Michigan, Ohio State both on rise as The Game nears: Who's up, down across Big Ten

All signs are pointing toward an undefeated clash between Michigan and Ohio State in the regular season finale after the Jim Harbaugh-less Wolverines passed their toughest test of the season by knocking off Penn State in Happy Valley on Saturday. 

Now the only thing standing in the way of the most anticipated version of The Game in years is Michigan's trip to Maryland next weekend and the Buckeyes' home date with Minnesota.

Whoever wins that game will finish atop the Big Ten East standings to advance to the league's championship game in Indianapolis. 

And based on the results from this past weekend, it certainly seems like Iowa is going to be the representative from the West. The Hawkeyes clinched a share of their division title by polishing off Rutgers to improve to 8-2 overall and 5-2 in conference play. Behind them are five teams with identical 3-4 records.

Find out who is trending in the right — or wrong — direction with a new edition of the Big Ten Stock Watch:  

STOCK UP

Sherrone Moore, acting coach, Michigan: For what could be the second of four games over the course of this season, Moore was elevated from his position as offensive coordinator to acting head coach in place of the suspended Harbaugh. And while facing a top-10 opponent on the road in one of the most difficult environments in college football is far different from taking on Bowling Green at Michigan Stadium, which Moore did in his first go-around earlier this season, nothing about his performance suggested the 37-year-old coach was in over his head. Moore rallied the troops, maintained his composure and was responsible for a slew of critical offensive adjustments that fueled an emphatic 24-15 win over Penn State.

While Moore's tearful postgame interview will likely be the image most fans remember from Saturday's game, it was his keen ability to adapt as a playcaller that should go down as the defining memory. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy was under siege on the Wolverines' first two possessions as Penn State edge rushers Chop Robinson and Dani Dennis-Sutton wrecked the offensive line each time Moore called a traditional drop-back pass. Moore quickly adjusted by curtailing McCarthy's pass attempts and utilizing either sprintouts or rollouts to lessen the burden on Michigan's overmatched offensive tackles. He also made the astute decision to deploy a jumbo package featuring as many as seven or eight offensive linemen. That paved the way for tailback Blake Corum to run for 145 yards and two scores on 26 attempts, and control the time of possession. By the game's end, the Wolverines had tamed one of the best defenses in the country.

John Paddock, QB, Illinois: Debuts don't come much better than the one Paddock enjoyed during his team's thrilling 48-45 win over Indiana in overtime on Saturday afternoon. Making his first career start in place of the injured Luke Altmyer, who was unable to clear concussion protocol in time for a normal week of preparation, Paddock completed 24 of 36 passes for 507 yards, four touchdowns, one interception and a tremendous NFL passer rating of 135.2, according to Pro Football Focus. He connected with star wideout Isaiah Williams nine times for 200 yards and two scores, including the game-winning 21-yard touchdown after the Hoosiers kicked a field goal to begin the overtime session. 

A former three-star prospect from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, which is a northern suburb of Detroit, Paddock originally committed to Ball State over Southern Illinois, the only other school to offer him a scholarship. He played sparingly from 2018-21 before earning the starting job last season on a team that finished 5-7 overall and 3-5 in the MAC. He completed 59.6% of his passes while throwing for 2,719 yards, 18 touchdowns and 14 interceptions before transferring to Illinois ahead of the 2023 campaign. And on Saturday, he threw for the second-highest single-game passing total in school history and the highest ever at Memorial Stadium. Only Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders (510 yards) has thrown for more yards in a game this season.

Maryland's secondary: The Terrapins snapped out of their four-game tailspin by escaping Memorial Stadium with a gritty 13-10 win over the Nebraska courtesy of a 24-yard field goal by Jack Howes as time expired. Howes' kick, which gave Maryland its first victory over Nebraska in school history, ensured head coach Mike Locksley's team achieved bowl eligibility for a third consecutive season — a feat that hadn't been accomplished since 2006-08 under former coach Ralph Friedgen — with two games to spare.

Rather than leaning on star quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, whose performances have been uneven this season, Maryland knocked off the Cornhuskers with a stellar defensive effort spearheaded by second-year coordinator Brian WiIlliams. The Terrapins capitalized on Nebraska's revolving door at quarterback to intercept four passes from three different players and limiting the Cornhuskers to just 86 passing yards and a 47.6% completion rate. Defensive backs Dante Trader and Tarheeb Still notched two interceptions each, as Maryland became the only team in the country to have two players with at least two interceptions in a single game this season. It also marked the second time this year that Still has picked off multiple passes in a game. His overall total of five interceptions ranks second nationally behind Xavier Watts of Notre Dame, who has seven. 

Kyle McCord, QB, Ohio State: Saturday night's 38-3 flogging of Big Ten bottom-feeder Michigan State was exactly what the doctor ordered for McCord — literally. With its quarterback still nursing an ankle injury he sustained in the win over Notre Dame on Sept. 23, Ohio State was hopeful that what appeared to be a lopsided game on paper would be done and dusted by the fourth quarter to get McCord some rest. His ankle has continued to improve from Sunday to Friday each week thanks to steady attention from the Buckeyes' medical staff, but every game seemed to reset some of McCord's progress. He even exited Camp Randall Stadium in a walking boot following Ohio State's win over Wisconsin in late October.

