Ohio State running back Chris “Beanie” Wells made one of the plays of the year on Saturday against Illinois, hurdling Illini safety Donsay Hardeman on a 25-yard run.

The play was somewhat reminiscent of the Knowshon Moreno hurdle against Central Michigan this season, although I haven’t seen Wells’ play on the highlights quite as frequently as I saw Moreno’s. (Which is kind of funny, considering all the bellyaching Georgia coach Mark Richt did about Moreno not getting enough publicity for that run.)

Here’s the Wells run against Illinois:

And below, bonus footage of another Wells hurdle, earlier this season against Minnesota.

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez has reached new depths in his first year leading the Maize and Blue, as the Wolverines’ loss to Northwestern today gave the program its first-ever eight-loss season.

Michigan lacks the talent for the Rodriguez spread offense and doesn’t appear any closer to having a competent offensive attack than it did in September. Quarterback Nick Sheridan was 8-for-29 for 61 yards passing and had 10 carries for 35 yards and a touchdown on the ground.

Despite an announced crowd of 107,856, there were thousands of empty seats at Michigan Stadium in the first half and tens of thousands of empty seats after halftime on a miserable Saturday in Ann Arbor.

Michigan is now 3-8, and if the Wolverines don’t upset Ohio State next week, this is probably the worst season in the 129-year history of the program.

Penn State’s national title hopes have come to an end.

The Nittany Lions, who entered today undefeated and ranked third in the BCS standings, played a sloppy game against a mediocre Iowa team and went home losers, 24-23.

It was a back-and-forth game that for the most part, Penn State controlled. Iowa scored first on a Shonn Greene 14-yard run, but Penn State came back and appeared to be comfortably in control for most of the second half, leading 23-14 at the start of the fourth quarter.

But Greene scored his second touchdown with 9:20 remaining, and as Penn State tried to put the game away, quarterback Daryll Clark was intercepted by Iowa’s Tyler Sash with less than five minutes left. The Hawkeyes then marched 57 yards on 14 plays and into field goal range, ending up at the 13-yard line with six seconds left. Daniel Murray split the uprights with the game-winning field goal.

The loss ends any hope Penn State had of winning the national title. Although there are still theoretically scenarios in which Penn State could get into the BCS Top 2, realistically, it isn’t going to happen. A Big Ten team can’t get to the BCS national championship game without an undefeated record.

Although Penn State going down doesn’t really have much impact on Texas Tech or Alabama, both of which just needed to keep winning to stay ahead of the Nittany Lions, it does open the door to a host of one-loss teams should Texas Tech or Alabama lose. Fans of Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and USC are all Hawkeyes fans today.

Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema has been harshly criticized this week after he was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s loss to Michigan State.

But while Bielema hasn’t been as publicly apologetic for the penalty as some fans and members of the media have said he should be, his players say he’s apologized to them.

“Coach feels awful about that penalty,” Wisconsin center John Moffitt said. “But the way he approached it, he took ownership of it. I think a lot of guys had respect for that. I had respect for that. That’s not an easy thing to do, to stand up in front of the team. That’s all you can do. No one is perfect.”

When a reporter suggested that Bielema hadn’t sufficiently apologized at his press conference, Moffitt answered, “No offense, but those are things he probably feels he owes more to the team.”

That’s the right answer. Obviously, it was stupid of Bielema to say something to an official to get himself flagged. But he’s hardly the first — and won’t be the last — coach to say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong official. All Bielema can do is tell his players he’s sorry it happened, and move on.

Ohio State wide receiver Ray Small has been suspended from the team, and his father says Ohio State’s coaches are hurting his son.

“We don’t think he’s getting a fair shake, and we don’t know why,” Ken Small said of the way Jim Tressel and his staff have treated Ray. “It seems they’re trying to intentionally ruin his career.”

Ken Small’s biggest complaint is that Ohio State won’t just release Ray from his scholarship, which the Small family asked for in the spring, when Ray faced team discipline for being late to classes. But while it might seem unfair that a kid who wants to go elsewhere isn’t being allowed to leave, that’s a long way from trying to ruin his career.

And, frankly, both Ray and Ken Small should know that when a player’s dad has to fight his battles for him, it tends to reinforce the perception that he’s not conducting himself responsibly.

Ray Small’s current suspension is, officially, for an undetermined length of time, and the result of an undisclosed violation of team rules. But the Smalls say it’s for two games, and because Ray was accused of missing a class, even though he hadn’t.

A 5-foot-11, 180-pound junior, Small leads the Big Ten in punt returns with a 13.2-yard average, and he was the team’s leading receiver early in the season, before Tressel started limiting his playing time. But despite his talent, Tressel may be close to the point where he decides Small is not worth the headaches, and gives him the release from his scholarship he’s been asking for.

Illinois wide receiver Jeff Cumberland broke teammate Mikel LeShoure’s jaw when the two got into a fight Saturday night after Illinois beat Iowa.

