ugly. And that’s what Iowa did, getting absolutely shellacked by Arizona State, 44-7, on a stormy night in Tempe. This was a good Sun Devil team that would go 9-3 on the season, but still. The Hawkeyes would get outgained 511-100 and Drew Tate struggled to a 8-19-44-0-1 passing line that would be the envy of Spencer Petrases and Deacon Hills everywhere. The chef’s kiss is that Iowa’s lone points came on a punt return for a TD...with :18 to play in the game. Probably not many Iowa fans awake at that point, especially as this game also featured a weather delay.

Elsewhere, #21 Maryland headed to Morgantown to take on the #7 Mountaineers. In a hard fought game, West Virginia emerged victorious 19-16 in OT. The Terps were done in by five turnovers (to WVU’s one). Two weeks later, they would fall to Georgia Tech and drop out of the rankings. They’ve been ranked for six weeks—and one offseason—total since. Following 10 win seasons in 2001, 2002, and 2003, this was the beginning of the end of the Friedgen glory days for the Terps.

1994

Lotta Wisconsin content today. Maybe too much if you’re a Badger fan since this entry sees the #10 Badgers head to #7 Colorado for a top 10 showdown, In another of those night games to the west, the Badgers did their best 2004 Iowa impersonation and were destroyed 55-17. Colorado RB Rashaan Salaam’s four TD night put him in the Heisman discussion, which he would eventually win, and the game was never in doubt. In a factoid that neither team wants you to know, future Buffs coach Mel Tucker was on the field this night as a member of the Wisconsin secondary.

Elsewhere, Colorado’s chief Big 8 competition, Nebraska, decided to make a statement. The Huskers had been #1 in the AP poll, but a 42-16 win over Texas Tech was apparently not impressive enough as they were jumped by preseason #1 Florida. So the Huskers welcomed 2-0 and #13 UCLA to Lincoln and pummeled them 49-21 behind 484 rushing yards. This was the beginning of a six-game losing streak for the Bruins, so they were probably overrated, but they also had already pocketed a win over a good Tennessee team (that was the Peyton Manning/Todd Helton game I so lovingly recounted in Part II) so the Bruins were far from a paycheck game.

The simple fact is that Nebraska was really good.

1994 Maryland was not good (4-7) but I’m striving to mention each team at least once each year so, um, here’s the Terps 24-13 upset of a bowl bound West Virginia team that had begun the season ranked (which lasted until they were blanked in a week 0 game by Nebraska...see Part I). Good job mid-90s Terps!

Rutgers was actually reasonably not bad in 1994 (5-5-1). They also beat West Virginia, for example. But their entries (they’re getting three for 1994!) are all in losing efforts, because the Scarlet Knights were pretty exciting, and frisky, in some of their losses. For example, this week they fell to Syracuse in the Carrier Dome, 37-36. It was a back-and-forth game that Rutgers, frankly, dominated (540-259 yardage advantage) but for some inopportune fumbles. Trailing 37-30 in the last minute, Ray Lucas tossed a 40-yard TD pass, but Rutgers elected to go for the win and came up short on the 2-point conversion.

1984

Two ranked showdowns loomed large in setting the Big Ten pecking order as nonconference play ended. Unfortunately for the Big Ten, neither went well.

#5 Iowa welcomed #12 Penn State to Kinnick, but was upended 20-17. Iowa held PSU without a first down until the second quarter, but were undone by a couple of missed field goals and four turnovers, including TWO fumbled punt returns. We’ll mention Penn State again, but their season didn’t go so well. After beating William & Mary the next week, the Nittany Lions were sitting at #4 nationally. However, they finished the season 6-5 and turned down a bowl invitation to the inaugural Freedom Bowl where they would’ve played...Iowa. College football has always been kind of dumb.

Last factoid: since we’re making random coach/player connections, Mike Stoops was the strong safety for Iowa in this game. Twenty years later, he was on the sideline in his first year as Arizona head coach for Wisconsin’s 9-7 victory recounted above.

In Ann Arbor, #3 Michigan, fresh off upsetting #1 Miami the week before (see Part III, linked above), welcomed #16 Washington to town. It was a pleasant visit for the Huskies as they left town with a 20-11 victory in a game that wasn’t really that close. Jim Harbaugh threw three interceptions and was sacked four times by Washington’s “Purple Reign” defense (Get it? 1984, man!), which held Michigan to three points until garbage time.