WEEK TWO RECAP

• For several years now, the Big Ten has been considered one of the weakest power conferences in the country. With the dissolution of the Big East Conference, they no longer have to share that distinction.  The question for the 2014 season was which conference would be this year’s “Big Ten”.  That might have been settled on Saturday.  This year’s “Big Ten” appears to be the Big Ten.  Thirteen of their fourteen teams had games on Saturday.  The one team that had the week off was the one team that was almost sure to disappoint: Indiana.  Luckily for them, they cannot be blamed for last week’s disaster.  The notable statistics from the weekend:

Big Ten Record (Straight Up): 8-5.  That includes three wins against FCS opponents and zero wins (0-3) against other Big 5 conferences.  Iowa and Nebraska needed scores in the final minute to take the lead in their games.

Big Ten Record (ATS): 2-11.  A winning percentage of 15.4%.  In the PP6 standings, that record would put them in last place.

Expected Performance vs Actual Performance:  Based on the point spreads in each game, the Big Ten was expected to outscore their opponents by a combined 178 points.  They only outscored their opponents by nine points, 325-316.

The Big Ten would argue that it was only one week, and that there are still thirteen weeks to go.  That argument does not work for the Big Ten.  The perception of the conference was poor to begin with, and last week just added validation.  For the most part, conference perception can only be changed during the non-conference slate.  The Big Ten has two more weeks, not thirteen, to prove its worth.  Before their game against Oregon last week, MSU players were “looking forward to carrying the Big Ten flag”.  Unfortunately for the conference, they did.  They carried the flag everyone outside of the conference has come to expect, a flag of tiny expectations.

WEEK TWO RESULTS

•  WEEK TWO WINNER: Jeff Parks.  Yawn.  It is no surprise that Jeff won a week.  He wins money pretty much every year in the PP6.  Don’t ask me how he does it.  If I knew, I’d join him.  The surprise is that it only took 5-1 to win the week. He beat out 15 other people that went 5-1.
• Only 17 people scored 100 points or more, after 32 accomplishing the feat in week one.
• BYU was the only underdog to earn more than 10 lock picks.  The lucky ones that picked them received the maximum bonus points.
• As I said last week, the group has always had a hard time picking underdogs. Like last week, over 80% of the locks were for a favored team.
• The biggest blunder of week two?  Kansas State.  It was most popular game played and the game with the biggest pick disparity.  161 picks for KSU.  16 for ISU.  KSU was locked 51 times.  One person was brave enough to lock ISU.  Nice pick, Tom.
• A complete list of week two statistics can be found in the games tab.