Big Ten football power rankings after Week 7

Most teams in the Big Ten have now played a third of their Big Ten schedule, and we are beyond due to share some Big Ten power rankings. Rather than publish weekly power rankings every week of the college football season this week, I decided to take a different approach and allow a few games to be played before jumping in with my take on the state of the Big Ten hierarchy. I suppose I can say I’m thankful I decided to wait, because my outlook on the conference now, midway through October, is very different from where I would have had it at the beginning of the season.

Yes, my take on Penn State is the one that has changed the most. I went from fully believing this was going to be a team roaring its way back to the College Football Playoff with a realistic shot to at least play for a national title to simply wondering if this team is even good enough to reach a bowl game. And we are just midway through the regular season. Yikes.

Of course, there is a very familiar name sitting at the top of my personal Big Ten rankings this week, and it should hardly be a surprise to see them there. Of course, I am talking about the Indiana Hoosiers just as we all suspected all along.

Why Indiana over Ohio State? Honestly, it is a bit of a toss-up for me right now. Both teams scored big wins over Illinois, the only common opponent so far, but Indiana’s performance, to me, felt more abusive of the Illini. Ohio State may have scored a big win over Texas in the season opener, but the stock in that win has diminished even with the Longhorns handing Oklahoma a loss this weekend. Meanwhile, Indiana went on the road and beat Oregon by 10 points to hand the Ducks their first loss in Big Ten play since joining the conference. But Oregon is still in the Big Ten title hunt.

Here is how I’m ranking the Big Ten teams following the results of Week 7.