Last week I told you all one of the things I’ve learned after picking Big Ten games for twenty-plus seasons: Nobody knows anything in Week One.

This week I tell you another secret: Nobody knows anything in Week Two, either. Except that somehow the games always wind up being worse, that is.

After Week One Colorado is atop the college football world once again, winning the Week One National Championship, while the Hair-On-Fire Brigade is out in full force in Columbus, even though the Buckeyes won. Apparently everyone forgot Tom Allen has always been a good defensive coach.

So keep that in mind when you’re thinking about the Week Two games. Some of what we saw last weekend was real. Some of it wasn’t. And you won’t know which until at least Week Six.

Toledo at Illinois: I said Illinois 24, Toledo 13; actual score, Illinois 30, Toledo 28.
If I’m an Illini fan, I’m nervous.

Ohio State at Indiana: I said Ohio State 48, Indiana 17; actual score, Ohio State 23, Indiana 3.
The last time I saw a fan base this disappointed after a victory was Iowa after the Syracuse overtime game in 2006.

Utah State at Iowa: I said Iowa 38, Utah State 13; actual score, Iowa 24, Utah State 14.
I was assuming Cade McNamara was going to be healthier than he was.

Towson at Maryland: I said Maryland 42, Towson 0; actual score, Maryland 38, Towson 6.
I apologize for underestimating the Towson Whatevers.

East Carolina at Michigan: I said Michigan 44, ECU 10; actual score, Michigan 30, ECU 3.
I had the general idea right.

Central Michigan at Michigan State: I said Sparty 31, CMU 23; actual score, Sparty 31, CMU 7.
May have overestimated the Chips’ offense. I won’t do it again.

Nebraska at Minnesota: I said Minny 27, Nebraska 13; actual score, Minny 13, Nebraska 10.
Don’t care, it was hilarious.

West Virginia at Penn State: I said PSU 37, WVU 20; actual score, PSU 38, WVU 15.
Most games go how you think they will.

Fresno State at Purdue: I said Purdue 27, Fresno State 24; actual score, Fresno State 39, Purdue 35.
But some games do not go how you think they will, of course.

Northwestern at Rutgers: I said Rutgers 17, Northwestern 6, actual score, Rutgers 24, Northwestern 7.
I basically got this one right too.

Buffalo at Wisconsin:
I said Wisconsin 56, Buffalo 7; actual score, Wisconsin 38, Buffalo 17.
I even said I wasn’t sure Luke Fickell could remake the team in a single off-season, and I still made that ridiculous score prediction.

That makes me 10-1 on the week and the season.

Now let's get on with the picks!

Well, I told you Indiana always plays Ohio State tough in Bloomington. (It helps when Ohio State isn’t quite a fully functional football team yet.)

The Hoosier defense actually looked pretty good against the Buckeyes, while the offense … you know what, let’s just not talk about that. What is important here is that Indiana State is a perennial also-ran in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, one that last week got shut out by Eastern Illinois, which performs much the same function in the Ohio Valley Conference. So the value in this game is seeing if the Sycamores can actually score on the Hoosiers. Since Tom Allen is coaching for his job, in all likelihood, I’m guessing they won’t.

Indiana 34, Indiana State 0

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I told you last week that I was skeptical about the Illinois renaissance and how it was important for the Illini to win by double digits against a MAC team. I am still skeptical, and the Illini only won by two points. Yes, Toledo is a pretty good MAC team, but it’s still a pretty good MAC team. Any Big Ten school should be able to dogwalk “a pretty good MAC team.”

Lance Leipold, meanwhile, has Kansas on the rise. It may not matter much this season with Oklahoma and Texas still in the Big XII but any momentum the Jayhawks can carry into the league season will help. This is still gonna be a mid game between two mid teams, though, and since I’m known as an Illini skeptic, I’ll take Kansas to defend its home turf.

Kansas 24, Illinois 20

Last week I said the fact that Minnesota was still being coached by P.J. Fleck was like unto a punishment the Greek gods would have dreamed up, yet it was Nebraska that got punished in eerily familiar fashion, watching the Gophers run down the meticulous desert rock tunnel painting that the Huskers splatted into.

So, you know, it’s a real great time to be facing the Week 1 “It” Team on the road.

Trust me, Deion Sanders knows what the Nebraska-Colorado game means. After all, he was still playing for Florida State the last time this game was relevant. He knows how bad it would look to biff to this squad after knocking off last year’s national title runner-up on the road. His quickest path to converting the few Colorado faithful who aren’t on board the Coach Prime Train yet involves mashing the Huskers into goo, and that’s what I think he’ll do.

Colorado 40, Nebraska 13

The Penn State Nittany Lions handled West Virginia last week, as we all knew they would. Enter now the clearly overmatched Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens, fresh off a 38-17 win over something called “Stony Brook” last weekend. There are better games in this time slot. You’re going to watch one of those instead. You will not be wrong to do so.