On Saturday, McCord turned in arguably his finest performance of the season, completing 24 of 31 passes for a career-high 335 yards and three scores to seize control of the game early. He guided the Buckeyes to three consecutive touchdown drives in the first quarter and never looked back on a night when Ohio State reached the end zone on four of its six trips to the red zone. McCord threw for 263 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone to ensure himself some rest, ultimately giving way to true freshman Lincoln Kienholz on the opening drive of the fourth quarter. A completion rate of 77.4% and an NFL passer rating of 143.9 were both season-highs for McCord against Power 5 competition.

STOCK DOWN

Mike Yurcich, offensive coordinator, Penn State: The downside to this year's imbalanced and top-heavy standings in the Big Ten is that conference play for Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan — the three best teams in the league — can be reduced to just two games each in what amounts to an East division round-robin. Their seasons will be judged, in large part, on how they performed against each other in the race to Indianapolis and the College Football Playoff.

Saturday's 24-15 loss to Michigan confirmed that Penn State's offense failed both tests against top-tier competition this season. After only completing 42.9% of his passes in an earlier loss to Ohio State in which the Nittany Lions finished 1-for-16 on third down, quarterback Drew Allar again looked lost when facing one of the nation's top defenses. The former five-star recruit completed 10 of 22 passes for a season-low 70 yards as the offense went three-and-out or four-and-out on five of its 10 possessions.

It was clear to everyone that something had to change after Penn State scored just 27 combined points in humbling losses to Ohio State and Michigan that cemented the pecking order in the Big Ten East. Head coach James Franklin responded by firing offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich on Sunday afternoon. Yurcich, 48, was in his third year with the program following earlier stints at Texas, Ohio State and Oklahoma State. His unit finished the weekend 74th nationally in total offense, 90th in passing offense and 130th in scrimmage plays longer than 20 yards.

Nebraska's quarterbacks: A season's worth of shoddy quarterback play reached its nadir during the Cornhuskers' 13-10 loss to Maryland on Saturday in which the team's signal-callers combined to throw four interceptions and lose one fumble, sinking Nebraska to 132nd nationally in turnover margin at minus-14. First-year head coach Matt Rhule and offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield shuffled three quarterbacks in and out of the lineup — Heinrich Haarberg, Jeff Sims and Chubba Purdy — but watched all of them make the kind of crippling mistakes that snuff out a team's chance at victory, especially in a one-score game.

The starter, Haarberg, was 1-for-5 for 0 yards and an interception before leaving the game with an injury. Sims completed 8 of 13 passes for 62 yards and two interceptions while also losing a fumble. And Purdy, the third-string quarterback, completed 1 of 3 passes for 24 yards and an interception. By the time the game mercifully ended on a walk-off field goal for Maryland, the Nebraska quarterbacks had turned the ball over on three consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter. Rhule will have to think long and hard about whether Satterfield, who also coaches the quarterbacks, is the right person to lead the offense in 2024.

Phil Longo, offensive coordinator, Wisconsin: A promising 5-2 start for the Badgers' new regime under first-year coach Luke Fickell has quickly soured as Wisconsin stumbled for a third straight game in Saturday's 24-10 loss to Northwestern. Excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign in which a cancelation saddled former coach Paul Chryst with consecutive defeats to Northwestern, Indiana and Iowa, this is the program's first three-game losing streak since dropping four in a row in 2008, at which point Bret Bielema was still running the show.

The most disappointing aspect of Wisconsin's plunge to fourth in the Big Ten West standings is the tepid offense under new coordinator Phil Longo, whom Fickell hired away from the same position at North Carolina because of an impressive track record leading explosive units. But things haven't gone according to plan for Longo, and Saturday's defeat to Northwestern marked the sixth consecutive game in which the Badgers scored 25 points or fewer and the fourth time in the last five games that they failed to top 14 points. Injuries to starting quarterback Tanner Mordecai and the tailback tandem of Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi certainly haven't helped Longo's cause, but most folks were expecting something better than an offense that ranks 76th overall, 104th in scoring and 80th in passing.

Minnesota's defense: What a difference a year can make. In 2022, a Minnesota defense led by coordinator Joe Rossi ranked fourth nationally in points per game (13.8 points), ninth in yards per game (294.7 yards), 15th against the pass (185.7 yards per game) and 16th against the run (109 yards per game). The Gophers held six Big Ten opponents to 16 points per fewer en route to a second consecutive nine-win season for the first time since 1903-04.

Despite retaining the same defensive coordinator, Minnesota's on-field results have been far different and far less effective in 2023, with Saturday's 49-30 waxing at the hands of Purdue marking a new low. The Gophers surrendered a staggering 604 yards of total offense to a team that hadn't scored more than 14 points since Sept. 30 and were gashed both on the ground and through the air. Quarterback Hudson Card enjoyed his best game of the season by completing 17 of 25 passes for 251 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. While the rushing attack led by tailbacks Devin Mockobee (17 carries, 153 yards, one TD) and Tyrone Tracy Jr. (15 carries, 122 yards, two TDs) averaged 8 yards per attempt on 44 carries. The total damage was 353 rushing yards and four scores. 

Minnesota's defense now ranks 54th in yards per game and 62nd in points per game. 

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.