A few teams in the Big Ten were, in a lot of ways, written off as recently as a month ago. But Michigan and Illinois are doing plenty to prove how football teams can morph and grow throughout a season.

Illinois ­— a popular pick before the season to finish last in the West division — has won its last two Big Ten games and has a chance to stretch that to three with a weekend matchup against Rutgers. In the East, Michigan finally gained a top-10 win last weekend, even with the struggles it’s faced against ranked opponents this season.

With an Iowa bye week in progress, the Daily Iowan has the biggest news outside of Iowa City covered.

Illinois remains hot

Just a week removed from taking down Wisconsin in one of the biggest upsets of the year, Illinois went into West Lafayette, Indiana, and fully dismantled a struggling Purdue team.

The Illini took down the Boilermakers 24-6 in one of the program’s best defensive road performances in several decades. The six points allowed last weekend were the fewest in a Big Ten road game since 1995.

“To put two Big Ten games together like that, of course it is big for our program,” Illinois head coach Lovie Smith said. “Defensively, we need to be able to stop the run and not give up the big plays, and the past couple of weeks we haven’t given up a lot of big plays and [we’ve] taken the ball away — all the things that you need to do.”

The Illini don’t necessarily have the most talent, but they’ve found ways to win. Purdue held Illinois to 26 total passing yards, but the Illini managed to gain 267 yards on the ground with 4.6 yards per carry. Dre Brown led the team with a solid 7.3 yards per rush and netted 131 yards on the day.

Illinois sits at four wins this season with a home matchup against Rutgers in front of it on Saturday. The remaining schedule gives Illinois a good chance to qualify for a bowl game, which it hasn’t done since 2014.

“We celebrated [our win], of course, like last week, [but] we have moved on,” Smith said. “It seems like that [Wisconsin] game was a long time ago… Getting to three Big Ten wins would be huge for our program.”

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Michigan takes down Notre Dame in big win for Big Ten

The world seemed to be crashing down on the Michigan program after losses to Wisconsin and Penn State. At times, the Wolverine offense was slow and hard to watch.

But the Wolverines looked like a completely reinvigorated football team under the lights last weekend, as Michigan routed No. 8 Notre Dame 45-7 at Michigan Stadium.

“Probably the thing that stood out to me the most from the ballgame Saturday night was how much unconditional belief our players had in each other and themselves,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “It was as high as I’ve ever seen it. Practically 100 percent.”

The Wolverines began a 28-point run in the third quarter and never looked back. A defensive clinic held the Irish to 180 total yards and only 47 yards on the ground.

The win gave Harbaugh his second victory over a top-10 team as Michigan’s head coach. The next meeting of the historic rivalry isn’t scheduled for 14 more years, giving the Wolverines bragging rights over their rival for a long time.

Michigan’s focus, though, is more short-term than this, as Harbaugh searches for ways to make the impact of this big-time win last through the season.

“I don’t exactly know the formula on that one,” Harbaugh said. “Momentum? Albert Einstein, I think he had a formula. I don’t have a formula.”