With the NFL draft having came and passed, spring football officially in the rearview mirror and the start of fall camp still three months away, we've officially reached the dead period of the college football calendar.
But between satellite camp battles, Ohio State's owning of the NFL draft and the rarely quiet recruiting trail, the Big Ten has yet to go into hibernation just yet.
With that in mind, let's get to our weekly conference Q&A. This week, we'll tackle the toughest schedule in the conference, Rutgers' potential under its new head coach, the state of the Rutgers defense and Ohio State's backup quarterback spot.
As always, you can send your questions to me each week on Twitter @BenAxelrod.
Let's get started.
Imagine starting the season with one of the biggest games of college football's opening weekend, one that will be played in an NFL stadium against an SEC favorite returning 96 percent of its offensive production and 88 percent on defense, according to SB Nation's Bill Connelly.
Now imagine that's the easy part of your schedule.
That's exactly the predicament Wisconsin finds itself in entering 2016, where its season-opening showdown with LSU at Lambeau Field will be just a warm-up for what has to be one of the most daunting conference slates in Big Ten history. Not only did the Badgers draw the Big Ten East's three best teams—Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State—as its cross-divisional opponents, but the Badgers will face them in three consecutive games to start league play, with only their Oct. 15 battle with the Buckeyes coming at home in Madison.
And that's not all.
After having already faced LSU, Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State in the first half of its schedule, Wisconsin's Big Ten West opener just so happens to come against reigning division champion Iowa—in a road game at Kinnick Stadium, nonetheless.
Add it all up, and the Badgers will open Big Ten play with four games against teams that combined for a 46-8 record in 2015, with three of the four matchups coming on the road. Even after that, games against Nebraska and Northwestern will hardly be gimmes, although by that point it may not even matter for Wisconsin as far as Big Ten title contention is concerned.
Who has the toughest schedule in the conference?
The answer's the Badgers. And there's not even a close a second.
This is a tough spot for me, because on the one hand, I like Chris Ash as a coach. Just look at the way he transformed the Ohio State defense from what it was in 2013 to being national championship-caliber in 2014, and it's easy to see why Rutgers tabbed the former Buckeyes defensive coordinator as their new head coach.
But as much as I think Ash has the potential to be a great head coach one day, it's hard to imagine him finding that success with the Scarlet Knights—at least not immediately.
With a roster still in flux, Rutgers' 2016 schedule is hardly favorable—which it rarely will be while playing in the Big Ten East. With a cross-divisional against Iowa being added to annual matchups against Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State, the Scarlet Knights would likely need to win six of their remaining eight games in order to become bowl-eligible in the coming year.
After going 4-8 a year ago and with no clear-cut answer at quarterback, that's going to be tough to do against the likes of Washington, New Mexico, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and Penn State. A three-week stretch against the Hawkeyes, Buckeyes and Wolverines to start Big Ten play will be particularly difficult and could ultimately derail Ash's debut season in Piscataway.
On the bright side, I've liked a lot of what Ash has done four months into his new job from a program-building standpoint, and with a commitment from 2017 4-star offensive tackle Micah Clark, he could be headed for long-term success.
I just don't see that showing up early in 2016, however, as the Scarlet Knights will likely need to take at least one step back before making even greater progress forward.
While former Michigan defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin is now at Maryland, his replacement in Ann Arbor is actually former Boston College coordinator Don Brown, not Wolverines defensive line coach Greg Mattison.
But as far as Michigan's defense, which ranked fourth in the nation in total defense a year ago, is concerned, I actually expect the Wolverines to only improve in the coming year.
Although the hiring of Greg Schiano at Ohio State stole the headlines, Jim Harbaugh's tabbing of Brown was one of the more impressive moves in the Big Ten this offseason. The Eagles laid claim to the nation's top-ranked defense in 2015 and improved each season since Brown arrived in 2013.
With Brown's blitz-heavy approach, Michigan's defense will be aggressive, and Jabrill Peppers' move to a linebacker role could be a game-changer in the Big Ten in the coming year. The player Brown last used at Peppers' new position, Matt Milano, totaled 17.5 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks in 2015, and his three outside linebackers before that—Josh Keyes, Kevin Pierre-Louis and Sio Moore—are each playing in the NFL.
Add that the Wolverines will possess one of the nation's top corners in Jourdan Lewis and a defensive line that now includes the nation's top prospect in Rashan Gary, and there's no reason to believe Michigan will take a step back on defense in 2016. Durkin was impressive—there's a reason he now finds himself as a head coach—but the Wolverines still have the talent, and possibly the coordinator, to build on an already impressive start on the defensive side of the ball in the Harbaugh era in Ann Arbor.
Well, with this week's news, as first reported by Eleven Warriors' Eric Seger, that Collier will "most likely" miss the 2016 season with a torn ACL, the chances of the redshirt sophomore ever becoming an Ohio State starter have only gotten slimmer.
And they weren't all that big to begin with.
Coming out of the spring, Joe Burrow had seemingly locked up the Buckeyes' backup job behind J.T. Barrett, and Collier would have found himself in a battle with true freshman Dwayne Haskins for third-string duty had he remained healthy. That's not a great spot for a player entering his third year in a program, with head coach Urban Meyer only adding talent at quarterback with each recruiting class.
Collier's ceiling was always comparable to former OSU backup Kenny Guiton, who served as Braxton Miller's primary understudy and even managed to put together a few memorable moments throughout his final two seasons in Columbus. But Guiton was never the type of talent you'd feel comfortable with if you had to rely on him as a long-term starter.
Collier is similar, having landed with the Buckeyes as a safety signing after Meyer and his staff waited it out for too long in the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes of 2014. There's nothing wrong with that; "program players" have a place at most schools, even if it's unlikely they'll ever contribute on the field for an extended period of time.
With his recent injury, the door for Collier to do just that appears to be closing. At this point, his status moving forward is up in the air and will depend not only on his recovery, but what happens in the Buckeyes backfield in his absence in 2016.
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. Recruit rankings and info courtesy of 247Sports.
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