March Madness is officially here—and not just in the college basketball world.
OK, so maybe the annual hardwood postseason tournament is just a little bit more exciting than position battles in spring football. But I promise there are still fun things currently going in the college football universe too, even as everybody focuses their attention—and their money—on its sister sport.
In fact, now's the perfect time to get your football fix and be reminded that spring games around the country are right around the corner.
With that in mind, here's this week's Big Ten Q&A. As always, you can send your questions to me on Twitter each week to @BenAxelrod.
Let's get started.
This is why Ohio State fans are the best—and why I'm largely disliked on the Buckeyes message boards. Only they can assume that everybody views their favorite team as the Big Ten's best, even after it's sent nine underclassmen to the NFL and will be replacing 16 combined starters in the coming year.
Don't look now #BuckeyeNation, but outside of quarterback, center and left guard, your team doesn't yet know who any of its starters will be on offense next season. And there's even more uncertainty to be found on the defensive side of the ball, where the Buckeyes find themselves replacing potential first-round picks in Joey Bosa, Darron Lee, Eli Apple and Vonn Bell.
At most programs across the country, the idea of being considered the favorite in a season where you're replacing so much talent would be laughable.
Then again, Ohio State isn't most programs. And most programs don't have Urban Meyer doing their recruiting.
The reality is that the Buckeyes are indeed the favorites to win the Big Ten in 2016, albeit not by as a large a margin as the questioner here would have you believe. But with Ohio State's roster now being solely comprised of Meyer-recruited players, the Buckeyes are just simply more talented than any other team in their conference.
As for who belongs right behind Ohio State, it's hard to look past Michigan. Unlike the Buckeyes, the Wolverines return plenty they know they'll be able to rely on, including wideouts Jehu Chesson and Amara Darboh, tight end Jake Butt, cornerback Jourdan Lewis and safety/linebacker Jabrill Peppers, in addition to adding the nation's fifth-ranked recruiting class to their roster.
Unlike Ohio State, however, Jim Harbaugh's squad doesn't yet know who its starting quarterback will be in the coming year. That might ultimately be the Big Ten's biggest question heading into the 2016 season—and determine who the conference's best team will truly be.
As long as I've been doing this mailbag—which has really only been about a month or so—I've repeatedly received this question, or some variation of it.
And while I understand the intrigue of wondering who will be replacing a player as accomplished as Ezekiel Elliott, the reality is that there's not just one answer to the question.
Partly based on personnel and mostly a product of necessity, I expect the Buckeyes to run their first true running back-by-committee of the Meyer era. In 2012 and 2013, Ohio State relied on Carlos Hyde as its feature back, while Elliott obviously stole the show in each of the past two seasons.
This year, however, there doesn't appear to be a bell cow in the Buckeyes' backfield bunch. Fifth-year senior Bri'onte Dunn has always possessed promise but not much more than that, redshirt freshman Michael Weber is talented but lacks any experience at the college level and the same goes for early-enrollee and true freshman Antonio Williams.
The wild card of the bunch is Curtis Samuel, although the Ohio State staff seems intent on keeping him at the hybrid H-back role. If I had to pick one player to emerge as the Buckeyes' primary running back, it'd be Samuel, but for now, Meyer seems to favor Dunn.
As I said earlier, you're pretty much splitting hairs here. Maybe a player like Weber will emerge as Ohio State's sole starter, but at this point in the year, I'm not counting on it.
Kevin Sumlin to Purdue? Now there's an intriguing idea, although even as poorly as things seem to be going in College Station, I'd have a hard time imagining Johnny Manziel's college football coach not having a better option than his own alma mater available.
As far as Purdue's perspective on the state of its program, I can't say that I've covered the Boilermakers closely, but the recruiting guys I trust and talk to most have been surprised by just how poorly Darrell Hazell has recruited since arriving in West Lafayette.
It doesn't help that prior to Purdue, Hazell spent just two years as Kent State's head coach, not leaving much of a track record on the recruiting trail to fall back on and lending credence to the idea that his breakthrough 2012 season with the Golden Flashes was a flash in the pan.
It does, however, seem as though there are larger issues in West Lafayette than the head coach, particularly when it comes to Purdue's investment in its own program. That was evidenced in the Boilermakers' decision to keep Hazell past the 2015 season, something ESPN.com's Jesse Temple speculated was a decision motivated by money, not wins.
Taking into consideration Hazell's 6-30 record—including a 2-22 mark in Big Ten play—in the past three seasons, it'd be tough to disagree.
Landing a coach like Sumlin might be out of Purdue's price range, but that's the Boilermakers' pie-in-the-sky scenario, similar to Illinois' hiring of Lovie Smith this past offseason.
Whether or not Purdue would be willing to pony up the necessary cash to make that happen, we may never know. But from what we've learned about the program in the past few years, the answer to that question is: probably not.
This is actually a good question—even though Brayton first asked me a basketball question before I had to let him know this is a football-only Q&A.
As far as the question itself, let's look at the pros and cons of each first-year Big Ten head coach's schedule.
Maryland and D.J. Durkin
Pros: Maryland has a manageable out-of-conference schedule (Howard, FIU, UCF) and cross-divisional games against three Big Ten West teams with losing records in 2015 (Purdue, Minnesota, Nebraska).
Cons: The Terrapins play in the Big Ten East, where they'll face Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State in a four-week span. Both Nebraska and Minnesota should be improved in 2016.
Rutgers and Chris Ash
Pros: Rutgers has an out-of-conference game against Howard and a four-week stretch including games against Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana (and a bye week).
Cons: The Big Ten East, as well as a cross-divisional game (and conference opener) against Big Ten West champ Iowa.
Minnesota and Tracy Claeys
Pros: Out-of-conference games with Oregon State (2-10 in 2015), Indiana State and Colorado State. Cross-divisional games against Penn State, Maryland and Rutgers (combined 14-23 in 2015), the Big Ten West.
Cons: Minnesota has back-to-back games against Northwestern and Wisconsin (combined 20-6 in 2015) to close the season.
Illinois and Lovie Smith
Pros: Season opener against Murray State; the Big Ten West.
Cons: Out-of-conference games against North Carolina and Western Michigan. Cross-divisional games against Michigan and Michigan State. The season ends with a four-game stretch against four teams who each won 10 or more games in 2015 (Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern).
As much as I love the Smith hiring in Champaign, that's a brutal 2016 schedule.
In the long run, I'd go with Smith developing his roster into one of the Big Ten West's best and putting together a 10-win team as early as 2018. But based on this year's schedules alone, Minnesota's actually sets up nicely and has the potential to help make the Golden Gophers this year's surprise team in the weaker of the two divisions (sorry, Maryland and Rutgers).
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of CFBStats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
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