In this weekly segment, we keep you updated with everything big going on around the Big Ten.
By Danny Payne
Iowa is in its bye week (we hope you’re enjoying a break from football), but it’s quite the busy week in the Big Ten. We have a few notes to keep you in the loop.
Barrett to start
It’s not every day you see the nation’s No. 1 team, at 7-0, change its quarterback. Ohio State is not a typical college football team.
After deciding to start quarterback Cardale Jones — who won the team’s final three games en route to a national championship last season — in the team’s first seven contest of the year, the Buckeyes will start J.T. Barrett on Saturday against Rutgers.
“J.T. has earned the right to start Saturday at Rutgers,” Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer said on Tuesday’s Big Ten teleconference. “Sheer production, Cardale is going to be a very active part, too; we’re going to keep him involved. It was a difficult decision. Red-zone production and third-down production were the two areas that made the difference.”
Barrett led the Buckeyes during the 2014 regular season, and will now get his chance to do the same. Barrett has completed 83.3 percent of his passes in the red zone this season, a number more than 50 points higher than Jones’ mark of 27.3.
On third down, Jones has managed a 60.5-percent completion percentage, while Barrett has completed only 40 percent of his attempts.
Last week, in a 38-10 win over Penn State, Barrett amassed 102 yards on 11 carries and went 4-of-4 for 30 yards. Jones went 9-of-15 for 84 yards before he was benched in the second half.
“There is disappointment,” Meyer said. “But they’re grown men, both of them are.”
Twitter reactions
If you’ve been close to a TV, you’ve seen the muffed snap committed by Michigan punter Blake O’Neill in Oct. 17’s last-second loss to archrival Michigan State. Jalen Watts-Jackson recovered the ball and returned it, giving his team a 27-23 victory over the Wolverines to remain undefeated.
After the game, as you may imagine, O’Neill received quite a bit of heat from fellow social-media users, something coaches around the Big Ten were not fans of.
“I feel sorry for those people, I really do,” Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “Life is precious … every young man is trying to go out there and make a play and do what’s right. And when it doesn’t go well, no one feels worse than that person.”
Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio chimed in, too.
“It’s very disappointing, but that’s the world we’re living in right now, too …” he said. “It’s very unfortunate, it’s one play, it’s too bad. It’s just one play and it should not define a person. One play should not define a person based on his football ability.”
Ferentz weighs in on schedule
You didn’t think we’d leave you hanging with Iowa, did you? Of course not. Without digging too deep, coach Kirk Ferentz weighed in on the future of college football.
With the season currently at 12 games with the potential to play in 15 — Big Ten Championship and two rounds of the College Football Playoff — Ferentz doesn’t think things will expand any time soon. Not that it’s necessarily in the works in the college football world, but the talk of the NFL schedule potentially moving to 18 games piqued the head Hawk’s interest Tuesday.
“It’s easy to talk about these things if you’re not playing,” Ferentz said. “For the NFL to expand to 18 games is absolutely ludicrous if you’re keeping the same roster size, and I would say the same thing about us.
“… There’s a real toll on the players physical and mentally if you’re not careful. It’s a tough, demanding game … I think we’re at a workable place right now.”
