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Week 2 Football Release
BIG TEN FOOTBALL RELEASE - WEEK 2 | STANDINGS | MEDIA GUIDE
SCHEDULE | BIG TEN MAILING LIST | AVAILABILITY REPORTS
• All 14 Big Ten schools will be in action this weekend, highlighted by a pair of teams hosting non-conference opponents in their home openers: Northwestern and Ohio State.
• Four Big Ten teams appear in the AP Poll this week. Michigan leads the conference at No. 2, followed by No. 5 Ohio State, No. 7 Penn State and No. 19 Wisconsin. Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota are all receiving votes.
• Iowa travels to Ames to take on in-state rival Iowa State this Saturday for the 70th meeting of the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series. The Hawkeyes have won six of the last seven Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series matchups over Iowa State. Iowa has won the last five games in Ames dating back to 2013, including a 27-17 victory over the ninth-ranked Cyclones in 2021. The five wins have come by an average of 6.8 points and two of the victories have been by three points or less. A win would give head coach Kirk Ferentz his 200th career victory, becoming just the 24 Division I coach to reach the 200-win mark.
• Michigan scored on five straight drives against East Carolina, with four of them being touchdowns, as J.J. McCarthy had his best performance in the Big House, throwing for 280 yards and three touchdowns. He completed 86.7% of his throws, which was the second highest in a single game in Michigan history, trailing only Elvis Grbac’s 20-for-22 performance against Notre Dame in 1991. The Wolverines are building on a 16-game home winning streak dating back to 2021. It is the longest home winning streak under head coach Jim Harbaugh and the program’s best since a 16-game streak from 2002-05 under coach Lloyd Carr.
• Ohio State defeated Indiana 23-3 on Saturday, marking the Buckeyes’ 28th consecutive victory over Indiana in the series, the longest winning streak in a series in the nation. The win was also the 16th consecutive for Ohio State in a season-opening game against a Big Ten Conference opponent, improving to 16-0 in such games.
• Minnesota’s Dragan Kesich kicked the game-winning 47-yard field goal with zero time remaining on the clock to break a 10-10 tie and lift the Gophers to a three-point victory against Nebraska. It was his second field goal of the game, as he opened the scoring for Minnesota with a 34-yard field goal in the second quarter. Kesich’s game-winner was Minnesota’s first walk-off field goal in regulation since 2003 when Rhys Lloyd kicked a last-second field goal to beat Wisconsin.
• Wisconsin’s Chez Mellusi ran for 157 yards and two touchdowns, Braelon Allen added 141 yards and two more scores and the Badgers started the first season of Luke Fickell’s coaching tenure with a 38-17 victory over Buffalo on Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers have won 27 of their last 28 home openers and 48 of their last 50 non-conference home games overall, with their only losses coming in 2018 against BYU and last year against Washington State. It was the first sellout for a season opener at Camp Randall Stadium since 2009.
• Michigan and Purdue will look to repeat as division champions this season, as the Wolverines finished 9-0 to win the East Division and the Boilermakers finished atop the West Division standings at 6-3 in conference play.
• The 2023 campaign will feature 99 All-Big Ten honorees (first-, second-, third-team or honorable mention) selected by either the coaches or the media last season, with Ohio State leading the way with 16 all-conference returnees. The East Division welcomes back 56 all-conference players, while the West returns 43. Illinois is the only West team with double-digit all-conference returnees with 10, while each team has at least one All-Big Ten performer returning.
• The Big Ten finished last season with three teams ranked in the AP Top 25, tying for the third-most of any conference. All three teams finished in the Top 10, marking the second straight year that the conference had three top 10 teams at the end of the season. The 2023 AP Preseason Poll also featured five Big Ten teams in No. 2 Michigan, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 7 Penn State, No. 19 Wisconsin, and No. 25 Iowa, while Illinois and Minnesota are both receiving votes.
• Last season, the Big Ten posted the fifth-highest single-season attendance total in conference history with 6,333,196 fans attending home games. Excluding 2020, this marked the ninth consecutive season and 10th time in 11 seasons that more than six million fans have attended Big Ten home football games.
• This season’s Playoff Semifinals will take place Monday, January 1, 2024, at the Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl. Houston will host the College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday, January 8, 2024, at NRG Stadium. The College Football Playoff matches the No. 1 ranked team vs. No. 4, and No. 2 vs. No. 3 in semifinal games that rotate annually among six bowl games – the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Allstate Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl Game.
| Friday, September 8, 2023 Football | ||||
Away | Home | Time | Location | Links |
| 7:00 P.M. | Bloomington, Ind. | TV: BTN Stats | |
| 7:30 P.M. | Lawrence, Kan. | TV: ESPN2 Stats | |
| Saturday, September 9, 2023 Football | ||||
Away | Home | Time | Location | Links |
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| 12:00 P.M. | Columbus, Ohio | |
|  | 2:30 P.M. | Ames, Iowa | |
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| 7:30 P.M. | College Park, MD | |
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| 12:00 P.M. | University Park, Pa. | TV: Peacock Stats Radio: Penn State Sports Network |
| 12:00 P.M. | Boulder, Colo. | ||
| 12:00 P.M. | Blacksburg, Va. | TV: ESPN2 Stats Radio: WAZY (96.5 FM) | |
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| 3:30 P.M. | Ann Arbor, Mich. | |
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| 3:30 P.M. | East Lansing, MI | TV: Big Ten Network Radio: Spartan Media Network |
| 3:30 P.M. | Evanston, IL | ||
| 7:30 P.M. | Piscataway, N.J. | TV: Big Ten Network Stats | |
| 7:30 P.M. | Pullman, WA | ||
| 7:30 P.M. | Huntington Bank Stadium | ||
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