Penn State 44, Delaware 7

90s teen heartthrob Ryan Walters lost his Purdue debut last week to those pesky Mountain West weasels Fresno State in what turned out to be the most exciting Big Ten game of opening weekend. Will Walters turn the Boilermakers around or will he be forced to reunite his boy band 2Solid for a Sweeps Week episode? You’ll never know because the writers are still on strike. And since when do we call vocal groups “bands” anyway?

Speaking of things no one can remember, how about Virginia Tech? Just kidding, this is an Iowa site, you remember them because Iowa is them. Or at least what Virginia Tech once was, a team led by a crushing monster defense, top-rank special teams, and an offense powered by two anemic hamsters on a treadmill. I’m going to say the combination of new coach plus mid-major loss will leave the Boilermakers hung over; they’ll lose this one.

Virginia Tech 24, Purdue 17

Yes, it was a rough start to the season for Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes, but at least they didn’t start with a loss. Still, the Buckeye faithful were so deeply unhappy that Kirk Herbstreit found it necessary to call them out on The Pat McAfee Show.

I get it, they’re used to using the league as a chew toy but now Michigan of all teams seems to have the upper hand. Nothing’s forever, guys, and you’ve had one of the best runs of anyone over the past seventy years.

Anyway, a visit from Youngstown State will be good medicine for the hot heads and upset tummies.

Ohio State 56, Youngstown State 3

Once again, Michigan will have to be without Jim Harbaugh and once again it really won’t matter.

Michigan 42, UNLV 10

Something something Oliver Anthony.

Michigan State 34, Richmond 13

I know I said I never check the odds, but even I couldn’t miss that Northwestern is a 1.5 point underdog to UTEP at home. That is sending off such 1980s vibes I can smell the Drakkar Noir from here. It’s gonna be a long season in Evanston, but still, I think the odds aren’t quite right.

Northwestern 17, UTEP 13

Minnesota won a gutty game last week against Nebraska, which was a great way to start the season but might look ugly by November if the Huskers finish with a badly losing record.

Eastern Michigan is coached by former Drake head coach Chris Creighton, who has turned the Eagles from the sad sack of the MAC into a team that goes bowling more often than not. So they’re no longer the pushovers they once were. Last week the Eagles beat Howard 33-23.

Howard?

Look, if you can’t score more than 33 points against one guy ..

Minnesota 41, Eastern Michigan 21

Did I mention there aren’t a lot of good games this weekend? There aren’t a lot of good games this weekend.

Maryland 35, Charlotte 20

It’s the ‘at’ that concerns me.

Big Ten teams that travel to the West Coast usually don’t do so well and/or encounter disasters of other sorts. See Iowa’s games against Arizona State, Wisconsin’s “lights out” against UNLV in 2002, most Rose Bowls … you get the picture. And the league just added four West Coast teams, though Washington State isn’t one of them.

I do believe Luke Fickell can keep the ball rolling but given how little Pac-12 After Dark we have remaining, expect something weird.

Wisconsin 34, Washington State 9, and that 9 will be a touchdown and a safety.

Temple? Rutgers?

Sorry, this is Pickin’ On The Big Ten. You’re looking for Pickin’ On The Big East.

Rutgers 28, Temple 10

And, of course …

I can understand why people might think I hate the Iowa State Cyclones based on one or two or 3,418 things I’ve written in the past twenty seasons. But truth be told, outside of the second week of every season, I don’t think about them at all and now that they’re actually good, losing to them on occasion (as Iowa did last year) doesn’t bother me.

Well, not much, at least.

Look, it’s clear Cade McNamara wasn’t at 100 percent last week and it’s very doubtful he’ll be at 100 percent this week either. That’s a concern but it’s been many, many years since the Hawkeyes’ chances of victory have depended solely on quarterback play. Go Iowa Awesome’s emeritus mensch, Patrick Vint, pointed out something in his Substack this week that I was not aware of: Under Kirk Ferentz, Iowa’s record in games in which it takes an eight-point lead at any point in the game is 62-2.

So for all our complaining about boring offense and the old “go up two scores, turn off the offense, and ask the defense and special teams to win the game,” it works. It totally works. And when you remember the score of last year’s game (Iowa State 10, Iowa 7), you see how ill-equipped the Hawkeyes are to win any other way.

I had, and still have, high hopes that McNamara will be the spark that allows us all to talk about the Iowa offense without having to use the word “dreadful.” But as with all Iowa games since 1998, this one rides on the defense. Cy shut down Northern Iowa last week. That hasn’t always been a given, even under Matt Campbell. But UNI was a mediocre FCS team last season. I don’t see the doom some Hawkeye doomers see here. That’s not to say I see an easy, pretty win here. But I do see a win.

Iowa 20, Iowa State 18