I don't think a person can actually be more wrong a football team than I ended up being about Illinois and Iowa.

1. Penn State

2. Ohio State

3. Michigan State

4. Michigan

5. Northwestern

6. Wisconsin

7. Iowa

8. Purdue

9. Minnesota

10. Indiana

11. Illinois

Double Standards everywhere

• This is a half-assed amalgamation of resumé ranking, gut feeling, and who I think would win on a neutral field.
  
• I'm giving Purdue, Northwestern and Michigan State far more credit for blowing out Toledo and 1AA pansies than Minnesota, Indiana, and Wisconsin for squeaking out victories against vastly overmatched 1A and 1AA pansies.
• To which I'm sure you're saying: "Uh, didn't Ohio State squeak one out?" to which the answer is a resounding yes. But Navy isn't a pansy, and probably would have beaten 8 or 9 out of the 11 teams above.
  
•  Illinois would probably still beat Indiana, and maybe even Minnesota or Wisconsin on a bad day. But, they're the only squad who actually lost this weekend, so they must drop to the bottom. What the hell happened to them, anyway? Was that really just a case of the Zooks? Really? 
  
•  In general, the Big Ten looked bad on its opening weekend. When your top two teams total just 62 points against routine bottom 60 defenses, a borderline 3rd-or-4th best team gets blown out by a genuinely rebuilding Big 12 North has-been, and the rest of the league outside of Michigan struggles to beat MACrifices, Syracuse and 1AA teams, it's just not a good week for the league's PR. I didn't anticipate this to be the year in which the Big Ten "redeems" itself, but I also expected some improvement from the likes of Illinois, Purdue, and dare I say, Wisconsin? Alas, 'twas not to be. This week. Next week we may look like worldbeaters: The Buckeyes get USC, and Michigan gets Notre Dame at home. Either team playing their opponent close would probably be an improvement on this week.
• All in all, this poll is basically a disaster because I'm just ranking teams on one game. Insert rant about delaying the rankings until more games have been played here. I'm open to constructive criticism of the ballot, of course.