BLOOMINGTON – Part of what makes college football fun is debate. With teams spread across the county, unable to play each other on a regular basis, gauging the best teams in the country can be a tireless and often thankless endeavor.

Which brings us to this week’s AP football Top 25.

Five Big Ten teams, led by Ohio State at No. 6, are ranked in this week’s poll, after four teams from the conference were ranked the week before. Minnesota slipped in this week at No. 25, perhaps due to the news of All-Big Ten wide receiver Rashod Bateman opting back in for the season. Other Big Ten teams ranked this week include No. 9 Penn State, No. 16 Wisconsin and No. 20 Michigan. Iowa (26) and Indiana (1) also received votes in the poll this week.

Should Big Ten teams get votes in the poll, considering their seasons won’t start until Oct. 23 or 24 while others are already playing through the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s a fair question, one Ralph Russo, a national college sports reporter who administers the poll for the Associated Press, has wrestled with since August.

Big Ten and PAC-12 teams were part of the AP preseason Top 25, which was released Aug. 24, after both conferences announced they were postponing their fall seasons. Russo said the decision was made by a consensus of his editors to get a record of what the season would have looked like if there was no pandemic.

Then, as the ACC and Big 12 started play the weekend after Labor Day, the decision was made to exclude Big Ten and PAC-12 teams moving forward.

“We weren’t really necessarily thinking about what happens if the Big Ten and PAC-12 comes back,” Russo said. “We were more thinking of, like, what happens when the next league pops or another league possibly drops out, and how to frame who is eligible. It just didn’t seem to make sense to keep voting in PAC-12 and Big Ten teams if they weren’t going to be playing.”

That changed as the Big Ten, PAC-12 and other conferences announced their decisions to resume their seasons this fall. The AP had already allowed its 62 national voters to rank SEC teams in early September, even though their conference-only season didn’t start until Sept. 27.

“We just decided, OK, let’s just stick to those guidelines which is if you intend to play in the fall, we will rank you, or we will allow the voters to rank you,” Russo said. “We don’t encourage the voters to do anything. We just set the parameters.”

Different voters have taken different approaches to ranking Big Ten and PAC-12 teams. Ryan Aber, a poll voter who covers Oklahoma for The Oklahoman, is one of about 10 or 11 voters across the country who has chosen not to rank Big Ten teams until their season starts the third weekend in October.

“The conclusion I came to is that, especially with all of the cancellations and postponements around the country, there’s still a lot of uncertainty over how many games are going to get played if these seasons are going to be able to be completed,” Aber said.

“Once those conferences start playing, then I’ll put those teams like I feel like they deserve to be. So, like Ohio State, is clearly going to be pretty high in the polls as long as they don’t fall on their face pretty quickly, but I also think it was unfair to the teams that are playing to throw those teams in there, and none of those teams are going to lose for the next month.”

Matt Baker, a poll voter who covers Florida, Florida State and Miami for the Tampa Bay Times, said he’s voted for Big Ten teams since they’ve regained poll eligibility.

“Even if those guys aren’t playing yet, I’m still going to view them like I did the SEC which is right now they are 0-0, but this is how good I think they will be, so I will slot them accordingly,” Baker said. “I will say, though, as of right now, I’m putting a little more stock in what has actually happened versus the unknown.”

For example, Baker said he had Ohio State No. 1 and Clemson No. 2 in his preseason poll, but has flip-flopped them now that the season is underway.

“At this point, I feel a little bit better about Clemson because I’ve seen something versus Ohio State’s potential,” Baker said.

Dylan Sinn, a poll voter who covers Notre Dame, Purdue and Indiana for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, said he put Big Ten and PAC-12 teams back in his poll as soon as he was allowed to.

“I didn’t see any reason to keep them out because they weren’t playing quite yet,” Sinn said. “We had them in the preseason poll, which to me set kind of a precedent about whether they should be included if they weren’t playing. And I think that, the rankings without them, I think are just incomplete in my opinion.”

Another question is whether Big Ten and PAC-12 teams should be penalized at the end of the season for playing fewer games than their counterparts. The ACC is playing 11 games this season, including 10 conference games. The SEC is playing a 10-game, all-conference schedule. The Big 12 and Big Ten are playing nine conference games, while the PAC-12 is playing seven conference games.

Sinn said he won’t penalize teams for playing less games.

“The AP’s job is a little bit different. The pollsters’ job is a little bit different than what we think of as the College Football Playoff’s job, because the College Football Playoff to me is supposed to put the best four teams, the teams that have the best season,” Sinn said. “Our job as AP voters is to rank the teams as they are that week. I think there is a bit of a distinction there, and I think that makes our job easier.”

But Aber said it will factor into his decision-making in the final poll because it impacts that final resume of a team.

“I have tried to take an overview shot every week, especially late in the season of an overall resume instead of just saying, ‘Well, OK this team won, so they have to move up or this team lost, so they have to move down’, take an overall snapshot of where things stand,” Aber said. “So a win that looks really good in September might not look as good in November, and you adjust for that.”

PRESEASON INJURIES

Through the first week of football camp around the Big Ten, there have already been significant injuries.

Last week, Indiana announced senior defensive back Marcelino Ball was out for the season after suffering a torn ACL during 7-on-7 drills.

On Saturday, Wisconsin starting quarterback Jack Coan suffered a foot injury during practice. Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst said Coan is going to see a specialist this week to determine the extent of the injury and how long he will be sidelined.

If Coan is out for an extended period, Wisconsin will turn to redshirt freshman quarterback Graham Mertz, who completed 9 of 10 pass for 73 yards in two games last season.

BASKETBALL BUZZ

It’s early, but it appears the Big Ten has the makings for another strong men’s basketball season in 2020-21.

Five teams were ranked in Lindy Magazine’s Preseason Top 25 men’s basketball poll – No. 6 Wisconsin, No. 10 Iowa, No. 12 Illinois, No. 20 Michigan State and No. 22 Ohio State.

The Big Ten will be bolstered this season by the return of several players who could have gone to the NBA Draft as potential first-round draft picks, including Iowa forward Luka Garza, Illinois center Kofi Cockburn, Illinois guard Ayo Dosunmu and Indiana forward Trayce Jackson-Davis.