The Big 10 is now 18 teams with the 2024 additions of Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington. The continued expansion of the conference is just the latest in a sea of change for both the conference and college football overall the past 5 years. It’s been what seems like year-round news for those who cover the sport. What are the Big 10 football Top 10 Storylines of 2024? I am keeping my list to the most intriguing stories to look at on the field in 2024. It was hard to whittle it to 10 but here we go and far below includes a list of storylines that almost made it for your team.
Big Ten Football Top 10 Storylines
- Ohio State: Can Ryan Day and Ohio State beat Michigan and win the Natty?
- Michigan: Will new Michigan man and Head Coach Sheronne Moore continue the Wolverines recent success?
- Oregon: Dan Lanning and Oregon are building a monster in Eugene – can they win the Big 10 in Year 1 and make a playoff run?
- New Big Ten Teams: The Big 10 welcomes 4 new teams – how will the new Pac 12 members perform?
- Penn State: With the 12-team playoff, will James Franklin and Penn State break through and make it?
- USC: The Anti-Iowa problem – can Lincoln Riley and USC’s defense show big improvement?
- Wisconsin: It’s Luke Fickell’s Year 2 in Madison: Can the Badgers take a big leap this year?
- Nebraska: The Huskers have been the Kings of one score losses – will that change in Year 2 under Matt Rhule?
- Iowa: New offensive coordinator for Iowa – will this offense improve enough to make the Hawkeyes a contender in the new Big Ten?
- Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights and Greg Schiano have improved each year – but can Rutgers shock everyone and become the Cinderella team of 2024?
Can Ryan Day and Ohio State beat Michigan and win the Natty?
The top Big Ten story starts and ends with the #2 pre-season rated Buckeyes. So much is on the line, in so many ways. A three-game losing streak to hated rival Michigan. One playoff win since the last National Title in the 2014 season under Urban Meyer. Through the roof expectations with all the talent returning and supplemented with other NIL influenced new players like former Alabama 5-star super safety Caleb Downs. Does any college coach have more pressure on them than Ryan Day? Probably not, and definitely not in the Big 10.
And to think in 2022, Day’s Buckeyes were literally one play (or one less injury to Marvin Harrison, Jr. in the 4th quarter) away from vanquishing the eventual National Champ Georgia Bulldogs before falling 42-41 as their last second 50-yard game winning FG failed. But that was one of many plays that could have clinched the game in one of the most painful losses in Ohio State history.
And now Day and the Buckeyes have gone from dominating the Wolverines (winning 15 of 16 games from 2004 thru 2019) to having the script completely flip, losing 3 straight to Michigan including last year 30-24 game on the road which opened the door for the Wolverines to win their first National Title since 1997.
Ohio State has been one of the most successful programs in the country under Day with a 56-8 overall record and they have never lost to any Big 10 team except Michigan under his watch. But to the Buckeye faithful losing to the “School Up North” is an unforgivable sin putting unbelievable pressure on whoever is the head coach. Seeing what impact new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly will have on the OSU offense is a key part of this storyline as well.
Can Ohio State run the ball better and especially in the red zone, which was a weakness the last couple years? With a star-studded and experienced team, and with the Wolverines having lost so many starters, many feel at the very least Day needs to beat Michigan this year to keep his job. I don’t really agree with that assessment but no doubt this is a huge year for Ryan Day and his staff.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/rankings
Will new Michigan man and Head Coach Sheronne Moore continue the Wolverines recent success?
Michigan reached the pinnacle of college football winning the 2023 season National Championship (their first since 1997) with a 34-13 win over Washington. But now Jim Harbaugh has moved on to the NFL with the Los Angelos Chargers and Offensive Coordinator Sheronne Moore now takes the helm for the Wolverines. He faces some major challenges including the continued distractions of potential NCAA penalties under the Jim Harbaugh era and most importantly, the loss of significant talent from last year equating to 13 NFL draft picks, the most of any college team, and the loss and leadership of first round QB J.J. McCarthy.
But the silver lining is Michigan returns some super star players including pre-season All-American defensive tackle Mason Graham, cornerback Will Johnson and star Senior running back Donovan Edwards, as well as potential future first round picks in defensive tackle Kenneth Grant and tight end Colston Loveland. The star power is there. It’s a matter if Sheronne Moore and staff can develop a capable quarterback to replace McCarthy and mold all that talent with their new starters into a cohesive and well-rounded unit. The defense should be excellent once again, it’s the offense that is the big question mark.
