Been looking at the schedules for various Big Ten teams over the past few days and have noticed that Week 3, the last week of the vast majority of non-conference games (besides MSU’s weird mid-October game against BYU), is a huge week for the Big Ten. There is the potential for a very big blow to the conference's reputation and Michigan's strength of schedule. 

Since we are exactly one month away from September 17^th and the offseason is painfully slow, figured I’d do a write up on what’s at stake in Week 3, by far the most important week of the non-conference schedule.

Michigan looks to have a relatively lowkey week hosting Colorado at home (3:30 PM EST, BTN). Although I think the Buffaloes will be better than last year and won't be as easy to walk over as Hawaii and UCF, we still should win with relative ease; on the other hand, almost the entirety of the conference, and especially the conference teams key to our strength of schedule, face big tests or treacherous trap games. I think this is especially important for our Wolverines in 2016 as this is the first year in a while (and for the forseeable future) that we have zero non-conference opponents of note; thus, our intra-conference strength of schedule becomes even more important than usual in the eyes of Bowl committees, including the CFP.

I go through and categorize the Big Ten's 11 games in Week 3 as follows:

National, High-Profile Games: 

•    Ohio State at Oklahoma (7:30PM EST, FOX)

•    Michigan State at Notre Dame (7:30PM EST, NBC)

•    Oregon at Nebraska (3:30PM EST, ABC)

Oregon, Notre Dame and Oklahoma are all big time programs nationally and all of the games will be televised on major cable networks, two of which will be in primetime. I think that the Big Ten teams will almost certainly all be underdogs in these matchups. For MSU and OSU, the fact that they have to reload so much and have lots of inexperience means they likely will be much better teams in November than in September and these are two early road tests that are tough for young teams.

While I don't think anyone on here would necessarily be upset to see both our rivals fall in the same week, it unquestionably wouldn't be good for the conference's image and, more importantly, Michigan's strength of schedule. Nebraska is less important here, but it's obviously better for us if the Big Ten team prevails. While I'm hopeful the Big Ten goes 1-2 in this stretch, 0-3 is certainly very possible.

WATCH OUT, IOWA:

•    North Dakota State at Iowa (12:00PM EST, ESPN/ESPN2)

North Dakota State has won 5 FCS National Championships in a row and has beaten SIX Power 5 teams in a row, including Minnesota and Iowa State, the Hawkeyes' two closest Power 5 neighbors/rivals. This game will be broadcast nationally and the Bison will be sure to want to impress. They are the Alabama of the FCS and Iowa is known for having massive screw ups immediately following impressive seasons.

This has "National Media mocks the Big Ten for weeks for having one of its division frontrunners lose to an FCS team" written all over it. Iowa is the third best team on Michigan's schedule. A Hawkeye loss here does significant damage to Michigan's SOS.

Mediocre Big Ten Teams vs. 2015 Bowl Teams

•    Temple at Penn State (12:00PM EST, BTN)

•    New Mexico at Rutgers (12:00PM EST, ESPNNEWS)

•    Western Michigan at Illinois (4:00PM EST, ESPNNEWS)

•    Maryland at UCF (7:00PM EST, CBSSN)*****

Here we have games that the Big Ten team *should* win, but there is a significant possiblity they will not.

Rutgers is Rutgers and New Mexico is decent. Illinois is Illinois and WMU is a strong MAC team with perhaps the best coach in the MAC who will no doubt be fired up on the B1G stage. Temple does lose a lot, but they creamed the Nittany Lions last season and it's very possible that Penn State is reeling coming off a loss to rival Pittsburgh in Week 2. 

Even going 3-1 in this grouping would be "not great, Bob" for the Big Ten's image, but going 2-2 or 1-3 would be very damaging. Michigan plays all four of these teams this year as well. We need this group to hold serve in Week 3 so that when Harbaugh creams them all later on our detractors cannot validly say "but they are basically MAC level teams, who cares!"

*****Obviously UCF was not a 2015 Bowl Team, and I think Maryland has the highest chance of winning of this group. However, a loss is possible on the road and I didn't have a better category to place them in.

Tossup: Midlevel Power 5 Opponent vs. Midlevel B1G Team

•    Duke at Northwestern (8:00PM EST, BTN)

While a conference loss here is not necessarily embarassing by itself, if we are already having a bad (or very bad) conference day this would be the icing on the cake as it will likely be the last game of the day to finish given its 8PM start. Northwestern was better than Duke last year, has home field advantage and the ACC is not supposed to be better than the Big Ten, so Northwestern should be expected to win.

We're probably safe on these fronts

•    Colorado at Michigan (3:30PM EST, BTN)

•    Georgia State at Wisconsin (12:00PM EST, BTN)

PURDUE HAS A BYE THANK GOD

• That should save us some embarassement
• Minnesota and Indiana also have byes

Overall, the possibility is there for the Big Ten to use this day to boost the conference's image as 2nd best in the nation. However, I'm much more worried of the opposite happening. The high profile games are not good matchups for us and there are a lot of losable games to non-Power 5 teams that kill a conference's perception. 

Will definitely be important to see what happens in Week 3. More than any other week of the season, this could be the week that's pivotal as to whether or a not a 1 loss Big Ten Champion makes or misses the playoff. Of particular importance to Michigan, it’s possible that all three of our toughest opponents lose in Week 3. That would really not be good for us. 

Overall, the Big Ten has 9 games that have greater than negligible chances of a loss for the conference team. In my opinion, going 6-3 or 7-2 in this stretch would be satisfactory for the conference's image/hold serve. 8-1 or 9-0 would improve the conference's national image and solidify us as second best in the nation for now. Going 5-4 or 4-5 would definitely hurt the B1G, but probably not in a massive way. If we go 3-6 or worse in this stretch, it would be incredibly damaging for the conference and could easily keep a 1 loss Big Ten championship out of the playoff.