Michigan football: Big Ten East looks deeper than it has in years

The Big Ten East is loaded this year and Michigan football is just one of the programs standing out this season.

For the first time in a very very long time, the Big Ten East actually looks very competitive from top-to-bottom.

It’s still very early in the football season, but it looks like the Big Ten East is a lot more balanced this season than in any other season I can remember (2014 is the earliest I can remember).

For once, Ohio State actually looks human, and beatable. Penn State seems to have its mojo back, with their recent big recent victory over Auburn supporting that statement.

Michigan football looks really good, destroying all of their opponents on the ground so far, and even Little Brother MSU looks a lot better this year, finally not getting off to a slow start for once.

This list doesn’t even include Rutgers, which looks like it finally won’t be the worst team in the Big Ten, and on a good day, can give pretty much any of these Big Ten teams an actual competitive conference game.

Maryland has a great QB in Tua’s younger brother Taulia, who can go off and shred an opposing defense on any given Saturday.

Lastly, although Indiana has surprisingly been struggling this season, they have faced two top-10 opponents in three weeks in Iowa and Cincinnati, so it kind of gives them a reprieve, although Michael Penix Jr. is still a dangerous QB who can also light up an opposing defense on any given Saturday.

Add all of this up, and we might finally have a Big Ten East Division that’s not completely dominated by Ohio State.

To be honest, by the time OSU rolls into town against Michigan on November 27th, the Buckeyes could realistically have two or three losses on their plates (including Michigan of course).

Why this is great for Michigan football

I don’t know about any other fans, but I am sick and tired of Ohio State completely dominating every team they face (until the playoffs).

Plus, I want the Big Ten East to be a good competitive division in football. It makes for more entertaining television. While it’s cool when Michigan beats up an opponent, it’s good in the long run for Michigan to have several ranked or at least respected opponents in their division.

After a while, you get kind of sick of only beating up on a terrible Rutgers squad every year. I know this may sound crazy to some fans, but it gets boring, like a broken record.

Michigan should want to play (and beat) the best, each and every time they set foot on a field (I’ll take a weakened OSU any day of the week though). You can’t play and beat the best if your division is littered with way more bad teams than good ones.

Do I want Michigan to win all of those games? Of course, I do. But playing and beating good or respected opponents goes a long way in the eyes of the playoff committee (strength of schedule), and with Michigan’s morale as a team (so they don’t get complacent and take no opponent for granted) and the Wolverines rise in the rankings.

It seems this year the road to the Big Ten championship game out of the East Division is wide open. No team in the Big Ten East has played each other yet, so each team is 0-0 for now. Each team still has questions marks that haven’t been completely answered yet.

It seems on any given Saturday OSU, Penn State, Michigan, MSU, etc can go down if they aren’t on their A-game.

That’s ultimately what makes the season more fun. And this is an extremely rare occurrence. As a fan, I don’t always want all of Michigan’s games to be blowouts.

Sometimes, I like a good, classic, hard-fought win. You don’t learn anything in a blowout. Only in a game where you struggle a little can you improve. I expect that to happen to Michigan football at least 3-4 times this season.

Now, depending on how the rest of the season plays out, I might be wrong, and the East might not be as competitive as I thought, but for now, at least, it looks very competitive for once. And that’s good for all parties involved.