Big Ten Power Rankings: Indiana leads the pack, Ohio State and Oregon follow closely

Spring football felt a lot calmer this time around, given that players and coaches weren’t busy doing double duty preparing for an impending transfer window while trying to improve on the field. Consider it a much-needed reprieve, if only momentarily, for a sport that has evolved at breakneck speed in recent years. With the remaining power conference programs hosting spring games this weekend, the dust is finally starting to settle. Early enrollees have settled in, transfers have acclimated to their new surroundings, the coaching carousel has stopped and depth charts are taking shape before fall camp. That means it’s a good time for a team-by-team analysis of the situation in the Big Ten after spring practice. So here’s an offseason batch of Big Ten Power Rankings: The Rest For the second straight season — albeit with a different leader at the helm this time — the Boilermakers finished winless in Big Ten play, mired at the bottom of an increasingly top-heavy conference. Head coach Barry Odom, formerly of UNLV, hired Kevin Kane to be Purdue’s new defensive coordinator after one season as outside linebackers coach at Minnesota. Kane will aim to improve a group that finished tied for 117th (31.8 points per game) and 120th overall (423.5 yards per game). The Boilermakers added 29 new players via the transfer portal in a group ranked 39th nationally, according to 247Sports. But Odom’s 55th-ranked high school recruiting class, which doesn’t include any four- or five-star prospects, remains a clear weakness. After three years away from football, former Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald takes over a Michigan State program desperate to regain its footing after two failed hires in Mel Tucker (2020-23) and Jonathan Smith (2024-25). Fitzgerald retained defensive coordinator Joe Rossi and named promising youngster Nick Sheridan, former co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Alabama, to lead the other side of the ball. The Spartans added 29 new players through the transfer portal, including 13 from power conference programs, but none of them are considered four- or five-star prospects. Fitzgerald’s early team-building efforts were more successful at the high school level, with his first recruiting class housing five blue-chip prospects. Headlining is four-star offensive tackle Collin Campbell (No. 196 overall, No. 20 in overtime) from Arizona. Radically different conference and college football contexts have made it much more difficult for head coach Greg Schiano to find his footing during this second stint with the Scarlet Knights. Back-to-back winning seasons in 2023 and 2024 have largely obscured the fact that Rutgers, which joined the Big Ten more than a decade ago, has yet to produce a championship winning record. Schiano’s player acquisition efforts ahead of the 2026 campaign are rather fascinating: His transfer portal class ranks last in the conference and 71st nationally, sandwiched between San Diego State and James Madison. But the Scarlet Knights’ new high school class ranked in the top 40 overall and has more blue-chip recruits (four) than programs like Arizona State, TCU, Arkansas, Louisville, NC State and Kentucky. Two wins in three seasons represents a good start for head coach David Braun, whose team began the 2026 campaign 5-2 overall before stumbling a bit down the stretch. Braun has since revamped his staff, hiring six new coaches and promoting another from within to give the Wildcats a new feel heading into the fall. The biggest change was Braun’s highly publicized addition of Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator. Although Kelly shined in less than a season with the Las Vegas Raiders, he is still considered one of the sharpest offensive minds in the sport and helped Ohio State win a national championship two years ago. Kelly is now tasked with mentoring transfer quarterback Aidan Chiles, formerly of Michigan State, to improve an offense ranked 108th nationally in passing yards per game. Few, if any, power conference coaches will enter the season with a hotter seat than Luke Fickell, whose three years with the Badgers produced just 16 wins and a disastrous 10-17 conference record. Fickell needed a public vote of confidence from athletic director Chris McIntosh last fall amid widespread speculation about his job security, and now McIntosh has left Wisconsin for a job in the Big Ten front office. This leaves Fickell in a precarious position. Once again, the Badgers made a big move in the transfer portal by adding 33 players this winter, although the class only ranks 49th nationally as it is missing just one blue-chip prospect. Wisconsin has had even more difficulty with high school recruiting: Fickell’s class ranks No. 72 overall and No. 17 in the Big Ten. Mike Locksley is another Big Ten coach who barely survived the 2025 campaign, finishing 1-8 in conference play for the second straight year and below .500 in league play for a seventh straight season. But the acquisition of high-profile players, particularly in the high school ranks, gave Locksley another chance this fall. Maryland’s recruiting class is led by Zion Elee, a five-star edge rusher (No. 5 overall, No. 1 edge rusher) from powerhouse St. Frances Academy in nearby Baltimore. Elee represents the third five-star recruit to join the Terrapins since Locksley took over before the 2019 season. Former blue-chip quarterback Malik Washington’s strong debut provides another reason for optimism. Washington, who was the No. 10 quarterback in the 2025 class, ranked sixth nationally among freshmen with 2,963 passing yards last fall. Can Matt Rhule finally turn the tide at Nebraska? The Cornhuskers received plenty of praise when they hired Rhule ahead of the 2023 season, grabbing a hot commodity after his stint with the Carolina Panthers went south. But the exponential growth that Rhule’s teams demonstrated during