Week two is in the books, and a few of the teams were knocked out of the ranks of the unbeaten. Several dominant performances were on display against overmatched opponents. Below are some initial thoughts on where things stand within The Big Ten after week two ~
- You Get A Shutout: Ohio State 70, Grambling State 0; Penn State 34, FIU 0; Nebraska 68, Akron 0; and Minnesota 66, Northwestern State 0. Of this group, Penn State pulled away in the second half, after only leading FIU 10-0 at the half.
- The Scoreboard Operators Were Keeping Busy: Oregon 69, Oklahoma State 3; Illinois 45, Duke 19; Indiana 56, Kennesaw State 9; USC 59, Georgia Southern 20; Rutgers 45, Miami University 17; Washington 70, UC Davis 10; Purdue 34, S. Illinois 17; Maryland 20, N. Illinois 9; Northwestern 42, W. Illinois 7. Several of these games had impressive results. Illinois going on the road to play Duke helped to answer skeptics who have questioned how good the Fighting Illini may be in 2025. Oregon continues to look as one of the nation’s best teams, despite the amount of roster turnover from last year’s team. Washington’s Jonah Coleman scored 5 touchdowns in the Huskies’ rout of UC Davis.
- Possibly The Game Of The Week In The Conference: Michigan State came back to defeat Boston College 42-40 in 2OT on Saturday night in East Lansing. This is the kind of game that Michigan State needed to win as they continue to build under second year head coach Jonathan Smith.
- No Longer Unbeaten: Iowa State 16, Iowa 13; Oklahoma 24, Michigan 13. Both Big Ten teams were on the road and came home with their first loss of the 2025 season. For Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, the loss at Iowa State delayed Ferentz from taking over as the all-time winningest Big Ten coach. Iowa will look to get Ferentz the record in week three when Iowa hosts UMass. Michigan rallied in the second half after being down 14-0 at halftime, but had struggles offensively to ever take the lead against the Sooners.
- Still Searching For Their First Win: UNLV defeated UCLA 30-23. The Bruins had a valiant comeback, after being down 23-3 at the half. Too many penalties and too deep of a hole by UCLA were too much to overcome. “I’m just frustrated because when you know we can execute better than we were and put together two halves like I wish we could’ve done, the outcome would’ve been different…” said UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster. UCLA will be looking for his first win of the season when they host New Mexico on September 12th.
