Week 1 overreactions for Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten: College football Monday Madness

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The opening weekend of Big Ten Conference play gave us two top-20 matchups, a top-five Ohio State team opening on the road and some fun non-conference Power Five matchups.

So we learned everything we need to know about how 2021 will unfold, right?

It is the annual tradition across all sports. Spend months of buildup and predictive analysis waiting for a season to unfold, then make a snap judgment based on what we see when a team first takes the field.

Here are four big overreactions to what we saw as Big Ten kicked off the 2021 season. How many are even close to being accurate? Check back in December, or perhaps this weekend.

Iowa is the Big Ten’s best team

No team in the conference opened with a victory as impressive as Iowa’s 34-6 pulverization of Indiana. The Hawkeyes’ offense (20-6) and defense (14-6) would have both outscored IU. They jumped down the Hoosiers’ throats in the first three minutes and never let them come up for air.

A pair of pick-sixes by Riley Moss dominated the highlights and probably earned him Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week honors. Yet he was more the symptom than the disease that afflicted IU. True to their black and gold colors, Iowa’s defenders swarmed and stung and generally made the entire Hoosiers roster looked bothered and unsettled.

So imagine this, Ohio State fans — a team with Minnesota’s running game, and a similar quarterback who may still be reaching for his upside, backed by a tremendous defense. That could be waiting for you in Indianapolis in December.

Ohio State played down to the Big Ten’s QB standard

That is not a rip of C.J. Stroud, who played his first real football game in two years and held up fairly well all things considered. Yet it is also clear the Buckeye offense missed something at Minnesota — something its previous quarterback provided regularly.

According to Pro Football Focus’ tracking, Stroud completed all six pass attempts behind the line of scrimmage, and 4 of 6 from 0-9 yards. Yet it was at the next level that his night becomes ordinary at best. He completed 3 of 9 pass traveling 10 or more yards. That included two touchdown passes — with Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson both getting crazy separation from their defender — and Stroud’s lone interception.

Justin Fields thrived with downfield accuracy. His completion percentage over expected, which is weighted based on depth of target, was the highest since PFF began tracking the stat in 2015. That put him ahead of Baker Mayfield, Joe Burrow, Kyler Murray and plenty of other talented quarterbacks you are probably starting in NFL fantasy leagues this weekend.

I am intrigued by what strides Stroud makes between his first and second game. He will also face a significant jump on opposing talent as Oregon brings a handful of former five-star prospects to Ohio Stadium. Will Stroud find his groove downfield, or will the Buckeyes be forced to operate without one all season?

Indiana should bench Michael Penix

Back in 2018, then-freshman Adrian Martinez led Nebraska to a competitive 36-31 loss at Ohio Stadium. That game appeared to serve as sort of a coming-out party for the dual-threat quarterback, and a precursor of what could come from the Cornhuskers.

Well, we saw how that turned out. Watching Iowa turn IU quarterback Michael Penix to mush on Saturday, I wondered if we were seeing a Martinez-like career play out with Penix.

It sure seemed like Penix had arrived last October when he torched OSU for 491 yards and five touchdowns in a 42-35 loss. Yet excepting that performance, Penix has not been good in three of his last four games. In two of them, he downright stunk.

In those other three games, he completed 51.1 percent of his passes with two touchdowns and five interceptions. Even if you grade the effort against Iowa on a curve, those other two performances came last season against Maryland and Michigan State. Not exactly playoff-caliber defenses.

You may forget that IU’s best win of the Tom Allen era was a 14-6 victory at Wisconsin last season quarterbacked by Jack Tuttle. If Penix does not regain his form, Tuttle may get more chances.

Wisconsin’s window has closed

We speculated for years that if Wisconsin could only find a real quarterback — if it could develop something approaching Russell Wilson and keep him around for multiple seasons — the Badgers could again be a national force.

Then they went and found Graham Mertz, and the breakthrough seemed imminent. They brought the No. 65 overall player in the 2019 class into a league known as a wasteland of quarterback talent. Then he completed 20 of 21 passes in last season’s opener against Illinois and we were off to the races.

Since that game, Mertz has completed 57.4% of his passes with four touchdowns and seven interceptions. After losing to Northwestern, IU and Iowa in succession last season and sneaking past Minnesota in overtime, the Badgers opened 2021 with a 16-10 home loss to Penn State.

This sure seems like another team milling about in the mediocre middle of the Big Ten. After scoring 94 points in its first two games of 2020, Wisconsin has totaled 50 points in its last five against conference foes. The Badgers figured out how to find the talented quarterback, but don’t seem to know what to do with him next.

So those hot takes should hold up until Iowa State whoops up on the Hawkeyes this week, and Penix lights up Cincinnati next week, and Wisconsin runs the table to end up back in Lucas Oil Stadium.

Easy, targeting

The Big Ten couldn’t make it through the first weekend with out a targeting call causing a ruckus.

Penn State’s Ellis Brooks was ejected late in the Nittany Lions’ 16-10 victory at Wisconsin. Twitter erupted with journalists calling for reform, and Fox analyst Joel Klatt ripped the call on the air.

Let this serve as your annual reminder that the targeting penalty was introduced to protect the long-term health of defensive players as much as offensive players.

The “intent” of the defensive player is irrelevant. The “intent” of Brooks to lower his head and lead with the crown of his helmet — increasing the danger to himself — was indisputable. That’s targeting.

It did not matter that Shaun Wade was not trying to hurt Trevor Lawrence in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl. It did not matter that Lawrence lowered his own head. Wade led with the crown of his helmet. That’s targeting.

So I will join the calls for reform — but only to rename the infraction. Targeting has too easily been confused with unnecessary roughness, and we already have a penalty for that.

“Dangerously sloppy tackle form, on the defense, No. 39,” the referee could say. Remove any concept that the penalty is tied to an intent to harm the ball carrier. Reinforce that it’s about the player’s disregard, or lack of discipline, for harming either themselves or others.

And remind people that a flag or an ejection are nowhere near the top of the list of the worst things that can happen as a result of leading with the crown of his helmet.

Tatewatch

When former Ohio State quarterback Tate Martell wound his way back home to UNLV over the summer, I envisioned this as a fun weekly installment for Monday Madness.

We’ll see if the Running Rebels give him the chance to make this a recurring bit. Martell was inactive in UNLV’s season-opening 35-33 overtime home loss to Eastern Washington, an FCS program. He reportedly is still dealing with a thumb injury that already was an issue when he joined the program in July.

UNLV’s other two quarterbacks, Justin Rogers and Doug Brumfield, combined to complete 12 of 23 passes for 140 yards with no touchdowns and one interception. (Brumfield did run for 27 yards and a touchdown on seven carries.)

The Rebels are a 33-point underdog at Arizona State as of Sunday night.

Get the latest Ohio State Buckeyes merchandise: Here’s where you can order Ohio State football gear online, including jerseys, T-shirts, hoodies, hats and much more.