Pre-spring bold predictions for the 2024 Big Ten football season

Welcome to March, the time when spring practice begins and focus is officially turned toward the upcoming season.

This edition of looking ahead includes trying to understand what the sport will look like. The Big Ten now includes 18 teams, the College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 teams and Wisconsin’s place among both is unknown.

Related: Wisconsin football’s biggest questions entering spring practice

Will the Badgers ascend to the space currently occupied by Penn State? Will the program become a Playoff regular as the field continues to expand? Head coach Luke Fickell has questions to answer entering year two of his tenure in Madison.

Looking ahead to the season, we’ve already ranked all 18 programs in the Big Ten, ranked the 18 starting quarterbacks, ranked all 18 head coaches, predicted each Big Ten team’s 2024 record, looked at the early College Football Playoff tiers and checked in on the Las Vegas win totals for each team in the conference.

Now, here are our pre-spring bold predictions for the 2024 Big Ten football season:

Nebraska flirts with the title game

Alright, let’s start with a big one.

Nebraska returns after a 5-7 first season under Matt Rhule with a ton of optimism toward the future. First, the program landed top quarterback Dylan Raiola to lead the team for years to come.

Second, the schedule allows for a big 2024. Nebraska avoids Michigan, Oregon and Penn State. It starts its conference schedule with five of six winnable games, then a final stretch that still isn’t a gigantic challenge.

Nebraska could be 8-1 entering the final few weeks of the season if things fall right, meaning it could sniff the conference title game if other teams stumble along the way.

Michigan crashes down to earth

Sherrone Moore might be the right hire for Michigan. But even if Jim Harbaugh had stayed, this Michigan team loses 64% of its production from last season — 128th out of 134 programs in the nation.

The team won’t be nearly as good. Gone are the starting quarterback, top running back, top two receivers, entire offensive line, best defensive linemen and top linebackers.

Pair that with a coaching exodus following Harbaugh to the Chargers, and you have a tough situation in year one under Moore.

I think Michigan will be quite good moving forward. But it’s staring at a 9-3, 8-4 2024 season.

Tough introductions for new California members

This prediction isn’t very bold if you ask midwestern Big Ten fans. But if you ask college fans from now-former Pac 12 country? I’m sure they scoff at the idea of the Big Ten being a challenging move for USC and UCLA.

First, UCLA…Chip Kelly, the program’s former head coach, just left to take the offensive coordinator position at Ohio State. New head coach DeShaun Foster seems fine, but he’s never coached in college before and nobody knows what to expect. The program isn’t exactly churning entering the new conference.

Next, USC…Head coach Lincoln Riley finally fired longtime defensive coordinator Alex Grinch during the 2023 season as the Trojans were one of the worst defenses in the country. Quarterback Caleb Williams was great, as will whoever follows him. But USC is in enough disarray on the defensive side of the ball that it can’t be fixed instantly.

So not only are both programs entering a new, challenging landscape. But each is dealing with issues leading up to the move. That isn’t a good recipe.

Three Big Ten teams make the 12-team College Football Playoff

This prediction isn’t much of a challenge.

I’d argue Oregon and Ohio State are locks to make it, even if each suffers a few losses during the season. My third would be Penn State, which has a manageable schedule and returns one of the conference’s best quarterbacks.

That’s an easy three. I wouldn’t be surprised if another team like Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington or Nebraska finished 9-3 or 10-2 and got a nod.

Wisconsin's Tyler Van Dyke leads the conference in passing

This one is bold.

Van Dyke enters the Big Ten quarterback landscape as one of the more accomplished passers. He isn’t quite the best, but he seems to be a good fit for Phil Longo’s offense and will put up impressive numbers.

The big contenders to lead the conference in passing are Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, Ohio State’s Will Howard and Washington’s Will Rogers.

There will be quarterbacks with better overall seasons, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Longo’s offense really hit a stride this season with Van Dyke under center.

Rutgers wins eight games

That sentence shouldn’t sound extremely bold, but it is.

Rutgers enters 2024 off a 7-6 2023 season, its best year since going 8-5 back in 2014. Plus head coach Greg Schiano returns 74% of its production, the 8th-highest rate in the nation.

