Zach Lutmer leads the way for an Iowa team picked to finish just above middle of the pack in the Big Ten Conference in 2026.

SB Nation: Black & Gold Pants

Big Ten Media Days kick off on Tuesday, July 28th in Chicago and with the annual event comes the official start of preseason poll season. The most notable one comes from Cleveland.com, which polls a total of 31 writers who cover the Big Ten across several different outlets. This year’s results come without a ton of surprises.

Your Iowa Hawkeyes are picked to finish 8th in the conference, which feels about right. There is some split in voting at the top with Ohio State receiving the most overall votes at 540, as well as the most 1st place votes (15). The Oregon Ducks come in second with 527 total votes and 11 for 1st place. Notably, defending national champion Indiana is picked to finish third with 509 total votes, while 5 people have them winning the conference.

Other notables include Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin, which are picked to finish behind Iowa in that order. The Purdue Boilermakers are this year’s pick to finish dead last in the conference standings.

Here’s a look at the full voting results for conference standings:

1. OHIO STATE (15) 540
2. OREGON (11) 527
3. INDIANA (5) 509
4. USC 446
5. MICHIGAN 430
6. PENN STATE 380
7. WASHINGTON 366
8. IOWA 361
9. ILLINOIS 304
10. MINNESOTA 268
11. NEBRASKA 246
12. WISCONSIN 207
13. UCLA 199
14. NORTHWESTERN 140
15. MARYLAND 137
16. MICHIGAN STATE 99
17. RUTGERS 97
18. PURDUE 45

While Cleveland.com is the standard with polling across the conference, the USA Today also put out their preseason polling on Monday ahead of Media Days and there weren’t a ton of differences. The national folks also have Iowa pegged to finish 8th in the conference with the top-11 identical to the conference media. The only two differences are at the bottom, where the USA Today has Wisconsin and UCLA flipped, ditto Rutgers and MSU.

The full poll from USA Today:

1. Ohio State (11 first-place votes)
2. Oregon (5 first-place votes)
3. Indiana
4. USC
5. Michigan
6. Penn State
7. Washington
8. Iowa
9. Illinois
10. Minnesota
11. Nebraska
12. UCLA
13. Wisconsin
14. Maryland
15. Northwestern
16. Rutgers
17. Michigan State
18. Purdue