Big Ten football misery index: 9 OTs shift the balance of the East

You were sooooo close, NCAA, to having a perfect 2021. You got so much right — or at least not wrong.

It took a while, but eventually you checked off letting players get paid for their name, image and likeness (literally, checks were cut, especially for so many Michigan State football and basketball players), letting players transfer once without making up a reason and letting everyone have an extra year of eligibility to make up for 2020-21’s chaos.

(Seriously, the less said about last season the better, and that’s coming from someone whose job it is to judge misery on a weekly basis. Or you could ask Jim Harbaugh.)

And then, you turned your regulatin’ eyes to football’s overtime rules. It wasn’t enough to force teams to go straight to 2-point conversions in the fifth overtime. Instead, you moved that up to the third overtime. But hey, who’s going to get to three OTs anyway, right?

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Enter Penn State and Illinois on Saturday, in the game we weren't sure we wanted one quarter of, much less nine overtimes. So of course, after combining for 20 points in regulation, the Nittany Lions and Illini needed 37 additional plays — we counted — to score 18 more, with Illinois coming out on top, 20-18.

How did they get there in OT? We’ll keep this short, in contrast to the 250 minutes (aka, the length of a typical Pac-12 game) it took in Happy Valley: After the two squads traded field goals in each of the first two OTs, they each whiffed on five tries from the 3-yard line. (Illinois, mystifyingly, threw the ball four of the five times despite rushing for more than 300 yards in regulation.) Finally, in the eighth OT, Illinois’ Isaiah Williams broke through, followed soon after by Penn State’s Noah Cain. In OT No. 9, Sean Clifford — welcome back, buddy! — had his pass knocked away for the Nittany Lions; Brandon Peters (speaking of extra years of eligibility) then found Casey Washington for the Illini’s winning score. WHEW.

It was shocking — the Nittany Lions were 23 ½-point favorites going in.

It was emotional — Washington, after the win, said “I actually cried. It just felt good.”

But it was not actually, y’know, an effective way to end a game, as fun/horrifying as it might have been to see Clifford roll out as a receiver in the third OT. (To be fair, gaining 3 yards in Illinois’ offense this season is, as they say, a feature, not a bug.) The new OT rules might already be a little broken.

But we here at the Big Ten football misery index are here to help with some ideas on how to change them.

A.) Make all OTs a field-goal kicking competition, with the spots moving back 5 yards in every OT. Sure, it’d be a little like ending a baseball game with a home run derby, or a hockey game with a shootout, but … wait, they actually do that?

B.) The captains meet at midfield and take turns naming active NFL players from their alma mater. Last one going wins. (Of course, this might end Rutgers’ OT efforts a bit prematurely, but that might be an argument for, not against.)

C.) Go back to the old rules, back to before we got 2-point conversions involved. Just line ’em up at the 25 on every series. Games might not end any sooner, but at least teams could use their whole playbooks, rather than the section solely devoted to gaining THREE YARDS.

And while we wait for the NCAA to change things up yet again — maybe in time for that Michigan/Michigan State game we’ve heard so much about? — let’s run through the Misery Index, from least miserable to most:

14. Illinois: W, 20-18, over Penn State (9OT)

Record: 3-5, 2-3. Last week’s ranking: 7.

A win's a win, and this was coach Bret Bielema's 100th. Doing it in nine OTs ought to count for at least Nos. 101 and 102, right? Then again, his wins at Illinois ought to count double based on the talent — “I don’t believe we have a player in the two-deep that they’ve recruited here over the last three years that is really significantly doing anything for us in the playing department.” — he assessed Monday.

13. Ohio State: W, 54-7, over Indiana

Record: 6-1, 4-0. Last week: 11.

Remember when we thought the Buckeyes were done? That was fun.

12. Michigan: W, 33-7, over Northwestern

Record: 7-0, 4-0. Last week: 8.

You know this rushing thing is catching on when even the five-star quarterback recruit has more yards on the ground (36) than in the air (34).

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11. Michigan State: DNP

Record: 7-0, 4-0. Last week: 5.

Saturday will be the fifth meeting for the Wolverines and Spartans with both teams are ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press poll (1956, 1957, 1961, 1964). The Spartans are 3-1 in those games, with the only loss coming in 1964. Then again, one of those matchups — 1956 — saw the Spartans catch more passes from U-M’s quarterback (two) than their own (zero), which was so Big Ten, even then.

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10. Minnesota: W, 34-16, over Maryland

Record: 5-2, 3-1. Last week: 13.

The Gophers are up to five different running backs with a 100-yard game this season, after freshmen Ky Thomas (139 yards) and Mar’Keise Irving (105) did it against the Terrapins on Saturday. Coach Harbaugh is jealous.

