About a week ago, I mentioned that I would be interviewing ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg.  Adam, of course, runs ESPN’s phenomenal Big Ten blog which, along with NittanyWhiteOut of course, should be saved, bookmarked, and read daily by any fan of the Big Ten.  Adam was nice enough to take the time to chat with me, and so I’ll leave my introduction to a minimum and just post the interview.  Thanks to everyone who sent in questions, I tried to get to most of them.

NittanyWhiteOut: The first Coaches Poll came out a little while ago, and had 5 Big Ten teams in the Top 25.  Do you think the rankings were fair, and if you had a vote where would you rank the Big Ten teams among the top 25?

Adam Rittenberg: Yeah, I thought It was pretty fair, I wouldn’t have Michigan in, that was the one team where I wondered how you could put them in the top 25, there’s so many questions and they haven’t even played a game.  They got put in on tradition more than anything, and Rich Rodriguez even addressed that, he didn’t even think his team should have been in there.  I think Penn State’s probably between 17 and 22 and Illinois is also right in that range.  Wisconsin would be a little higher, I’d have them around 15.  I’m not so high on Wisconsin after watching their scrimmage, and yeah, Ohio State is right up there in the top 3, that’s definitely fair.

NWO: Is there any way that Ohio State doesn’t win the Big Ten?

AR: Well, the thing is their road schedule is tough, that game in Wisconsin especially.  They haven’t been up there in 5 years and they lost the last time they played at Wisconsin.  Illinois also matches up very well with them, people forget that.  They beat them last year, and the year before that a pretty bad Illinois team had Ohio State on the ropes, and that was the year Ohio State ran the table.  The road games are tough, you also have to look at that big one in the beginning of the year against USC, it’s not in the conference but it’s definitely another tough game.  Am I saying they won’t win the Big Ten, no, I think they will, but if you’re going to make the case that they don’t, that’s why.

NWO: Which Big Ten team is going to struggle the most handling their player losses and graduations from last year.

AR: As much as I like Curtis Painter, I think it’s going to be Purdue.  Dorien Bryant was the Big Ten leader in receiving for three years in a row and I think Dustin Keller was one of the most underrated players in the country, as a Tight End he provided such a tough matchup and I think he’s a guy you really can’t replace.  They have some guys coming in, some receivers, so they might be okay, but from a losses standpoint, they lost a lot.  Michigan, too, obviously, losing Mike Hart, Chad Henne, the two receivers, basically the whole offensive line is going to have some problems, but I think they’ll have the pieces to replace a lot of those guys, so when you look at overcoming their losses, it’s going to be Purdue.

NWO: What are the Best case and Worst case scenarios for the new Michigan offense?  How quickly will Rich Rodriguez be able to implement his Spread offense, considering the pieces in place?

AR: Well, he’s going to go to that spread offense.  Rich Rodriguez is going to work with what he has, but what makes him such a great coach is how he’s able to take what he’s got and shape the players into his system, he’s not going to go away from what has made him so successful.  I think they keep the spread.  Worst case scenario, I think they come out against a pretty tough Utah team, a veteran team, commit some turnovers and lose that one, they have another home game, but then it’s Notre Dame, a tough game on the road.  A 1-2 start could really hurt their confidence and they start the Big Ten with a tough game against Wisconsin, and you know Wisconsin is a very good team.  Best case scenario, they go out and beat Utah, that should be a pretty evenly matched game, they beat Miami [of Ohio] and win at Notre Dame, coming into the Big Ten at 3-0 would be huge for Michigan.  I look at Michigan and I see a 7 win team, an 8 win team, maybe even a 9-win team.  They’re going to improve in the second half of the season, and I definitely don’t see them going 5-7 or something like that, I’ll say about 8 wins this year.

NWO: Other than USC vs. Ohio State, give me some other out-of-conference Big Ten games that you can’t wait for.

