A Few Big Ten Games To Pay Attention To This Saturday

Week two of the 2025 College Football Season is upon us and there aren’t many marquee games across the country, especially in the Big Ten. The Minnesota Golden Gophers will likely have less of a challenge this week than they did last week with the Buffalo Bulls.  

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The Minnesota Golden Gophers

Saturday the Gophers will be home again playing host to Northwestern State. To be honest, I didn’t remember where they were located, which is Natchitoches Louisiana. The Demons play at the FCS level, the same level as North Dakota State and South Dakota State.  

Northwestern State was picked to finish nineth out of the 10 teams in their conference after finishing 0-12 last season. Minnesota is expected to pay The Demons around $500,000 to make the trip up north for the game. 

The Illinois Fightin' Illini

There are a couple of interesting games in the Big Ten tomorrow, starting with Illinois at Duke. The 15th ranked Fightin’ Illini will be stepping up from an FCS opponent last week to a team that has been better in the ACC the last few years. Duke returns 6 players on offense from a team that averaged 26 points per game last year and a defense that allowed 24.  

Illinois is coming off a season opening win where they put up 53 points on an FCS team, and they return most of the players from their 10-3 season last year. Last week Duke struggled early with an FCS team, the Elon Phoenix, before pulling away in the second half.  

This will be the first true test for both teams. 

The Oregon Ducks

Oregon has an interesting match-up as they play host Oklahoma State. The 6th ranked Ducks will be the more talented team, but the sparks flew a bit earlier in the week when the two head coaches exchanged words in the press over the amount of money that Oregon spent on building their team. 

Oregon has the almost endless financial support from Nike and has a monetary depth chart to contend for a National Championship; 

The UCLA Bruins

UCLA heads to UNLV after coming off a very disappointing opener against Utah where they were beaten at home by 33 points. The Bruins return half or less than half of their players on each side of the ball from last year's 5-7 team.  

UCLA is coached by former NFL Running Back Deshaun Foster. The Rebels are coached by former Florida and Mississippi State Head Coach Dan Mullen who will look to exploit a Bruins defense that allowed nearly 500 yards in offense to Utah.  

This game could go a long way to getting UCLA on track for the season if they can put together a win against a respected program. 

The Indiana Hoosiers

Lastly, I’ll be watching to see how Indiana bounces back after last week’s 27-14 win at home over Old Dominion. The Hoosier's gave up a 75-yard touchdown run to the Monarchs on the game’s first play from scrimmage and they struggled with scoring from within the 10-yard line.  

The Hoosiers shouldn't have any issues this week as they host the Kennesaw State Owls out of Georgia who are only in their second season of playing FBS football.

Many sports reporters have been very critical of Indiana Coach Curt Cignetti for his scheduling for the next couple of years, and in their opinion for his team not being worthy of a playoff spot last season.  

What most of those reporters don’t know are things that I do know after working with Coach Cignetti for two years at James Madison University in Virginia. Curt Cignetti is way smarter than he’s given credit for because he is a football coach, period. He doesn't get caught up in a lot of things that can serve as a distraction to his team and he understands aspects about the game that most reporters don’t even think about.  

His straightforward, no non-sense approach to answering questions makes some people uncomfortable, but that comes from the confidence that he has because of how much he actually knows about the game and his opponent. 

Another thing to remember about Curt Cignetti, as a head coach, he has a history of his second season being as good, if not better than the first. He's in the Big Ten now, but there’s no reason Curt Cignetti can continue his trend of excellent second seasons now that he has more resources than he’s ever had in his head coaching career.