Big Ten picks, storylines in Week 1: Predicting the 2024 season; can USC overcome LSU in marquee opener?

The college football season begins in full this weekend, meaning there’s no more time left to make predictions. You either take the chance to make yourself look stupid now or risk the chance people will discover you’re an idiot in likely far more embarrassing ways.

I’ve never been one to miss a chance to showcase my stupidity.

So, let me be the one-millionth person on the internet to share my predictions for the Big Ten this season, but to do so with a wholly original concept of handing out my B1G Time Preseason Awards. The B1G Time Preseason Awards are the most prestigious preseason awards in all of college football if not civilized society. To win one is the pinnacle of human achievement. To fall short is a reason to continue living, as you have something for which to strive.

Let’s get to them.

Conference Champion — Ohio State: Can the Ohio State Buckeyes pull off the rare double feat of following an offseason championship with a regular season championship? I clearly think so!

Honestly, the offseason is so long and the lead-up to the season so endless that you sometimes find your brain working against its own opinion. I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked over the winter, spring and summer who I believe will win the league, and the answer has always been Ohio State. At one point, I got tired of giving the same answer, so I debated changing things, but I was not influential enough to change my own mind.

Sure, maybe Ohio State won’t win the Big Ten. It hasn’t since 2020 (maybe you’ve heard), and Oregon, Penn State and Michigan (the team that’s won the last three years) are all capable of doing so, but you’re lying to yourself if you say you think any team has a better chance.

The Buckeyes had an incredible defense last season, retained key parts and added more on top with Caleb Downs. Offensively, you lose Marvin Harrison Jr., but you add Quinshon Judkins to a running back room that was already talented, replace Kyle McCord with a far more mobile Will Howard and you still have one of the deepest wide receiver rooms in the country.

Is the offensive line a concern? Sure, but it’s the kind of concern that could possibly keep the Buckeyes from winning a national title, not the kind that causes you to worry about winning the league.

Offensive Player of the Year — Dillon Gabriel, Oregon: Last season, Bo Nix threw for 4,508 (470) yards and 45 touchdowns. While playing with the Sooners, Dillon Gabriel threw for 3,660 yards and 30 touchdowns but did so while throwing 86 fewer passes. Per pass, Nix averaged 9.6 yards while Gabriel finished at 9.5. He will throw the ball more often with the Ducks than he did with the Sooners and finish with numbers closer to Nix’s.

The Big Ten has taken a lot of flak for its lack of passing attacks over the years, and deservedly so. Only two players have eclipsed the 4,000-yard mark as a passer in the league’s history, and both played for Ohio State. C.J. Stroud threw for 4,435 yards in 2021, and the late Dwayne Haskins went for 4,831 in 2018. If Gabriel stays healthy, he could break Haskins’ record, but even if he doesn’t, he’ll win this award if he eclipses 4,000 yards.

Defensive Player of the Year — Mason Graham, Michigan: Defensive tackles rarely win postseason awards because they play defensive tackle and typically rack up the counting stats that voters flock to, but do not get it twisted: Graham is the best defensive player in the conference.

His closest competition could be teammate Will Johnson, and while Johnson is stellar himself, I’m of the belief that the attributes Graham brings to Michigan’s defense are the most important ones you can have.

As the sport (and the Big Ten) becomes more pass-oriented, the ability to collapse a pocket and pressure quarterbacks from the interior is invaluable. Damn near every QB can roll out to the left or right when pressured from one side, but nearly all panic when they suddenly find the center or guard being pushed back into their laps.

Graham does that routinely, and when you factor in that he’s lined up alongside another stud on the interior in Kenneth Grant, I don’t know how many offensive lines exist in the country capable of dealing with him.

Freshman of the Year — Dylan Raiola, Nebraska: It’s a two-horse race between Raiola and Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith, but I give Raiola the nod because he’ll be Nebraska’s starting QB. Smith, as talented as he is, still must share touches on an offense filled with other great players.

Raiola is seen as a savior of sorts for a Cornhuskers team in desperate need of a successful season. While I fear the expectations are too much, I’m confident Raiola will have a mostly successful season. If he achieves his ceiling, Nebraska could flirt with a trip to Indianapolis. But even if Raiola goes through the typical freshman struggles, the Huskers should still reach a bowl game for the first time since 2016. 

X-Factor of the Year — Alex Orji, Michigan: I’m not breaking news when I say there have been a lot of changes at Michigan this offseason, which have led to more question marks about a reigning national champion than we’ve had in a while. The biggest one is what the Wolverines will do at QB.