AR: That day, September 13^th has so many great games, I feel bad that they’re all going to be overshadowed by Ohio State vs. USC.  I’m really excited to see Wisconsin go to Fresno State, just because Fresno State never gets big teams like that to come to them.  I mean, some Big 12 teams have backed out of their contracts with Fresno State, that’s how Wisconsin got that game.  I’m really excited to see Wisconsin get tested out there with their new quarterback.  The Michigan/Notre Dame game is really intriguing for a lot of reasons, you look at who they lost, I wrote a blog post about it, from a personnel standpoint, what Michigan lost going into this year is very similar to what Notre Dame lost going into last season.  Purdue against Oregon should be a great offensive matchup, you have one spread offense against another, but they run two different versions of it.  Penn State vs. Oregon State should be a good game, but the other really big one is Illinois vs. Missouri.  That’s going to be a huge game, it’s played at a neutral site, and it’s turned into a terrific rivalry.  That should be a very, very tight contest.  Lastly, I’m looking forward to Michigan State vs. Cal, it’ll be a chance for Michigan State to back up a lot of the hype they’ve got from the media.

NWO: Give me three impact freshmen to watch out for in the conference.

AR: Well, he’s gotten so much publicity, so I’ll have to put Pryor up there.  There’s been so much written, so much talk about Pryor.  I’m not really sure how Ohio State is going to use him, I don’t think he’ll have the biggest impact of any freshman in the league but I’m going to put him up there just because of the hype factor.  Darryl Stonum for Michigan, he’s one of a few wide receivers I’m really excited to see around the league.  He’s the one guy who I really think will make a big impact this year.  The last guy is Fred Smith, another wide receiver.  He’s from Michigan State.  He’s got a lot of hype going around him.  There’s plenty of guys I’m looking forward to seeing, but if I’m limiting it to three, it’s Pryor, Smith, and Stonum.

NWO: One upset you foresee within the Big Ten schedule.

AR: It’s so tough to predict these, let me see.  It’s such a tough question to answer at this point, after Ohio State I think the teams are really pretty evenly matched.  I’m going to go with Michigan beating Wisconsin; it’s always tough to say Michigan pulling off an upset at home, but with all the change going on, that definitely qualifies.  I could definitely see Michigan winning that game.

NWO: Because Ohio State has lost the past two championship games, the Big Ten’s reputation has taken a big hit.  How do you see the Big Ten stacking up to the other BCS conference, and do you think a lot of the blame should be directed at Ohio State rather than the Big Ten as a whole?

AR: Well, looking at it, I think September could potentially be, as far as I can remember, the most important month for the Big Ten in a long time.  You look at all the big matchups, all those out of conference games, and it’s a great chance for the Big Ten to change the national perception, the stigma against the conference.  A lot of those games are against West Coast teams, and that definitely helps the whole “speed” argument.  I think Michigan State beats Cal, probably Oregon over Purdue, if Illinois could beat Missouri that would be a huge win for the conference, and of course the big Ohio State/USC game comes up again.  But as far as placing the blame, yeah, a lot of that has got to fall on Ohio State for losing those games, but you also look and see how far behind Ohio State the rest of the conference is, that also really drags down the Big Ten image, but I do think more of the blame should fall on Ohio State.

NWO: At the media day, what interactions did you see from the coaches? How did the other coaches approach Rich Rodriguez?

AR: Well how they interacted, I think it was pretty civil.  Rich Rodriguez actually handled it well, he made a joke about being a snake oil salesman, kind of referring to the Joe Tiller comments about him.  I didn’t notice if him and Tressel interacted a lot, but these guys are all friendly to each other, they’ve known each other a long time, they’re professionals.  Recruiting will make things a little strained, but I think deep down they really do like each other.  Joe Tiller and Joe Paterno, you know, they’re really good friends, you could see that.  I don’t think there was any real animosity, no backlash towards Rich Rodriguez, at least not that I could see.

NWO: Thanks a lot for taking the time and I’ll be sure to send people over to your blog .

AR: No problem, that sounds like a good deal.

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