FROM THE BIG TEN'S OFFICIAL WEEKLY PRESS RELEASE:

"Big Ten Tied for National Lead with a Conference-Record 10 Bowl-Eligible Teams:

With only one game remaining for each Big Ten team, an unprecedented 10 of the 11 conference programs currently stand above .500 and have already secured bowl-eligibility. The Big Ten's record number of bowl-eligible teams include Ohio State (10-1), Illinois (8-3), Michigan (8-3), Penn State (8-3), Wisconsin (8-3), Purdue (7-4), Indiana (6-5), Iowa (6-5), Michigan State (6-5) and Northwestern (6-5). The Hawkeyes, Spartans and Wildcats were the latest conference squads to qualify for postseason play after picking up their sixth wins last Saturday. The Big Ten has never qualified 10 different teams for postseason action and has never produced 10 teams with records of .500 or better. The conference has sent seven teams to bowl games in each of the last two years and set a Big Ten record with eight bowl teams during the 2003 campaign. The conference has also ended a season with nine teams at or above .500 on four occasions -- 1904, 1903, 1901 and 1900. The last season that eight Big Ten teams finished at .500 or better was in 1999, the first time that feat had been accomplished since the 1960 campaign. The Big Ten is one of only two conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision to boast 10 or more bowl-eligible teams along with the SEC. "

What does bowl eligible mean? Six wins! Since colleges now play 12 regular season games (13 if you play in the conference championship game), so if you finish .500 you are bowl eligible!! Let's look at the bottom four teams that are bowl eligible in the Mediocre Ten.
1. Northwestern- Six wins, which includes a win over Division 1-AA Northeastern. Northeastern has 3 wins this season. Sad enough that you only need to be a .500 team, but you should be allowed to count Division 1-AA wins. Northwestern, which gave Duke its only victory in 2 seasons- you don't deserve a bowl game and absent a huge upset victory over the Illini, you ain't going anywhere.
2. Michigan State-At least the Spartans didn't play any Division 1-AA teams (I'm assuming that UAB is a Division 1-A team), but 5 losses in the Big Ten, including Iowa and Northwestern!
3.Iowa (6-5): Should beat Western Michigan to go 7-5. But, at one point Iowa was 0-4 in the Big Ten.
4. Indiana (6-5): I have no idea if Indiana has been in a Bowl game since Lee Corso left Bloomington. Still, this team lost to Northwestern and will probably be 6-6 after losing to Purdue.