B1G Time: Overlook P.J. Fleck and Minnesota at your own peril, it's even worse than it looks at Wisconsin

As the clock wound down Friday night at Huntington Bank Stadium with Minnesota leading Nebraska 24-6, the reaction to the result was predictable. Nebraska, coming into the game ranked for the first time since Week 3 of last season, blew it. Matt Rhule, who had been mentioned with the suddenly vacant Penn State job all week, blew it as well.

I get it. That's how it works when the teams with the numbers next to their names lose to those without them. However, I had a different takeaway in the immediate aftermath. I thought, "Boy, P.J. Fleck does not get nearly enough credit for what he's done at Minnesota."

The win improved the Gophers to 5-2 on the season and 3-1 in the Big Ten. They are a win away from their fifth straight bowl appearance, which would tie the school's record for consecutive postseason berths. It also improved Fleck's record to 37-37 in Big Ten games. If you take out his first season, the Gophers are 35-30 in Big Ten play, and if you ignore 2020 (and, honestly, we should all ignore the results of the COVID season, because they've mostly proven meaningless) he's 32-26. Those numbers won't wow you, but in the context of where Minnesota has historically found itself in the Big Ten over the last 75 years, it's impressive.

Minnesota has won seven national titles in its history, but none since 1960. If we consider only the modern era of college football (since the BCS began in 1998), Minnesota has finished with a winning conference record eight times in 27 seasons. Fleck is responsible for four of them, and is two wins away from his fifth.

What Fleck has done at Minnesota reminds me a lot of what Hayden Fry and then Kirk Ferentz have done at Iowa. He's taken a Big Ten program that isn't considered one of the league's best and consistently found ways to exceed expectations every season. Coincidentally, that's who Fleck's Gophers will face this week in one of the Big Ten's traditional rivalry games.

There's a bronze pig on the line, folks!

Now, before Iowa fans throw heavy objects at me, Fleck has not taken Minnesota to the same kind of heights Fry and Ferentz have reached at Iowa. Hayden Fry took the Hawkeyes to the Rose Bowl three times. Kirk Ferentz has two Big Ten titles, a Rose Bowl appearance, and an Orange Bowl appearance on top of it. Fleck has never won the Big Ten and his biggest bowl was a Cotton Bowl appearance with Western Michigan that led to him landing the Minnesota job.

My comparison is more about what Minnesota has become under Fleck. Some may have seen Nebraska going on the road to Minnesota and losing as some kind of big upset. Perhaps it was on the point spread, but it wasn't a shock to anybody who pays close attention. Much like Big Ten teams have found going into Kinnick Stadium and facing the Hawkeyes to be difficult, the same thing is happening with road trips to Minneapolis.

On Friday night it was No. 25 Nebraska who lost. Last season No. 11 USC came into Huntington Bank Stadium and fell 24-17. A month and a half later it was No. 4 Penn State that narrowly avoided disaster in a 26-25 win. 

In a year where it feels like so many Big Ten programs are wondering who they are and what their place in the league is, Minnesota has an identity under Fleck. The Gophers might surprise you, but they don't surprise themselves.

Let's rank rivalry trophies

All right, since the Floyd of Rosedale is on the line Saturday in Iowa City, and I love that damn pig, it feels like a good time to rank the top five Big Ten rivalry trophies. These rankings are final, and if you disagree, it's because you are wrong and need to reevaluate everything you've ever felt or thought to this point in your life. Perhaps then you'll figure out why your rankings are wrong.

Anyway, here we go.

1. Floyd of Rosedale
2. Paul Bunyan's Axe
3. Illibuck
4. Paul Bunyan Trophy
5. Little Brown Jug

Wisconsin is bad

To the surprise of nobody, Wisconsin was dominated by Ohio State in a 34-0 loss. This performance came on the heels of a 37-0 loss to Iowa the week before. That's right, the Badgers have not scored a point in a football game since kicking a 39-yard field goal to cut Michigan's lead to 24-10 with 2:43 left to play. It has been 122 minutes and 43 seconds of game time since the Badgers put a point on the board.

They have been outscored 122-20 in four Big Ten games. No other Big Ten team has scored fewer than 64 points in conference play this year. Things are pretty bad, but I don't know if these numbers truly explain it, so let's take it a step further.

