Welcome to a new episode of Land-Grant Holy Land’s I-80 Football Show. On this show, we talk about all things Big Ten football and basketball from New Jersey to California. With USC and UCLA joining the conference in 2024 we’ll integrate them in the show getting a head start on the 16-team conference. After every week of action, we will catch you up on all the conference’s games and look ahead at the matchups, storylines, and players you should be paying attention to next week. My name is Jordan Williams, and I am joined by my co-host Dante Morgan.

In the first of four episodes previewing all 16 teams in the Big Ten, Dante, and Jordan start with the hot seat tier. The hot seat tier consists of four teams whose coaches are on the hot seat entering the season, will be on the hot seat at the end, or are first-year coaches whose programs will be pretty bad. There isn’t much hope left for these programs besides hoping the grass is greener on the other side of the coaching carousel. 

The guys agree that Northwestern, Indiana, and Rutgers should be in this tier but there is some disagreement on who the fourth team is with Jordan Michigan State, and Dante including Nebraska. Northwestern is a given and would have been in this tier regardless of the hazing scandal but without Pat Fitzgerald, they should be even worse. Indiana has been awful the past few seasons and this year shouldn't be much better. They may have a better team after changing coordinators and getting some power five transfers but their schedule is tough and should result in another year in the bottom of the Big Ten. 

While Rutgers is in this tier, Jordan believes this could be their last year hereafter Schiano hired a great defensive coordinator last year and hired Kirk Ciarrocca from Minnesota. Dante is on the fence and thinks it may be time to move on. Nebraska is under first-year head coach Matt Rhule and Michigan State is entering year two of Mel Tucker's new 10-year contract. Nebraska being in this tier makes sense for year one but if this is another bad year for Michigan State they may pull out the calculator to see how soon they can get out of their albatross of a contract they gave Mel Tucker after winning 11 games in 2021.

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Jordan: @JordanW330

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Jordan: @JordanW330

Dante: @DanteM10216

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