If you're good, make it look good

Three keys to Nebraska-Michigan State, where the Huskers have some significant edges but that hasn't recently stopped them from being in nail-biters.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Averaging 30 points per game used to mean something in the 14-team Big Ten of yesteryear (or maybe it feels more like yesterday). It was a marker of quality, and often extreme quality. From 2016 to 2023, just three teams averaged more than 30 points over a full season in five of those eight seasons. These were, without many exceptions, the best teams in the Big Ten.

If you could score there, you could score anywhere.

So, what are we to do with the fact that here at the start of October, 13 of the Big Ten’s 18 teams are averaging more than 30 points per game, and USC, Indiana, Nebraska and Washington are all averaging more than 40?

Maybe don’t make much of it. Big Ten teams, same as most of their power-conference contemporaries, get fat in August and September, against the nonconference opponents they choose, for the hard winter ahead. Over the past 10 seasons, including this one, it hasn’t been uncommon for about half the league to be averaging 30-plus points at the end of September and for about a quarter of teams still to be there come December. That’s the reality of the Big Ten—you can sprint through September, but October and November are going to be a wrestling match.

Or maybe do make something of Big Ten teams scoring a bunch through (mostly) nonconference play. While most seasons have seen a serious drop in scoring in conference play, there have been a few abnormally pointsy seasons in the Big Ten, 2019 being the best example. Are we in one of those?

It’s probably better for Nebraska the closer to “abnormally pointsy” things remain, and the Huskers’ October slate, where Nebraska is likely to be favored in all four games, offers a good test of this theory. It starts Saturday against a Michigan State defense that has been weak exactly where the Husker offense has been strong.