Alex Orji has not officially been named the starter, but I’m operating on the assumption he will be. How he performs in the role will have a huge impact on the league as a whole. We know Michigan’s defense will continue to be elite. What we don’t know is how effective the Michigan offense will be.

Orji has not shown much as a passer in the early stages of his career, but we know he’s a dynamic athlete who can change games with his legs. If he shows development as a passer and forces defenses to play the Wolverines straight up, Michigan could win its fourth-straight Big Ten title. If he doesn’t, this team could lose four games.

Team I’m Not Nearly As High On As Others — Rutgers: There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Rutgers this offseason, but I think some of it is misguided. What I mean by that is, while I’m high on what Greg Schiano has done to this point and the overall direction of the program, there’s been a little too much attention paid to Rutgers’ schedule and not enough to its personnel.

At the end of the day, this is still a team with a lot of questions on offense. The last we saw Athan Kaliakmanis, he completed 53% of his passes for 6.3 yards a pop for Minnesota. Sure, those numbers are better than what Gavin Wimsatt did, but they aren’t enough of an improvement to expect the kind of jump I’ve seen some speculate about.

I’ve seen people talk about Rutgers as a College Football Playoff sleeper! This team should get to a bowl game, but that’s about as far as I’ll go.

Team I’m Not As Low On As Others — Illinois: Two years ago, the Illini started the season 7-1 before fading down the stretch to finish 8-5. Last season, they went 5-7 and failed to miss a bowl. That’s led to a lot of negative opinions about the team heading into 2024, and it’s hard to blame anybody for feeling that way. It’s not as if Illinois has built up a lot of credit on the football field to earn the benefit of the doubt.

But, if you look closer at last season, the team’s final three losses came by a combined eight points. While there are legitimate reasons to believe the defensive struggles the team dealt with last year will continue, there’s also reason to think the offense could be very effective.

Illinois should have one of the best offensive lines in the league, and history suggests that when Bret Bielema teams have good offensive lines, they do rather well. In a season where I’m not sure there are a lot of strong offenses outside the top four teams, Illinois’ ability to score points could prove a difference-maker in their coinflip games. My expectations aren’t sky-high here; their preseason win total is 5.5, and I’ve seen many prognosticators pegging them for the bottom third of the league. But this feels like a solid bowl team to me.

Stadium of the Year — Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium, Northwestern: It’s stupid, but in a season that sees the Big Ten adding four new schools, the most exciting change to me is Northwestern’s stadium situation. The Wildcats will be playing alongside the shore of Lake Michigan on a practice field that’s been turned into a temporary stadium.

If you’ve never lived near the Lake Michigan shore, let me tell you, the wind can be an alarming factor. I can’t wait to see what kind of havoc it wreaks upon passing attacks and kickers in every game played there. The potential for comedy is high.

B1G Time’s projected Big Ten standings

A couple of things worth commenting on here. First of all, having eight teams finish either 5-4 or 4-5 strongly reflects how similar so many Big Ten teams are after you get past the four programs at the top. The truth is that the second tier can go a billion different directions and will probably be settled by which teams have the best injury luck and, quite possibly, the best kickers.

Then there’s the order at which I’ve listed the teams. The Big Ten released its tiebreaker rules Monday, but I’m not nearly smart enough to use them on my own, so I “broke” ties by putting teams with the better overall record ahead if they had the same conference record. If both had the same overall record, I went with alphabetical order.

Why didn’t the Big Ten use alphabetical order as an actual tiebreaker? Probably fear of Illinois domination.

Random Big Ten stat of the week

There have been plenty of jokes about the Iowa offense in recent years, and for good reason, but did you know Iowa has had a quarterback lead the league in passing yards more recently than Wisconsin? Here’s a look at the last time each Big Ten school had a quarterback lead the league in passing yards. 

Shout out to Taulia Tagovailoa. By leading the league in passing last season, he became the first QB among the “new” (since 2014) league schools to do it.

I won’t be surprised if Gabriel wastes no time adding Oregon to this list.

Going with my gut

Every week I pick the Big Ten games against the spread based on nothing but my gut reaction to the number. No digging into numbers, just vibes, baby. I even track my record to embarrass myself publicly. Odds via SportsLine consensus.

No. 23 USC vs. No. 13 LSU in Las Vegas: My initial reaction to this game is that we could approach 100 points between these two teams if they continue the defensive form we saw from both last season. Both are breaking in new quarterbacks, but despite his six-touchdown performance in the bowl game last season, I’m higher on LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier than I am USC’s Miller Moss. Based on that, I have to side with the Tigers here. LSU -4.5