This week we step more of a toe into conference play in earnest. So far there have been some conference games each week, and Illinois has even played two league games so far. Purdue, Michigan, and Rutgers are the only teams in the league that have not played a conference game yet, but that changes this week as they play each other on Saturday.
This week also marks many of the final non-conference games and the formal end of the Big Ten/MAC challenge. It has been a while since we have had a season where a MAC team has not beaten a Big Ten team, but this will probably be it.