There are a lot of bad defensive teams in the Big Ten. Maryland gave up 35 to Temple, Northwestern gave up 39 to Akron, Purdue gave up 40 to Mizzou, Rutgers gave up 55 to Kansas, Wisky gave up 24 to BYU, Penn State gave up 38 to Appy St. Heck, even Ohio State gave up 28 to TCU who could only muster 17 against ISU. There are some very good defenses in the Big Ten, but there are a bunch of poor ones too.Like bowl match-ups...it's hard to determine overall conference strength from a relatively small sample size. However, it's quite obvious that B10 teams play much tougher defense than typical B12 teams.