But recent history has shown Michigan has been excellent at talent development so I would be surprised if Michigan drops off a lot and they should be a major factor in the Big Ten title race.
Why Michigan Football in 2024 Won’t Fall off a Cliff
Dan Lanning and Oregon are building a monster in Eugene – can they win the Big 10 in Year 1 and make a playoff run?
Dan Lanning has been a star in his short coaching career compiling a 22-5 record in his 2 seasons in Eugene and was considered a strong candidate to take over at Alabama with Nick Saban’s retirement. But Oregon has not made the playoffs since their National Title game loss in the 2024 season to Ohio State. Oregon went 12-2 in 2023 with two close and painful one-score losses to eventual National Champ runner up Washington and lost second round NFL draft pick in quarterback Bo Nix along with 8 total NFL draft picks.
But Lanning and the Ducks have done a great job in recruiting and in the transfer portal, backed by strong NIL funding, grabbing former UCF and Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel to replace Nix and Evan Stewart from Texas A&M, a former 5-star wide receiver mega recruit. Landing Gabriel, who has 49 career college starts was huge given the importance of the quarterback position and the roster is extremely talented across the board.
The feeling is it would be a huge disappointment if Oregon did not make the new expanded 12-team playoff and may peg them as the front runners to win the Big Ten given they get fellow front-runner Ohio State at home on October 12 in one of the most anticipated games in the 20024 season and in Oregon history. The teams could meet a second time in the Big Ten championship in Indianapolis in early December. The time might be now for Dan Lanning.
The Big 10 welcomes 4 new teams – how will the new Pac 12 members perform?
College football has experienced never before seen change the past 5 years. Conference re-alignment has been one of the mega-changes and seeing two Los Angelos based teams join the formerly mostly mid-western based Big 10 feels crazy. Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics in 2028 – and of course L.A. is in “Big 10 country”! The Big Ten literally now runs for sea to shining sea with Rutgers on the East coast.
2024 will be the inaugural Big 10 season for Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and the discussion is how will they adapt to being in the more physical and defense oriented Big 10, what success will they have, and how they will impact the Big 10 overall. All these teams have a strong football history and two of them have huge potential (USC and Oregon), but all four are capable of good success with the right coach at the helm.
Even weather is a point of discussion. How will the Pac 12 teams do (especially the L.A teams) if they have to play on the road in potential cold and windy conditions at teams like Wisconsin and Minnesota. Looks like the schedulers took care of this though with most of the new west coast teams playing their last 2 games in late November against each other. The only exception is Oregon at Wisconsin on November 16 but the Ducks have plenty of experience playing in inclement weather from Eugene, Oregon.
My take is football is still football so this factor is mostly overrated but there are times where this will come into play. I expect the Pac 12 teams to do just fine and if anything, the rest of the Big 10 will need to adjust to their better offenses.
With the 12-team playoff, will James Franklin and Penn State break through and make it?
No other team in college football, let alone the Big 10, might benefit from the expansion of the playoffs from 4 to 12 teams. The Penn State Nittany Lions have been the poster child for teams that are consistently really good, but not good enough to make the playoffs when only 4 teams are invited. In the past 8 seasons, Penn State has finished the following in the final College Football (CFP) ratings: 5th, 9th, 12th, 10th, unranked, unranked, 11th and 10th. In theory, that would be 6 of the last 8 years Penn State makes a 12-team field.
Everything is set up perfectly for James Franklin and team to make the field this year. A great defense, very talented overall roster, experienced and talented second year starting quarterback returning (in Drew Allar), a new, innovative and successful offensive coordinator in Andy Kotelnicki coming over from Kansas and reasonable schedule that does not include 2 of the top 4 expected Big 10 teams in Oregon and Michigan. The key will be for Allar to make the next step at QB and for Kotelnicki to turn the Nits offense into a more explosive unit. The key stretch on the schedule will be two back-to-back road games in October at (#24) USC and Wisconsin. Penn State likely will need to win at least one of those games.