BIG TEN MISERY INDEX RECAP

WEEK 0: Look out, Michigan and MSU — there's a new team atop the Big Ten

WEEK 1: Why Michigan football's worst loss ever is a little better

WEEK 2: Why Michigan State is still conference's king of Columbus

WEEK 3: Another team has beef with Notre Dame

WEEK 4: Michigan and Michigan State prove 'stats are for losers'

WEEK 5: Michigan made a jump, but can it dim Nebraska's lights?

WEEK 6: Wolverines, Spartans step onto CFP tightrope

WEEK 7: Boiling up chaos for Spartans and Wolverines

9. Wisconsin: W, 30-13, over Purdue

Record: 4-3, 2-2. Last week: 9.

Graham Mertz and the Badgers attempted just eight passes, with five completions, against the Boilermakers. It’s the fewest Wisconsin pass attempts in a game since Curt Phillips attempted seven passes (and completed four, including one to a Watt brother, Derek) in Wisconsin’s 62-14 win over Indiana on Nov. 10, 2012. Of course, those Badgers also ran 64 times for 564 yards, which this year’s squad did not. (Though 51 runs for 290 yards isn’t bad, either.)

8. Rutgers: DNP

Record: 3-4, 0-4. Last week: 3.

When the Misery Index started a year ago this weekend, we made one rule: No making fun of the Scarlet Knights on weeks they won. (It seemed like we wouldn’t be giving up that many jokes, honestly.) In any event, the Scarlet Knights didn’t win this week, but they didn’t lose, either, so we’ll point out this: The women’s soccer team’s win over Indiana on Thursday night clinched an outright Big Ten title, the first team championship for the school — in any sport — since Rutgers joined the Big Ten in 2014.

7. Nebraska: DNP

Record: 3-5, 1-4. Last week: 2.

While it’s been a rough season (to say the least) for the Huskers of Corn, no one can say coach Scott Frost doesn’t relish taking the time to ketchup with his biggest Big Red Hots fans. It couldn’t have "bun" easy to mustard the courage for this photo.

6. Iowa: DNP

Record: 6-1, 3-1. Last week: 1.

The Hawkeyes are ready for Saturday’s game against Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium — or at least their fans in Altoona, Iowa are. The city’s mayor — fresh off winning chocolates in a bet with the mayor of Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Iowa’s upset of the Nittany Lions — has a similar deal in place with Altoona, Wisconsin, for cheese curds, bratwurst and beer. (The cities are 330 miles apart, in case you were wondering.) Frankly, this just seems like a lot of work to get out of going to the Hy-Vee, but if it gets us a bet with Altoona, Alabama (population 913) over a CFP matchup, it’ll all have been worth it.

(Also, has anyone checked with former standout Wisconsin wide receiver Al Toon about all this? It feels like he should be getting a cut from whichever side wins Saturday.)

5. Purdue: L, 30-13, to Wisconsin

Record: 4-3, 2-2. Last week: 14.

Perhaps the most surprising stat out of the Boilermakers’ loss was that receiver David Bell was held to six catches for 33 yards. It was his first game with fewer than 60 receiving yards since Nov. 2, 2019, when he had seven catches for 23 yards against Nebraska. (Bell also topped 100 yards in 11 of his 14 games between then and Saturday.)

4. Maryland: L, 34-16, to Minnesota

Record: 4-3, 1-3. Last week: 6.

We know, we know, everyone is excited to have the NHL back on ESPN, but the Terrapins’ impromptu tribute to The Great One — Wayne Gretzky, that is; their tribute to Ralph Friedgen is NEXT week — went a little awry. Early in the second quarter, the Terps sent two No. 99s onto the field for a punt: linebacker Frankie Burgess and punter Colton Spangler. Unfortunately for the Terps, the NCAA prefers only one player per number on the field at any time, and Maryland was flagged 5 yards for an equipment violation. (Seriously though, if you share your number with the punter, why on Earth would you be on the field at the same time as him?)

3. Northwestern: L, 33-7, to Michigan

Record: 3-4, 1-3. Last week: 12.

Sophomore running back Evan Hull had a 75-yard run against the Wolverines, to go with his 90-yarder against Ohio and a 49-yarder against MSU in September, for an average of 71.3 yards on those carries. The Wildcats have averaged 3.5 yards per carry on their 261 other rushes this season.

2. Indiana: L, 54-7, to Ohio State

Record: 2-5, 0-4. Last week: 4.

Three weeks ago, the Hoosiers lost Michael Penix Jr. to injury. On Saturday, backup Jack Tuttle played in just two series due to a right foot injury, leaving backups-to-the-backup Donaven McCulley and Grant Gremel to go 4-for-10 for 39 yards combined.. Good thing the season is over soon! Oh.

1. Penn State: L, 20-18, to Illinois (9OT)

Record: 5-2, 2-2. Last week: 10.

The last time a result took this long to be finalized in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden was sworn in as President. Unfortunately for coach James Franklin and the Nittany Lions, there are no recounts with the Buckeyes looming Saturday.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Big Ten football misery index: Michigan, MSU riding high