Another good weekend for sorting, although not much in the way of marquis games.
Ohio State gets absolutely nothing out of visiting Northwestern in the friendly confines. Should be a beat down. The best thing OSU can hope for is a win and no injuries.
Similarly, Penn State gets nothing out of going to Purdue. Anything short of a big win and no injuries will be a dissapointment.
Several power rankings sorting games:
UCLA visits Seattle on a hot streak. Traveling from LA to Seattle isn't quite like west coast to midwest, but it's still a trek. This is a solid Pac-10 rivalry game, and will help us figure out if UCLA just had a brutal schedule, or caught lightning in a bottle last week against Iowa.
Michigan State at Illinois: battle of two middle-of-the-pack teams. Probably the last game MSU can afford to lose and still go bowling, but their season would look a lot better with this as a road win. If Illinois wins this, they should be on a winning streak with a 9-win season going into their bowl game. That's a pretty good year for the Illini.
Rutgers @ Maryland is a classic why-are-they-here battle between two teams that consistently struggle. Rutgers may need this one to go bowling. Maryland would still need help, even if they win. I'm still wondering how Maryland beat USC...
And then the marquis-ish game: Oregon visits Camp Randall. You can bet the Badgers have had a lot of rough practices/film sessions since their embarassing loss to Iowa two weeks ago. Does that, 2000 miles of travel, and a nice home environment have any chance of making this game competitive? Here's hoping...
