Now that the majority of the Big11Ten has gone into its customary six-week slumber before bowl games (and we've taken a solid week to do nothing but eat turkey and drink egg nog), it seems like a fine time to take a look back at the 2009 Big11Ten football season.

Before the season, we picked wins and losses for every game by every team, and then previewed each squad in the conference here on the blog.  Now we're going to spend a couple posts talking about how our predictions turned out.  There were a couple cases where we were pretty far off, but for the most part, we did pretty well (surprisingly).

So here's the first look back at the season.  We'll start with the worst teams and work our way up to the top. Enjoy.

Our Prediction: 4-8 (0-8)

What we said before the season: "It's going to be a long, hard season for the Hoosiers. Their offense isn't going to be much and the defense is going to be reliant on a few star players to stop teams from scoring.  As we saw last season and as we mentioned before, Ithe conference teams were just too much for Indiana and this year they have the distinction of being the team we picked to finish last in the Big11Ten."

Actual Record: 4-8 (1-7)

Comments: Hey, we actually hit their overall record right on the head, not that this was a challenging pick or anything.  The only thing we got wrong was that we thought they'd be swept in conference play, but they actually picked up a win against Illinois, and they probably should've won two or three other games.  But as people in Bloomington certainly understand by now, the different between going bowling and going home is often winning close games, and the Hoosiers couldn't pull out any of the close ones this year.

Our Prediction: 6-6 (3-5)

What We Said: We didn't actually complete our Michigan preview before the season started.  If that is shocking to you, you probably don't come here often.  Either way, our basic thoughts on the Wolverines were that there was no way they could be as bad as last year, and that whoever their QB ended up being, he'd be better than whoever Rich Rod threw out there under center last year.  We figured .500 and a shitty bowl was a fair goal for Big Blue.

Actual Record: 5-7 (1-7)

Comments: When we made the 6-6 prediction, admittedly we figured Michigan's ceiling was probably a couple games higher than that, but we went with .500 out of shear hatred.  So knowing that, it's laughable that they didn't even reach that plateau.  We thought we were destined to look like idiots with the 6-6 pick after the Wolverines stormed out of the gates with a 4-0 start and an upset of Notre Dame.  Well, Michigan would win only one more from that point on and it turns out that Notre Dame really wasn't that good to begin with (big surprise there).  To top it off, Penn State went in to the big house and absolutely smoked the hapless Wolves.  You know there's something wrong with your season when that happens.

Our Prediction: 10-2 (6-2)

What we said before the season: "...we, and probably a lot of other people, expect the defense to struggle.  The offense is there and will likely put up points, but we don't have much faith in Illinois being able to stop anyone.  The defense needs to do their part and allow Juice and Co. to play at their own pace, rather than be forced to play catch up. Juice playing catch up is the Juice that throws pick after pick and as long he doesn't show up, the Illini may have a chance to be a top team in the conference."

Actual Record: 3-8 (2-6)*

Comments: Some might say that our lofty prediction for the 2009 Illini was stupid.  Others might say it was... incredibly stupid.  We're firmly in the latter camp.  Just look at what we wrote in the preview!  How many red flags did we ourselves throw up in that paragraph, and yet we still picked Juice and the Fighting Zooks to lose only two games?  That is midly insane.  But still, even a 7-5 mark would've seemed reasonable before the season.  We don't think a lot of people saw this meltdown coming.  But the proverbial writing was on the wall for Illinois after Missouri shellacked them in the season opener.  We knew their defense would be bad, but they managed to take things to another level.  The Illini had a mini-turnaround at the end of the year, but it was nowhere near enough to make their season (and our prediction) look like anything but an abject failure.

*Illinois plays its final game this Saturday.

Our Prediction: 7-5 (4-4)

What we said before the season: "...while we think Minnesota will be a better team than they were last year, we think it's going to be a lot harder for them to improve on that record.  Teams are expecting them, they have a fairly rough schedule during the middle of the season and, after losing the last 5 last season, the Gophers are going to need to find themselves before they start stringing wins together. People talk about winning out and building for the next season, but doesn't the same principle also apply for losing the final games as well?"

Actual Record: 6-6 (3-5)

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