There have been 36 Big Ten conference games played so far this year, and Wisconsin's average of -0.42 EPA per snap was the second-worst performance of the season in any of those contests. The worst? Well, that was Wisconsin's 37-0 loss to Iowa last week. It averaged -0.58 against the Hawkeyes.

What's that? You want it to hurt more? Well, I've got good news for you sickos, no other Big Ten team has had an average EPA per play worse than -0.34 this year, so not only does Wisconsin have the two worst performances, it has them by a mile!

Oh, and Wisconsin's -0.20 performance against Maryland ranks as the 10th-worst this year. So the Badgers claim three of the 10 worst offensive showings of the Big Ten season. No other Big Ten team has more than one of the worst 10, and what's crazier is all three of Wisconsin's have come at home.

Their best performance was -0.15 against Michigan, which checks in as the 15th-worst. Seriously, everyone, it's been very bad.

Dylan Raiola cannot stop getting sacked

Dylan Raiola was sacked nine times in Nebraska's loss to Minnesota, which is obviously the most he's ever been sacked in a game. But this is not a new problem. Raiola has been sacked frequently this season. After being sacked 25 times last year, he's now been dropped 26 times in 2025, and we're barely past the halfway point of the regular season.

The only quarterback who has been sacked more often than Raiola this year is Auburn's Jackson Arnold, who is at 27. I place a lot of the blame for this on Raiola's shoulders.

He has a pressure-to-sack ratio of 2.81. For those who aren't clear, that just means how many times is the QB pressured for every sack he takes. Among the 116 qualified quarterbacks, Raiola's ratio ranks 116th. Jackson Arnold is 115th at 3.00.

Some people will want to blame the offensive line, and I'm not going to absolve that unit of blame, but Raiola's only been pressured on 29.1% of his dropbacks. That ranks 54th of 116 qualified QBs. Also, while PFF grades are far from a holy grail, PFF gives Nebraska's offensive line a pass-blocking grade of 78.7 on the season. That ranks 13th among the 136 FBS teams.

I've been critical of Raiola on the Cover 3 Podcast this year. I do not think he is a fundamentally sound player, and it annoys me because, from a talent perspective, there aren't many in the country with his arm talent. He has great arm strength and tremendous accuracy. He can make every throw in the book, and he can do so in different ways. But he gets sloppy in his footwork and it leads to misses that shouldn't happen far too often.

Then there are the sacks he's taking. A lot of them are products of his desire to make plays happen off script. Sometimes he does something spectacular, like this.

More often, instead of stepping up in the pocket to escape pressure, he moves backwards or tries to roll to his right or left to buy more time to do something incredible, but only ends up running into the waiting arms of a defender.

The sacks put Nebraska's offense in tough positions, which then causes Raiola to put more pressure on himself to do something great, which leads to more sacks. It's something he and the Cornhuskers have gotten away with in nonconference games, but it hurts them in Big Ten games.

Until Raiola starts understanding that boring plays can be more effective than spectacular ones, Nebraska will have a tough time winning consistently in the Big Ten.

Going with my gut

Every week I pick the Big Ten games against the spread based on nothing but my gut reaction to the number. No digging into numbers -- just vibes, baby. I even track my record to embarrass myself publicly. Any game not included is due to there not being a posted line at time of publishing.

Minnesota at Iowa: OK, here's the deal. It's hard for me to trust Iowa to cover a spread this large when the Hawkeyes were barely able to beat Penn State at home last week. This was a Penn State team that was on a three-game losing streak that got its coach fired, and had lost its starting quarterback for the year to an injury. There was no excuse for Iowa to make that one so close. Now you've got Minnesota coming to town with the Floyd of Rosedale on the line. I have to take the points here. Minnesota +8.5

UCLA at No. 2 Indiana -- Indiana -24.5
Northwestern at Nebraska -- Northwestern +7.5
Rutgers at Purdue -- Purdue +2.5
No. 23 Illinois at Washington -- Illinois +4.5
Wisconsin at No. 6 Oregon -- Oregon -34.5
No. 25 Michigan at Michigan State -- Michigan -14.5

Last Week: 5-4
Season: 39-30