Big Ten Predictions as Conference Play Begins

Oct 12, 2013; Madison, WI, USA; The Big Ten logo on the field at Camp Randall Stadium following the game between the Northwestern Wildcats and Wisconsin Badgers. Wisconsin won 35-6. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Prior to the 2015 college football season, the Badger of Honor staff sat down to hammer out some pre-season predictions. We’ll piggy-back off those early predictions here to give you our Big Ten predictions for the season ahead of the first full week of conference play.

In the pre-season, we gave you our thoughts on plenty of Wisconsin-specific topics: record and bowl game predictions, award predictions and more.

Wisconsin Badgers

Now that we’ve had a chance to see what the Big Ten teams look like in action and not on paper, we have a better idea of what the end of the season may look like as well. This time around we’ll focus more on Big Ten predictions throughout the conference as a whole, and our answers are probably a little different from what we would have said in the preseason.

Some things were obvious — Ohio State would be really, really good, the Big ten West would be the weaker of the divisions, and the defensive talent on Ohio State and Michigan State alone is enough to keep NFL teams happy come the next draft.

Other things may have surprised us — like the Northwestern Wildcats being ranked and looking really good early on, Ohio State (while still really, really good) struggling so far against competition you wouldn’t have expected, and the Michigan Wolverines seeming to turn things around quickly under new coach Jim Harbaugh.

Here we’ll take a stab at predicting the Big Ten West and East winners, identify our sleeper picks, choose a conference champion, and hand out some season-ending awards within the conference.

Keep on turning to find out what Badger of Honor writers Erik Buchinger, Taylor Johnson, Rayan Vatti, and myself, Jim Oxley, think will happen through the duration of the Big Ten season.

Next: Who Wins the West?