Surprisingly, Fighting Illini coach Ron Zook says he won’t suspend Cumberland from the team.

“It was a family dispute,” Zook said of the fight. “We are going to handle it like you would a family dispute. But things do happen. I’m not making light of it, but it’s something we will deal with within the team, in a family manner. … Everyone wants to speculate, but this is a family matter and it’s something I won’t talk about.”

Zook is big on treating his football team as one big family, and that’s part of why he’s such a good recruiter. But when one family member is breaking another family member’s jaw, it sounds like the family is fairly dysfunctional. Zook disputes that.

“Here’s my deal on that: I try to treat these guys like they are my own kids and like I’d want my own children to be dealt with,” Zook said. “I won’t apologize for the way we discipline my players. We have good kids. We have situations, and every one is different. If I had a son, I would want him to play for our staff because I know this: They will get treated as family. They will be treated the way they need to be treated. If there’s something to be taken care of, it will be taken care of.”

Cumberland will make the trip to Detroit this weekend and play against Western Michigan at Ford Field. LeShoure isn’t so lucky, the broken jaw will keep him out for at least the Western Michigan game and probably longer.

Michigan’s streak of 33 consecutive bowl appearances is coming to an end, as today’s 48-42 loss at Purdue ensures that for the first time since 1967, Michigan will finish the season with a losing record.

Michigan dropped to 2-7 with today’s loss. That’s the first time the Wolverines lost seven games in a season since 1962, when they finished their nine-game season season at 2-7.

Michigan has never lost more than seven games in a season in its history, but that will soon change. With Minnesota, Northwestern and Ohio State remaining on the schedule, losing one more game is a virtual certainty, and losing all three remaining games is a strong possibility.

Although the Michigan-Purdue game matched a pair of 2-6 teams, it turned into a very exciting football game, with both offenses coming up with big plays consistently and both defenses looking like bad Division I-AA teams. Ultimately, Purdue won by coming up with one last big play, a hook-and-lateral that scored the game-winning touchdown with 25 seconds remaining.

That play — on which Justin Siller completed a pass to Greg Orton, who then pitched the ball to Desmond Tardy, who ran it 26 yards for the score — was a great highlight for Purdue, and the last nail in the coffin for Michigan’s bowl hopes.

During Saturday’s Michigan-Michigan State game, Michigan receiver Brandon Minor jumped for a pass and came down out of bounds as his foot kicked the pylon. The official was right on top of the play, correctly ruled it an incomplete pass, and that should have been that.

But that wasn’t that. For some odd reason, the replay official reviewed the clearly correct call and changed it, awarding Minor a touchdown.

Now the Big Ten has acknowledged that the official overruled the play because he was ignorant of the rules — he thought touching the pylon is the same as touching the ground. It’s not.

“The people in the replay booth made a mistake,” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said. “It wasn’t a mistake of judgment; it was a mistake of an application of the rule. They applied the wrong rule and they applied it improperly. …  I expect more from them than that. You can understand a mistake of judgment on the field, and you can even understand possibly not getting the standard right because we want indisputable video evidence that a play is wrong. But to apply the wrong rule to a situation is not acceptable to me.”

Delany is a stand-up guy, and he’s right to acknowledge this mistake. Next he should hand down disciplinary action for the official in question. He says that it’s possible he will, although if he does he won’t announce it publicly.

“There has to be an understanding that we expect on the field and in the booth 100% knowledge of the rules, applying the right rule to the right situation,” Delany said. “You might make a mistake in terms of judgment, but I expect our officials to know the rules and apply the right rule to the right situation. We didn’t do that, and that’s not acceptable.”

Absolutely right it’s not acceptable. Fortunately, the blown call didn’t cost Michigan State the game; the Spartans won 35-21.

Here’s the play in question:

Penn State’s win over Ohio State tonight puts the Nittany Lions on a clear path to a perfect season, and a spot in the BCS Top 2 heading into the bowls.

Texas and Alabama are both undefeated and ranked higher than Penn State, but I just have a hard time seeing both of them going undefeated. There are too many tough contests remaining for both the Longhorns and the Crimson Tide. Someone will knock them off.

But no one is likely to knock Penn State off. The remaining schedule — at Iowa, home against Indiana, home against Michigan State — consists of three games they should win, and that’s why I expect to see Penn State in the BCS championship game.

So is Penn State good enough to avoid the fate of Ohio State the last two seasons and salvage the Big Ten’s reputation? I’d like to say yes, but the reality is I think the Nittany Lions would have to be a significant underdog to either Texas or Alabama, and probably to any team that gets to the title game through Texas or Alabama.

For now, though, Penn State fans have to like their chances.

We’ve asked Russell Levine of Football Outsiders to post his weekly podcast here at CFT.

Penn State is 8-0 and headed to Ohio State to take on the Buckeyes. Russell checks in with Black Shoe Diaries author Mike Hubbel on the state of the Nittany Lions and what to expect Saturday night. Are Penn State fans surprised by this season’s success? Plus, who is their biggest conference rival?