The first BCS standings were released on Sunday, and much like recent AP polls, the Big Ten was not well-represented.

Ohio State came in at No. 4, ranked behind Alabama, Florida State, and Oregon. The only other two ranked Big Ten teams were Michigan and Nebraska — ranked No. 22 and No. 24.

Wisconsin’s absence from the year’s first BCS standings came as a bit of a surprise, considering the Badgers are ranked in both the AP and USA Today polls.

Badger head coach Gary Andersen isn’t concerned with Wisconsin’s not being ranked; he emphasized the Badgers’ need to focus on the task at hand.

“Worry about the things I can worry about, and try to get the kids ready to go play every single week,” Andersen told the Pierce County Herald on Tuesday.

Targeting rule affects Big Ten; Fitzgerald has interesting rule suggestion

A new rule was put in to place this past off-season to protect defenseless players from hits near the neck and head.

Targeting, as the rule states, is the act of hitting a defenseless opponent above the shoulders. Those guilty of targeting in the first half of games are supposed to be ejected. If a player commits a targeting penalty in the second half, the player is ejected and is required to sit out the first half of his team’s next game.

The rule has been under some fire from coaches and analysts of the sport because of the perceived subjective nature of calling a targeting penalty. Ohio State cornerback Bradley Roby was the latest player to be ejected for targeting after he hit Iowa tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz above the shoulder pads this past weekend.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz has liked what he’s seen regarding the rule, especially how the officials have handled procedure.

“First of all, my opinion really doesn’t matter,” Ferentz said. “I’m not an official. Like a lot of calls, my opinion has no bearing on the outcome of it.

“I think the biggest concern I had was the attitude that was going to be taken toward the rule, then the process, which has been handled as well as it can. It’s all reviewable. They either uphold it or don’t uphold it. I think the process is good.”

During Tuesday’s Big Ten teleconference, Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald suggested an interesting modification to the rule — a yellow-card/red-card system, much like the system used by soccer, or what the rest of the world calls football.

“I said earlier in the year, I thought the whole yellow-card philosophy would be a good idea,” Fitzgerald said. “If a guy makes a momentary mistake in a game, and his target’s in the wrong spot, and there was clearly no intent to injure, there was just a football play. Then give a kid an unsportsmanlike conduct, and warn him, and the next one he’s ejected.”

Iowa-Purdue ticket prices shockingly low

Ticket prices for the upcoming Iowa-Purdue game on Nov. 9 are going for incredibly low prices on online marketplaces.

As of Monday on the popular ticket exchange website StubHub, tickets for the game at Ross-Ade Stadium are going for as low as $1.11.

Neither Iowa nor Purdue has a dominant football team this season, but the prices have to at least be alarming to conference officials and Purdue’s ticket-sales department.