The 2018 Big Ten Football Championship Game presented by Discover was played on December 1, 2018 at

Lucas Oil Stadium Lucas Oil Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in downtown Indianapolis, downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It replaced the RCA Dome as the home field of the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). It opened on August ...

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

. The eighth annual

Big Ten Football Championship Game The Big Ten Football Championship Game is a college football game held by the Big Ten Conference each year to determine the conference's season champion. The game, held after the regular season has been completed, currently matches the top two te ...

, it determined the 2018 champion of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

. Ohio State, the East Division champion, defeated West Division champion Northwestern 45–24 to win its second straight Big Ten Championship.

History

The 2018 Championship Game was the eighth in the Big Ten's 123-year history and the fifth to feature the conference's East and West alignment.

Teams

Northwestern Wildcats

After starting 1–3 with losses to

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

Akron Akron () is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the fifth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 190,469 at the 2020 census. The Akron metropolitan area, covering Summit and Portage counties, had ...

, and No. 14

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, the Wildcats rebounded to win six of their next seven, including three wins over ranked teams (No. 20

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the ...

, No. 20

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, and No. 21

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

); they clinched their first-ever Big Ten Championship berth with their win against Iowa. The Wildcats entered the Big Ten Championship Game with a record of 8–4, 8–1 in Big Ten play.

Ohio State Buckeyes

The Ohio State Buckeyes represented the Big Ten East Division in the game. Ohio State secured the spot with a 62–39 win over fourth-ranked Michigan. This was Ohio State's second consecutive season representing the East.

Game summary

Scoring summary

Statistics

References

Championship Game Big Ten Football Championship Game Northwestern Wildcats football games Ohio State Buckeyes football games

2010s in Indianapolis {{Collegefootball-stub