All 14 Big Ten teams will be in action during the final five weeks of the 2017 season, beginning this Saturday.
Three teams are tied atop the East Division standings as Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State are each 4-0 in conference play. The Buckeyes will host the Nittany Lions on Saturday, while the Spartans will visit Northwestern.
Wisconsin leads the West Division with a 4-0 Big Ten record, followed by Nebraska and Northwestern at 2-2. The Badgers visit Illinois on Saturday.
The Big Ten features two of the eight remaining undefeated schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), as Penn State and Wisconsin are both 7-0. The Nittany Lions are 7-0 for the first time since 2008, when the team started 9-0. The Badgers are 7-0 for the first time since winning their first nine games in 2004.
Both the Nittany Lions and Badgers enter this weekend riding impressive streaks. Penn State is 16-1 in its last 17 games overall, the best span since going 20-0 from 1993-95. Wisconsin set a new school record on Saturday with its 10th consecutive Big Ten win. The Badgers previously won nine straight conference games from 2006-07 and 2010-11.
Heading into their matchup this weekend, both Ohio State and Penn State rank among the top 20 teams nationally in both scoring offense and defense. The Buckeyes are second in scoring offense and 10th in scoring defense, while the Nittany Lions lead the nation in scoring defense and are 16th in scoring offense.
With 126 rushing yards on Saturday against Maryland, Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor reached 1,000 career rushing yards in his seventh game, matching the FBS freshman record for fewest games needed to record 1,000 yards. He joined a group that includes Florida’s Emmitt Smith (1987), San Diego State’s Marshall Faulk (1991), Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson (2004), North Texas’ Jamario Thomas (2004) and Wisconsin’s P.J. Hill (2006). Only Taylor, Smith, Faulk, Peterson and Thomas achieved the feat as a true freshman.
Penn State running back Saquon Barkley became the first Nittany Lion and fourth Big Ten player with 3,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in his career, but the first Big Ten player to amass these totals in just his third season.
The largest crowd in Beaver Stadium history was on hand for Saturday’s game between Penn State and Michigan, as 110,823 fans were in attendance to surpass the previous record of 110,753 set against Nebraska on Sept. 14, 2002.