It’s time once again to announce our SIS College Football Preseason All-Big 10 Team. We used our all-encompassing player value stat, Total Points, along with other metrics and our scouting work as leading references in putting together our selections.

A brief explanation of Total Points:

Total Points takes nearly everything that SIS measures about a play and uses it to evaluate each player on a scale that allows you to compare them more easily. It’s always useful to be able to understand the different ways in which players can be valuable. Does he break a lot of tackles? Does he get a lot of yards after the catch? Does he make the best out of a poor offensive line? Does he get more pressures than expected? Does he break up a lot of passes? Total Points offers the opportunity to take all of those elements and get a quick picture of how well a player is performing overall.

You can learn more about Total Points and the statistics referenced within this piece here.

Here are our selections:

1st Team Offense

Position Name School
QB Drew Allar Penn State
RB Jonah Coleman Washington
RB Makhi Hughes Oregon
WR Jeremiah Smith Ohio State
WR Elijah Saratt Indiana
TE Dorian Fleming Maryland
T Isaiah World Oregon
T Carter Smith Indiana
G Olaivavega Ioane Penn State
G Justin Evans Nebraska
C Greg Johnson Minnesota

1st Team Defense

Position Name School
DT Zane Durant Penn State
DT Deven Eastern Minnesota
EDGE Eric O’Neill Rutgers
EDGE Mikail Kamara Indiana
LB Sonny Styles Ohio State
LB Taariq Al-Uqdah Washington
CB D’Angelo Ponds Indiana
CB Davison Igbinosun Ohio State
CB Xavier Scott Illinois
S Caleb Downs Ohio State
S Kerry Brown Minnesota

1st Team Specialists

Position Name School
K Dominic Zvada Michigan
P Rhys Dakin Iowa
Returner Kaden Wetjen Iowa

Drew Allar, Jonah Coleman, Jeremiah Smith, Elijah Sarratt, Makhi Hughes, Isaiah World, Olaivavega Ioane, Zane Durant, Eric O’Neill, Mikail Kamara, D’Angelo Ponds, Davison Igbinosun, Xavier Scott, Caleb Downs, Kerry Brown, Dominic Zvada, Rhys Dakin, and Kaden Wetjen all made our Preseason All-American 1st or 2nd team in an absolutely LOADED conference. The secondary is especially deep, which left no room for fellow All-American Koi Perich unfortunately.

In addition to the big names, players like Carter Smith, Justin Evans, Deven Eastern, and Sonny Styles do the little things to help their teams win, which is reflected in their Total Points. Every player on this team is Top-4 among returning Big 10 players at their respective positions.

In a conference so deep, it is worth giving a special shoutout to Dani Dennis-Sutton, Jalen St. John, and Iapani Laloulu who just missed out on the 1st Team.