Shawn Windsor: Saturday’s games show perception can change weekly

Oregon fell out of the Top 25, which isn’t good for Michigan State, although the Spartans have more to worry about than the Ducks’ implosion against Utah late Saturday night.

Speaking of Utah, they shot up to No. 10 in the Associated Press media poll, which is good for Michigan, who beat Brigham Young in a way no one saw coming ... except maybe Jim Harbaugh, because he sees everything, although he would never admit it. BYU, by the way, fell out of the Top 25, too, thanks to the Wolverines, who entered the poll for the first time since 2013.

Meanwhile, Ohio State beat another MAC team (Western Michigan) and looked a little better against the Broncos than it did the previous week against Northern Illinois. The Buckeyes settled on a quarterback, Cardale Jones.

Western hung with the Buckeyes for a while and moved the ball, just as it did against MSU in the season opener. But talent won out ... in both games.

Talent won out in Ann Arbor on Saturday, too, although to say we thought U-M had that much more ability than BYU is to lie, because we didn’t.

But now?

That’s the thing about college football, isn’t it? Our notion of who should be ranked where can change so radically in an afternoon. If U-M had lost Saturday, the Wolverines would have had a serious challenge just to get to a bowl.

Instead, we’re wondering exactly how far they can go. Get to the MSU game in three weeks at 5-1? Absolutely.

Beat the Spartans? Why not?

The game is at Michigan Stadium, MSU lost its best corner, and several other playmakers are fighting injuries. Besides, the better defense belongs to U-M. If we’ve learned nothing else the last month we’ve learned that.

Beat MSU and ... OK, let the Wolverines beat Maryland first.

The point is, we entered this season with a narrative in mind and it changed dramatically Saturday, the final weekend before the Big Ten schedule begins. Maybe the Spartans, although still ranked No. 2, aren’t what we thought they were Oregon, anyone? And maybe the Wolverines, now ranked No. 22, isn’t what we thought they were, either.

They are better. Clearly better, and have gotten better every week. They are playing freely and confidently and physically. MSU is playing in mud, under all that expectation.

Ohio State can relate. It’s not easy to begin the year as a prohibitive favorite to repeat, with a couple of future NFL quarterbacks to keep happy.

The Buckeyes, however, have shown us in spurts of what they still can become. Besides, there is just so much talent, and their coach, Urban Meyer, has a pretty good record of knowing what to do with it.

Until they lose, they remain the standard in the Big Ten, but the Buckeyes don’t look like the juggernaut we thought they’d be.

Yet.

Until they get there and they might not someone in the Big Ten is going to give them a scare. At Indiana on Saturday? The Hoosiers can score, and the Buckeyes aren’t stopping teams like they want to.

Or maybe at home against Minnesota?

The league may not be as deep as the SEC but there are some solid teams out there. The Golden Gophers lost to TCU by six in its season opener, and held the Horned Frogs to 23 points, or 32 points fewer than they scored against Texas Tech on Saturday.

That’s not to say the Gophers are the 1985 Chicago Bears. The Northwestern Wildcats are.

At least they played like that against Stanford, holding the Cardinal to six points, the same team that scored 41 against USC two weeks ago and 42 against Oregon State on Friday.

They play defense in the Big Ten again, in spots anyway. Oregon State, by the way, scored 24 against Stanford, but only seven against Michigan.

Oregon State isn’t that good. That’s what we said when U-M trounced the Beavers three weeks ago, in Harbaugh’s home opener. We didn’t trust that we’d learned much that day, when the Wolverines evened their record at 1-1.

But after watching U-M truck another team Saturday, we’re a lot more willing to learn. We should be.

We also should remember how much can change in an afternoon. The Wolverines are surely capable of more than we thought a month ago. MSU remains plenty capable, too.

Let’s not forget this on the week the Big Ten play opens. If our perception changed on Saturday, it can change on another Saturday, too.

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