We enter the teeth of the season as week eight is upon us. After a thrilling week seven in which we saw the Wolverines and the Nittnay Lions play through four overtimes we can only hope this week's game has something half as entertaining in store. Let's check out the best three games on tap for Saturday.
Iowa at Ohio State
After a nail biter in Madison and a close call against Northwestern Ohio State got a well needed week of rest and come into Saturday fully charged. The Hawkeyes may seem like another corner piece in the championship puzzle the Buckeyes hope to put together, but there seems to be pressure growing from inside the Ohio State walls that is self inflicted. Urban Meyer still hasn't lost since he has taken over as head coach.
A victory Saturday would be his 19th in a row three shy of the school record 22 which was set in 1969. Meyer said its his job to keep his players focus on the task at hand before it gets out of control. While they rank fourth in the coaches poll the Buckeyes are 19th in the nation in yards with 492.8 per game. The key to this match up whoever will be on the ground as Carlos Hyde who had three touchdowns in his last game goes up against the Hawkeye's run defense that ranks eighth in the nation with 88.5 yards on the ground per game. Iowa is coming off a week of self of their own after they lost to Michigan State 26-14 on October 5th. The Buckeyes have won 12 of the last 13 games between these two although they haven't played each other since 2010.
Indiana at Michigan
The Hoosiers gave the Spartans a good fight for the first half last week tying the game up at 28-28 until Michigan State ran away with the game with the victory 42-28. The Hoosiers are now 3-3 and have been consistently inconsistent so far this season. This week they head into Ann Arbor where the Wolverines are waiting to let off some steam from their four-overtime loss to Penn State last week. Indiana has been consistent on offense so far this year ranking 13th in passing yards per game (331.5) and 15th in the country in points scored per game with 41.7.
Coming off a weeks rest, coaches should have them rested and prepared for Michigan. It will be interesting to see how Michigan bounces back from their first loss of the season after going 5-0. Devin Gardner got them into trouble with his turnovers early in last Saturday's game which have been an ongoing theme for the talented quarterback. He later got them all caught up with points to spare but fell victim to the new comeback kid known as Christian Hackenberg. The Wolverines are a 10 point favorite in this contest that kicks off at 3:30 eastern.
Wisconsin at Illinois
The Badgers are heating up and gaining confidence fast after a dominating win against ranked Northwestern last week, but they need to be careful not to overlook a tricky Illinois team that has over achieved this season with more wins than they had all of last season combined. If they want to add to that total their going to have to figure out a way to stop Wisconsin's running game, a big task that not many have faired well against so far. Melvin Gordon leads the three headed monster and has helped them rank fifth in the nation with 298.2 yards on the ground per game including an astounding 7.1 yards a carry. As if they wouldn't be relying on their running game enough as is, now their top receiver Jared Abbrederis is questionable with head injury that has a lot of question marks surrounding it.
The Badgers, who are now ranked 25th in the latest coaches poll, rank ninth in total offense and fifth in total defense, Florida State is the only other team who ranks in the top ten in both categories. The Illini who is 3-2 on the season will be eager to snap a 15 game Big Ten losing streak in front of their home crowd.