The 2024 Big Ten football season is one of the most anticipated in conference history given the league’s expansion to 18 teams and its considerable potential to bring home a national championship. Perennial contender Ohio State and newcomer Oregon headline the squads at the top of the ladder, according to the preseason media poll at Cleveland.com, but rising to conference supremacy is no easy feat with the likes of Michigan and Penn State standing firmly in the race.
While those four programs comprise an obvious top tier in the Big Ten, the conference’s preseason media poll provided a few surprises in its projected order of finish. The arrival of first-year coaches and, of course, league expansion made sorting the 18 squads far from an exact science, and that led to a handful of teams being overrated and underrated in the poll.
Surprise teams, for better or worse, are always aplenty in college football, and the Big Ten is not immune to those squads shaking up the conference outlook.
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Here are the most overrated and underrated teams in the preseason Big Ten media poll:
