The Week 11 AP Poll and the Week 11 USA Today coaches poll don't have any Big Ten teams in the top 10. And yet the conference could still place two teams in BCS bowls.
Nebraska's loss to Northwestern in Week 10 left the Big Ten without a top-10 squad; No. 12 AP/No. 12 coaches Penn State is the highest-ranked Big Ten team. And the Nittany Lions are followed by a slew of Big Ten schools that haven't been dominant: No. 13 AP/No. 13 coaches Michigan State, No. 14 coaches/No. 16 AP Wisconsin, No. 17 coaches/No. 19 Nebraska. Michigan straggles in at No. 21 coaches/No. 22 AP.
But the conference will still have a champion that heads to a BCS bowl, and there's a fairly good chance that there will be another two-loss team in the BCS at-large range. With the pool of at-larges likely to include light-traveling teams like Stanford, Oregon, and Boise State, the massive Big Ten fan bases are going to look very good to BCS bowl selection committees.
For more on the Week 11 college football rankings, check out our comprehensive StoryStream. For more on the Big Ten, visit SB Nation's Off Tackle Empire.
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