JHS's Fearless Predictions for the 2008 Big Ten Season

Seeing as how there is (most likely) going to be no big college football news until next Wednesday (National Signing Day, as fans of UM and OSU hold their breath and hope they T. Pryor comes to their University), I'm going to act like ESPN and just create my own news in the form of some bold predictions for the 2008 Season.

*Note for the sake of argument - I'm going to create these predictions with the thought in mind that Pryor is not going to neither OSU nor Michigan*

2008 Big Ten Champs: OSU Buckeyes. Not hard to picture this happening - I see them going 10-2 (one loss in Big ten play and a loss to USC). No title game shot this year for the Bucks, but they will continue their (almost yearly) tradition of being in the BCS.

2008 Big Ten Cellar Dweller: Minnesota Golden Gophers. Sorry Gopher fans, but this is just not a good team, they will win more than they did last year (one win). 4-5 wins could be within reach for the Gophers this year.

2008 Big Ten MVP: Chris Wells, OSU. This is a beast, big, strong, fast and will be touching the ball a lot. Expect him to be a top Heisman candidate as well.

2008 Big Ten Coach of the year: Rich Rodriguez, UM. With the loss of basically the starting offense, expectations are going to lower than usual in Ann Arbor this season, some media members have predicted 6 wins and even 4 wins for UM. If Rodriguez can get UM to 9-3 I think he has a great shot at being coach of the year. If he could beat OSU in Columbus, he might be a shoo-in for the award.

Now onto some UM predictions -

2008 UM captains: Morgan Trent, CB; Tim Jamison, DE; and Greg Matthews, WR.

2008 UM Defensive MVP: Morgan Trent, CB. Trent was light years better in '07 than he was in '06. In fact going into '07, many UM fans though he would be a liability on defense, however, he turned out to a major strength. If his progression can continue he could be one of the best CBs in the nation.

2008 UM Breakthrough Player: Steven Threet, QB. Threet is the most likely candidate to start game one: he has been practicing and training at the college football level for a year more than any potential frosh QB, and he will have gotten the playbook months before any frosh QB. Even though Coach Rod favors a mobile QB, I think he will be forced to give Threet a lot of playing time and Threet will deliver.

Well that's all for now, but after spring ball I will release my official predictions for the 2008 college football season.

Also expect some serious analysis next week on UM's recruiting class.