The Scarlet Knights should be able to recreate last year’s quality. They’ll do it against a manageable schedule, given the circumstances:

It avoids all of the top teams in the conference. The team is one or two big upset wins away from an eight-win season.

Minnesota bottoms out

I think things are going to get really bad for Minnesota this year.

Las Vegas has its win total at 4.5. I think that may be a bit generous.

Head coach P.J. Fleck’s team gets the usual Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois trio, plus Michigan, USC, Maryland, Rutgers and Penn State.

It avoids Oregon and Ohio State, but there isn’t a single pushover game on the schedule. This is where if things start to go poorly they can really spiral.

The best new hire is...Jonathan Smith at Michigan State

The new coaching hires entering the 2024 season: UCLA’s DeShaun Foster, Washington’s Jedd Fisch, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Northwestern’s David Braun (technically), Michigan’s Sherrone Moore and Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith.

Foster likely needs some time, Fisch will deal with the inevitable let down after the 2023 season under DeBoer, Cignetti will have a hard time winning at Indiana and Moore we just discussed. The only other candidate is Braun, who isn’t really a new hire given he coached the entire 2023 season at Northwestern.

I see Smith bringing instant stability to the Spartans. His approach should work, the recruiting will improve and young phenom Aidan Chiles should give them instant results. After the Mel Tucker disaster, it feels like a grand slam hire.

Oregon beats Ohio State twice

There is now a world where top teams can play three times in one season: in the regular season, then the conference championship, then again in the expanded College Football Playoff.

That may happen this year with Oregon and Ohio State. The two teams meet October 12 in Eugene, Oregon — a game which I see the Ducks narrowly winning.

I’d then bet on a rematch in the Playoff. After Oregon dropped two close games to Washington in 2023, I think it will return the favor to Ohio State in 2024.

Ohio State misses the Big Ten title...due to being limited at quarterback (again)

This is a trickle-down of the Oregon prediction.

I’m just not a believer in Will Howard. If Ohio State is to lose to Oregon and not win the Big Ten, it will be because the offense is limited under Howard as it was under Kyle McCord last year.

Also, no Marvin Harrison Jr. will hurt Howard’s cause, and I can’t forget Kansas State playing much better in 2023 after the move to backup QB Avery Johnson.

I don’t think Howard is a complete liability. But I don’t see him as a top-7 QB in the conference.

Ohio State fires Ryan Day at the end of the season

Consider this the trickle-down from the trickle-down.

Ohio State loses to Oregon and once more in the regular season, missing out on a Big Ten title for the fourth consecutive season. The program still makes the College Football Playoff, but the goalposts have moved with the expansion to 12 teams. Just making the Playoff isn’t good enough anymore at a place like Ohio State.

So if it inevitably loses at that point due to the fact Howard wasn’t a big enough upgrade over McCord, I’d expect some action. Not only would the Ryan Day discussion heat up again. But this time it wouldn’t be that ‘he just needs to go find another quarterback,’ as that’s exactly what happened this offseason. It would instead move toward the program finding a new head coach.

Drew Allar takes Penn State to the Big Ten Championship and College Football Playoff

This was hinted at during the previous Playoff prediction: I think this is finally the year Penn State breaks through and makes the CFP.

Does that directly coincide with the Playoff expanding? Of course it does. But the Nittany Lions are a perennial 10-2 team, only with losses to Ohio State and Michigan — the class of the sport.

Michigan is now trending down and Ohio State is even a bit of a question. Now is the perfect time for Penn State to put a 10-2, 11-1 season together and make the Playoff.

A lot is working in its favor this year. Head coach James Franklin’s team returns 70% of its production including most of its offensive core and the group misses Oregon and Michigan on the schedule. This is finally the year.

The Big Ten expands again next offseason

We must learn that the status quo in college football is ever-changing.

Not only did the Pac 12 disband this offseason while the Big Ten and SEC strategically moved toward a two-super-conference power structure, but it was all done so with the peripheral knowledge that this wouldn’t be the end of the movement.

So whether it’s Florida State, Clemson, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Kansas or whoever, it’s more likely than not that the Big Ten and SEC continue their expansion movement.

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