his successful runs at Temple (2013-16) and Baylor (2017-19) has yet to resurface at Nebraska, where he is now 0-9 against ranked opponents. The Cornhuskers finished below .500 in the Big Ten in each of Rhule’s first three seasons, and they now enter the 2026 campaign with a high school recruiting class that ranks 106th nationally and dead last in the conference. Losing starting quarterback Dylan Raiola, a former five-star prospect, to the transfer portal represented another blow. In an era where programs can be turned around with remarkable speed, Rhule must demonstrate legitimate progress this fall. Even though UCLA lost five straight games to finish the 2025 season on a high note, there is optimism surrounding the Bruins. UCLA landed one of the hottest names in coaching when it lured 48-year-old Bob Chesney away from James Madison, a program he led to the College Football Playoff last fall. Chesney posted an impressive 21-6 record with the Dukes after taking over for Curt Cignetti, who is now Indiana’s head coach. Those two winning seasons pushed Chesney’s streak to seven straight years above .500 overall and 15 of 16 since his previous stints at Salve Regina, Assumption and Holy Cross. Today, Chesney is working in the Power Conferences for the first time, taking over a program that has no shortage of talent. Former five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava, a transfer from Tennessee, is back for another season in Westwood. Chesney added 41 new players through the transfer portal — including 10 from James Madison — to secure the Big Ten’s largest incoming class. The two highest-profile additions are former Oklahoma linebacker Sammy Omosigho (transfer No. 115, LB No. 3) and former Florida receiver Aidan Mizell (transfer No. 143, No. 38 WR). Top 10 Minnesota entered its offseason on the right track after beating New Mexico in the Rate Bowl, giving head coach PJ Fleck his seventh straight Bowl victory. The win also gave Fleck a fifth season with eight or more wins in the last seven campaigns, evidence of impressive coaching work at a school not known for its football prowess. That momentum came in the form of a high school recruiting class that finished No. 28 nationally and No. 8 in the Big Ten. By signing six blue-chip prospects, including five among the top 400 players nationally, Fleck laid the groundwork for the Gophers to secure their first top-30 recruiting class since 2008. The highest-rated player in the bunch is Aaden Aytch (No. 181 overall, No. 22), an Indiana native who chose Minnesota over additional scholarship offers from Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue and Kentucky, among others. Now that Iowa has set a program record for most players selected in a single NFL draft with seven, it’s worth reevaluating just how good the Hawkeyes really were in 2025. Sure, head coach Kirk Ferentz’s team finished sixth in the Big Ten standings, sandwiched between Michigan and Washington, but its three conference losses came by just 12 combined points against three ranked opponents — one of which was the eventual national champion from Indiana. The Hawkeyes were a touchdown or two away from potentially reaching the College Football Playoff. To rebuild his roster, Ferentz assembled one of Iowa’s strongest high school recruiting classes in recent memory, a group ranked No. 26 nationally and including eight four-star prospects. The name to remember might be four-star quarterback Tradon Bessinger, a Utah native who is the No. 11 signal-caller in the class. He is the second-best quarterback prospect to sign with Iowa in the recruiting rankings era, according to 247Sports, behind Jake Christensen in 2005. One way to gauge Illinois’ impressive trajectory under head coach Bret Bielema is through the recruiting rankings, where the Illini loom in rarefied air. In 2020, the year before Bielema took office, Illinois’ high school recruiting class ranked 82nd nationally. Since then, Bielema has had the following rankings: 73rd in 2021; 46th in 2022; 37th in 2023; 49th in 2024; 46th in 2025 and 24th in 2026. This is the program’s first foray into the top 30, where it is just two spots behind Ole Miss and four spots behind Clemson, in 18 years. To get there, Bielema recruited five of Illinois’ top 18 players and supplemented them with blue-chip players from Florida, New Jersey and Missouri. The biggest question moving forward is whether quarterback Katin Houser, who transferred from East Carolina via Michigan State, can run the offense as effectively as his predecessor Luke Altmyer did over the past three seasons. The surprising decision to fire head coach James Franklin last October gave way to u n lengthy hiring process on the part of athletic director Pat Kraft to identify the right successor. Ultimately, the Nittany Lions landed on a proven winner in 46-year-old Matt Campbell, who oversaw eight winning seasons at Iowa State and four more at Toledo before that. In an effort to quickly renew his new team, Campbell invested heavily in the transfer portal. His final total of 38 signees was seventh in the country, according to 247Sports, and featured a number of familiar faces. Twenty-four former Iowa State players followed Campbell to Penn State, including veteran quarterback Rocco Becht, the No. 34 overall transfer and No. 10 signal-caller in the portal. Such aggressiveness was necessary in part because the Nittany Lions’ high school recruiting class split once Franklin was fired, and many of those players eventually followed him to Virginia Tech. Campbell is looking to make up for those losses by banking heavily on experience. There’s no chance the Huskies classify star quarterback Demond Williams Jr., a potential Heisman Trophy candidate for the 2026 campaign, who made his decision to transfer over the winter. Williams, who threw for more than 3,000 yards and ran for more than 600 as a freshman starter last fall, announced his intention to enter the transfer portal in January, but then