Big ups to the Big Ten

There’s been a lot of Big Ten bashing going on the last few football seasons. Mostly, it’s Ohio State’s fault for getting whacked in two BCS title games when the Buckeyes had no business being in said championship game.

But this bowl season has offered some hope to those who follow the Big Ten. Maybe the conference is catching up to the likes of the SEC and Big 12.

With Iowa’s 24-14 win over Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl on Tuesday night, the Big Ten finishes the bowl season with a 4-3 record, which at first glance, isn’t terribly impressive. But when you look at the matchups, those four wins were games in which almost no one would have picked the Big Ten teams.

The lone exception, maybe, is Ohio State, which beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl. But who can honestly say they saw Penn State beating LSU? Or Wisconsin beating Miami, in Florida? And when Iowa beat G-Tech, the football version of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge proved pretty one-sided.

As far as the BCS national championship game goes, the Big Ten deserved to be banned after Ohio State’s back-to-back dreadful performances in 2007 and ’08. But the conference might be on its way back to relevancy on the national stage.