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For all of you Martinez haters: http://espn.go.com/college-football/conferences/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/collegeQuarterbackRating/year/2012/id/5/big-ten-conference He's quietly leading the conference, including 'Heisman Hopeful' Braxton Miller, in QB ratings. Pleasantly surprised. Also found this: http://espn.go.com/ncf/conferences/statistics/team/_/stat/defense/sort/sacks/year/2012/id/5/big-ten-conference After all of our 2-gap-linemen-stand-there-so-linebackers-can-be-free nonsense, somehow we are also quietly leading the conference in sacks. Again, pleasantly surprised.

Was looking at the rankings for this week, and saw this nugget (courtesy of Boyd's World): Now, why do Iterative Strength Ratings (ISRs) matter? Because they provide a clearer picture of team (and conference) quality over the Strength of Schedule (SoS) or the Ratings Power Index (RPI), and it's becoming a bigger factor in how teams are perceived (and ultimately ranked). And for a breakdown of ISRs by conference for the same week, check this out: Middle of the pack is not too bad for the Big 10--could be a lot worse, but yes...for the 'half-empty' folks on this board, it could be better as well. As for RPIs, since the NCAA still uses this formula, here's the latest (pseudo) RPIs for this week: Of note, Illinois is the next Big 10 team, at #65, for Boyd's (pseudo) RPIs. And while RPIs will take a hit, Nebraska and/or Illinois could get a good assist by beating Purdue, and if Illinois comes in a solid third in the Big 10 (behind what appears to be a Nebraska/Purdue battle for the conference title), there is a good (not great--just good) possibility of landing three teams from the B1G in the tournament this year.