reversed course two days later — after reports surfaced that Washington was prepared to take legal action to enforce his signed NIL agreement. Ultimately, head coach Jedd Fisch welcomed Williams back into the fold, paving the way for what could be a special season. Thanks to the exemplary player acquisition efforts by Fisch and the Huskies staff, Williams will have more talent around him than ever. Washington High School’s recruiting class finished 13th nationally, setting a new program record for the modern era. The Huskies signed 10 players ranked among the top 300 overall prospects, headlined by five-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene (No. 25 overall, No. 3 overtime) from powerhouse Mater Dei high school in California. Surely this will be the year that head coach Lincoln Riley finally puts things together and takes USC to the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history, right? Riley has one of the best quarterbacks in the country in former UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava, who now enters his second full season as the Trojans’ starter. He has what should be one of the strongest running back tandems in the league in Waymond Jordan (576 yards, 5 TDs) and King Miller (972 yards, 8 TDs). He has a flashy new defensive coordinator in former TCU head coach Gary Patterson, who guided the Horned Frogs to 181 wins from 2000 to 2021. He has the No. 1 high school recruiting class in the country, which has 14 signees ranked among the top 200 players in the country. He has the No. 26 transfer portal class. It has a brand new state-of-the-art practice facility that is expected to open this summer. What more could a coach want in the modern era? The pressure is on Riley to get USC over the hump. The messy and unsavory divorces of former coaches Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore have given way to what the Wolverines hope will be a more controlled culture under successful Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham. Whittingham recorded eight 10-win seasons with the Utes between 2008 and 2025, transforming the program into a model of consistency and respectability across multiple conferences. Today, Whittingham is working for one of college football’s blue bloods for the first time in his career, as head coach or otherwise, and observers of the sport have wondered for years how his methods would fare in such an environment. The main task for Whittingham and offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who followed him from Utah, is to maximize the potential of former five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood after an inconsistent freshman campaign. If Underwood can raise his level of play — Michigan finished 107th nationally in passing offense last season — the Wolverines have enough talent to contend for the College Football Playoff. With head coach Dan Lanning at the helm, Oregon has ascended to the upper echelon of the sport after winning 48 games over the past four seasons and reaching the College Football Playoff in consecutive years. Yet back-to-back losses to future national champions Ohio State (41-21 in 2024) and Indiana (56-22 in 2025) began to spoil an otherwise heady mix. The narrative that the Ducks collapse when it matters most is something Lanning and his players must deal with until they dispel that notion on the court. Even though Oregon lost both of its head coaching coordinators last winter – Will Stein to Kentucky; Tosh Lupoi at Cal – there’s still a lot to like about the Ducks in 2026. They have a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Dante Moore and one of the most explosive wide receiver corps in the country after the healthy return of Evan Stewart. The Ducks also have a defensive line loaded with NFL-caliber talent. Anything less than another CFP appearance will seem like unrealized potential. Last year: 12-2 overall, 9-0 Big Ten in postseason: 24-14 loss to No. 10 Miami in CFP quarterfinals More than a few eyebrows were raised when Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, fresh off a national championship, selected failed Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia to replace defensive coordinator Jim Knowles. All Patricia did was put together one of the most statistically dominant defenses in recent memory as the Buckeyes finished atop the national rankings in scoring defense (9.3 points per game), total defense (219.1 yards per game) and opponent’s red zone scoring rate (66.7%). So maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising when Day, whose longtime offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Brian Hartline left to become head coach at USF, turned his attention to another NFL name. Enter Arthur Smith, the former offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers (2024-25) and former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons (2021-23). It’s up to Smith to unlock the full potential of an offense that stumbled in its biggest moments against Indiana and Miami last season. Time and time again throughout Indiana’s fairy-tale run to the national title, head coach Curt Cignetti cited his team’s continuity as one of the driving factors in the program’s unprecedented turnaround over the past two seasons. That’s why, even after so many core players left the Hoosiers, including a school-record eight selections in the NFL Draft, so many people are still excited about Indiana entering the 2026 campaign. Cignetti managed to keep offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines, which represented a massive coup, even though it meant giving both coaches sizable raises amid outside interest generalized. The system they built over years of collaboration is what has propelled the Hoosiers to previously unimaginable heights. So while the faces on the ground will be different in 2026, the culture and impeccable patterns remain the same. For now, that’s enough to keep Indiana atop the Big Ten.