Basically, every season this means we get to hear about how overrated the Big Ten is and how every member school and alumnus, student, and fan of said schools should be embarrassed to even exist. Also, how they need to be faster.

The 2012 bowl season was hardly a banner year for the Big Ten, as the conference went 4-6 in it’s whopping 10 (the national high) bowl games. Only an overtime victory from Michigan State over Georgia in the Outback Bowl saved the conference from total embarrassment in the “New Year’s Day” bowls, as Wisconsin’s loss to Oregon in the Rose Bowl capped a 1-3 day. Michigan managed to save some face for the conference with their own overtime victory in the Sugar Bowl, giving the Big Ten the non-Ohio State BCS win it had been lacking since Penn State won the 2006 Orange Bowl.

All-in-all, it wasn’t good, and it wasn’t horrible. What exactly does this bowl season say about where the Big Ten fits on a national scale?

(more…)

A person is smart. People are dumb.

- Agent K, Men in Black

Agent Tommy Lee Jones was probably right when it came to the existence of aliens, but I would argue the reverse is true when it comes to sports. If you get into a conversation with one person about college football (or, you know, anything), there’s a pretty good chance a plurality of the things said in the conversation will be at best tenuous and at worst completely made up. A person, in this case, is often dumb.

But when you take the totality of knowledge from college football fans across the country, eventually we can come upon something of a consensus. Put us all together, and we generally know what we’re talking about. This is known as “the wisdom of crowds.” People, with the fringe morons weeded out, tend to be smart.

This principle is at play in the ELO Program Rater at Sports-Reference’s college football site. ELO ratings are most commonly used in chess but have made their way into a number of other rankings, such as Jeff Sagarin’s computer rankings for the BCS, and, to take a slightly nerdier turn, rankings in the Halo: Reach arena mode. Check out their full explanation here.

Keep in mind that people can have different criteria for ranking a program; some will look at a program’s entire history, others will take a “what have you done for me lately” approach. Some will look at regular season success, others will give more weight to bowl victories.

Now, without further ado, S-R’s ELO program rankings for the Big Ten schools:

10. Penn State
11. Nebraska
13. Ohio State
16. Wisconsin
17. Iowa
18. Michigan
31. Michigan State
35. Purdue
53. Illinois
55. Minnesota
68. Northwestern
76. Indiana

Clay, a junior from Racine, Wis., has rushed for 929 yards and 13 touchdowns this season. Although Clay has missed two full games due to injury, he has rushed for over 100 yards six times this season and helped lead the Badgers to a 10-1 record and a shot at the Big Ten conference title.

The 2009 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, Clay is averaging 103.2 yards per game and needs just 71 more yards to become the sixth running back in school history to record consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.

A midseason second-team All-American selection by SI.com and Phil Steele, Clay has run for over 100 yards in 12 of his last 14 games and scored a touchdown in 13 of his last 15 contests.

He became the first player in 29 games to rush for over 100 yards against Ohio State when he ran for 104 yards against the Buckeyes. Clay combined for four rushing touchdowns against both Ohio State and Iowa in back-to-back games. Those two teams have combined to give up just 16 rushing scores all year.

In his career, Clay has rushed for 3,330 yards, a mark that sits eighth all-time at Wisconsin. In addition, his 5.42 yards per carry ranks third at Wisconsin, his 40 rushing touchdowns are fifth and his 614 carries are tied for seventh.

Ron Dayne is the only Badger to win the Doak Walker Award, doing so in 1999. He is also the only Badger to be a finalist, accomplishing that feat in 1998.

The three finalists, which also include Kendall Hunter of Oklahoma State and LaMichael James of Oregon, were determined by a vote of the 175-member Doak Walker Award National Selection Committee. The Committee will cast a second vote to determine the recipient of the 2010 Doak Walker Award.

The recipient will be announced live on The Home Depot College Football Awards at 7:00 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, Dec. 9 on ESPN. The award will be presented at the 2010 Doak Walker Award Presentation Banquet in Dallas on Friday, Feb. 18, 2011.