No more excuses. Anything less than a playoff appearance for Penn State in 2024 would be considered a major disappointment. Big Jeff says James Franklin gets it done going 10-2.
The Anti-Iowa problem – can Lincoln Riley and USC’s defense show big improvement?
Number 9 on my Big 10 Football Top 10 Storylines listed below is if Iowa’s offense can get a pulse this year. It’s the exact opposite issue for USC. If fact if you combined Iowa’s defense from the last 2 years with USC’s offense, you would likely have at least one national title in your pocket. Lincoln Riley is a very good coach who has had some really good seasons at both Oklahoma and USC, including making the playoffs but losing all 3 in the semi-finals, but his defenses have not nearly been enough to achieve the goals Sooner fans want.
The common denominator for Riley has been Alex Grinch serving as his Defensive Coordinator with mostly extremely poor results. For example, in 2023 USC ranked 118th in scoring defense and 116th in total defense. At a school like USC that is just flat embarrassing. Riley hopes the answer is newly arrived from UCLA Defensive Coordinator D’Anton Lynn, who came from the Baltimore Ravens and helped guide the 2023 Bruins to the 14th ranked scoring defense and 10th ranked total defense in his one year with the Bruins. If Riley can get anywhere near that kind of performance from his defense under Lynn going forward, it would return USC back into national title discussions given Riley’s ability to produce explosive offenses.
It’s Luke Fickell’s Year 2 in Madison: Can the Badgers take a big leap this year?
Many considered Wisconsin’s hiring of Luke Fickell the best of the national hires during the lead up to the 2023 season. Fickell had the experience of both playing and coaching at the Big 10’s most successful program over the past 20 years in Ohio State including helping lead them to the 2014 National Title as the Buckeyes Defensive Coordinator. Then at Cincinnati he led the non-Power 5 program Bearcats to a playoff appearance in the 2021 season. It was a home run hire.
But in year 1 in Madison, Fickell hired Phil Longo as his Offensive Coordinator to install an Air Raid style offense over Wisconsin’s traditional conservative power-run offense. The result? A disappointing 7-6 record, a scoring offense finishing 91st in the nation and the Badgers traditional vaunted defense dropping to 20th in scoring defense – not terrible, but not in their typical Top 10 territory. In retrospect, given this radical offensive philosophy change we probably shouldn’t have been surprised.
But this is a big 2nd year for Fickell to prove the change is going to work. At Cincinnati, Fickell’s Bearcats made a huge leap in Year 2 going from 4-8 to 11-2. Looking at the Badgers schedule that has 5 of the 9 Big Ten games on the road including at #23 USC, Rutgers, #25 Iowa and a potentially revitalized Nebraska team, and then home games vs #5 Alabama, #8 Penn State and #3 Oregon – it’s not going to be easy to see a big increase in wins in the new Big 10. Big Jeff is thinking an 9-4 overall record (with a bowl win) and 5-3 in the Big Ten would be a sufficient leap in year 2 for Fickell to show the new philosophy is working.
Nebraska have been the Kings of one score losses – will that change in Year 2 under Matt Rhule and new 5-star QB Dylan Raiola?
New coach, same story for Nebraska. The Matt Rhule reign started in 2023 in Lincoln resulting in a disappointing 5-7 and Bowl-less season for a mind blowing 8th straight year. Nebraska’s entry into the Big Ten back in 2011 has mostly been a disaster with an overall record of 80-79 and 50-61 Big Ten conference game record, along with no Top 25 finishes since 2012. Yes, we know it’s a different era and the state of Nebraska does not produce the kind of in-state talent a Nebraska can rely on, but nobody would believe the once might Huskers would have this kind of fall.
But I do believe Matt Rhule is the right guy to get Nebraska to at least be a consistent bowl team and sometimes threat to challenge for the Big Ten. At this point though, a loser’s mentality has likely set in with the program – and that needs to change. The hallmark of winning teams is winning close games. And in that Nebraska has utterly failed since Scott Frost took over who had an incredible 5-22 record in one score games at Nebraska. Rhule was to change that in 2023, but Nebraska went 1-5 in one score games including losing their last 4 games vs Michigan State, Maryland, Wisconsin and Iowa by a combined 16 points (which is 4 pts/game).
