A look around the Big Ten: Week 11

Michigan gets a huge win on the road over a top 10 Penn State team as the Buckeyes roll on, Illinois wins a thriller and Northwestern emerges.

All of those things, among others, were part of an action-packed slate of football in the Big Ten Conference, so let's take a look around the Big Ten at week 11.

Purdue's Rushing Attack

With plenty of offensive potential, Purdue has disappointed on that side of the ball all season long. Taking on a solid Minnesota Golden Gophers defense the expectation was an even battle, that was not the case.

The Boilermakers scored 28 points in the first half and 21 in the second to win 49-30. Hudson Card played great, but the story was the rushing attack. Purdue's top two backs, Devin Mockobee and Tyrone Tracy Jr., combined with 32 carries for 275 yards and three touchdowns. They averaged 8.6 yards per carry.

As a whole, the team finished with 353 yards rushing, including 44 yards from Card. Card also went 17-for-25 with 251 yards and three touchdowns in an impressive performance from him.

QB John Paddock (Illinois)

With an injury to Luke Altmyer a week ago the Fighting Illini were forced to make a change at quarterback for the first time this season. John Paddock, a graduate transfer from Ball State University, came over this offseason to battle for the starting job with Altmyer. Paddock started his first game with Illinois in a 48-45 overtime win against Indiana this weekend.

With poor to mediocre QB play for much of the season, it turned out that Illinois should have considered making the move to Paddock before being forced to via injury.

The Bloomfield Hills, Michigan native went 24-of-36 for 507 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. When he replaced Altmyer versus Minnesota last week, Paddock went 3-for-3 with 85 yards and a score. The momentum before playing the Hoosiers was seemingly already there before facing Indiana.

Paddock now has 729 yards, six touchdowns and just one interception on the season with, with a 63% completion percentage.

QB Kyle McCord (Ohio State)

Against a very bad Michigan State pass defense, Ohio State's Kyle McCord threw for a still-impressive 335 yards and three touchdowns with a 77.4% completion percentage. It was easily his best performance of the season.

The Buckeyes won 38-3 and McCord is playing some of his best football heading into the final two weeks of the season, as OSU will surely need it.

Michigan's Rushing Attack

The Michigan Wolverines went into Happy Valley and beat Penn State by doing the one thing that the world absolutely thought they could not. Running the football.

Michigan rushed for 227 yards and three touchdowns on five yards per carry against the nations top rushing defense, which was allowing just 60 yards rushing per game going into the matchup.

Blake Corum led the way with 26 carries for 145 yards and two scores, but Donovan Edwards may have broken out of his shell with 10 carries for 52 yards and a touchdown.

Michigan exerted their will on the ground in an impressive fashion on Saturday.

Nebraska's QBs

The Cornhuskers struggles at quarterback remain. Many are convinced that this is a team worthy of the top spot in the Big Ten West if they had above-average QB play. Instead, they played three different QBs on Saturday and each of them threw at least one interception.

Jeff Sims Jr. threw two picks, Heinrich Haarberg threw one and Chubba Purdy threw one. Those three combined for a 47.6% completion percentage with just 86 yards passing and no scores. Abysmal.

Rutgers as a whole

Rutgers offense was suffocated by the Iowa Hawkeyes defense in a 22-0 effort, as their defense also fell short against one of the nation's worst offenses.

Iowa topped over 400 yards for the first time in more than two years, with 402 total yards of offense. The Scarlet Knights could not get anything going on offense themselves with just 127 total yards and one interception.

Rutgers was an underdog pick for a lot of people in this matchup and they fell on their face against the best team in the Big Ten West.

Penn State's Offense

Penn State and Drew Allar struggled to get anything going on the offensive side of the ball. They ended up with 238 total yards, which is not that bad, but the majority of that came on a late garbage-time score down 15 points.

Allar's has not looked good against Michigan or Ohio State this season and something is going to have to give. James Franklin fired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich a day after the game and that is by no means a surprise.

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