Nebraska hopes new freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola is part of the answer. Many consider him the best QB in the class, and he was formerly committed to both Ohio State and Georgia and has drawn comparisons to Patrick Mahomes. The schedule is not too difficult with the Huskers toughest non-conference game vs Colorado and avoiding playing #2 Oregon, #8 Penn State and #9 Michigan and their toughest games at #2 Ohio State and #23 USC. An 8-4 record and first bowl appearance in 9 years is right there for the taking for Nebraska.
New offensive coordinator for Iowa – will this inept offense improve enough to make the Hawkeyes a contender in the new Big Ten?
The last two years, Iowa has really been like a half team sporting a disruptive and statistically dominant defense with an offense that has been so bad you almost can’t use the right words to describe it. In 2023, under long-time Defensive Coordinator guru Phil Parker, Iowa ranked 4th in the country in scoring defense and 7th in total defense. On offense, led by 7th year Offensive Coordinator Brian Ferentz (and famously head coach Kirk Ferentz’s son), the Hawkeye offense was historically bad finishing 129th in scoring offense and 130th in total offense. There was only 130 D-1 teams so yes, that was dead last, and yet miraculously the Hawkeyes won the Big Ten West.
Kirk Ferentz finally made a change (he was really forced to) and in comes former Western Michigan head coach Tim Lester who was an offensive analyst for the Green Bay Packers last season. Lester will benefit from the injury return of both former Michigan QB Cade McNamara and super talented tight end Luke Lachey. It won’t take much to see significant offensive output and if it happens Iowa could be right in the thick of the Big 10 race, which is going to be needed given the influx of the good west coast teams. Schedule wise Iowa avoids #3 Oregon, #9 Michigan and #8 Penn State which all have really good defense, so the schedule is favorable for offensive improvement.
The Scarlet Knights and Greg Schiano have improved each year – but can Rutgers shock everyone and become the Cinderella team of 2024?
Greg Schiano led Rutgers in their last football “golden years” from 2001 ro 2011 making bowls in 6 of his last 7 years including going 5-1 in those games. Schiano returned in 2021 and the Scarlet Knights have seen steady improvement in both player talent and game performance and last year went 7-6 and won the Pinstripe Bowl. So Schiano has very good momentum and a team that has a very tough defense that finished 16th in the nation in Total Defense and has an old school, Big Ten run first mentality behind the Big Ten’s leading rusher in 2023 in Kyle Monangai who ran for 1,262 yards including 8 touchdowns.
In 2023, Rutgers had just the 94th ranked scoring offense and 102nd ranked total offense, which must improve if Rutgers is to take another big step. If Rutgers can get better production from new quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis, who beat out last year’s QB Gavin Wimsatt for the job, to supplement Monangai’s running, then they really could become the Big Ten’s Cinderella team.
But maybe even more important to the possible Cinderella story is the very manageable schedule since Rutgers does not need to face former Big Ten East bullies #2 Ohio State, #8 Penn State and #9 Michigan (praise the lord!), as well as #3 Oregon and #25 Iowa. In fact, Rutgers faces only one AP pre-season Top 25 team in #23 USC and incredibly avoid all five other Top 25 Big Ten teams. The schedule gods were good to Greg Schiano. Now will his team be good enough to take advantage?
Other Big 10 Football Top Storylines that did not quite make the cut:
- Illinois Football: Bielema’s Illini regressed in 2023 and more top line talent: can they re-create the success of 2022?
- Indiana Football: Curt Cignetti is brash and talking big at Indiana – can he come through and make a bowl?
- Maryland Football: Maryland has been unschackled from the Big 10 East – can Mike Locksley take advantage?
- Minnesota Football: The missing link for PJ Fleck has been a difference making QB. Is new QB Max Brosmer that guy?
- Northwestern Football: Can reighing Big 10 Coach of the Year David Braun keep Northwesterns momentum going?
- Purdue Football: Can Purdue’s Ryan Walters duplicate the magic of Joe Tiller and Jeff Brohm?
- UCLA Football: DeShaun Foster takes over for his alma-mater, but nobody is talking about UCLA. Should they be?
The New Big 10 Football Categories – Where Does Your Team Fit?
College Football TV Ratings in 2023: The SEC Was #1 – Who do you think was #2?
