If you look at the Big Ten Conference football standings, it hits you like a blitzing linebacker.

The teams that are struggling the most are the teams that have quarterback problems.

Of the three teams that are winless in Big Ten play, the University of Wisconsin will probably make a change this week from Allan Evridge to Dustin Sherer, Purdue has seen a major regression in the play of three-year starter Curtis Painter and Indiana has begun using two quarterbacks in a rotation. At Michigan, Steven Threet has been a poor fit for the new spread offense.

The lesson to be learned from this is simple: College football is getting more and more like the NFL, which has been a quarterback-driven league for years, and even in the Big Ten it has become true that as the quarterback goes, so goes the team.

"I think (the quarterback) certainly has a lot to do with it," Purdue coach Joe Tiller said of winning and losing. "I still think, however, the real strong defensive teams have a chance to be successful with less than a stellar performance at quarterback. But because of the change in the offenses that we all are experiencing and have experienced, certainly it takes an extremely talented guy at that position to be successful."

That is definitely true of teams that have switched to the spread. But even at schools such as UW, Iowa and Michigan State, which still run fairly traditional offenses, a change has taken place.

No matter how well a team runs the ball, it is no longer sufficient just to have a game manager at quarterback. These days, college teams need a playmaker at the position, someone who can make things happen with his arm, with his feet, with his mind.

"I just think in general terms — I've coached in pro, I've coached in college and I've coached in high school — that it's bad luck not to have good quarterback play," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. "That's a pretty common denominator. It really doesn't matter what style of offense you run. Unless your players are so superior that you can knock everybody down and pitch the ball or hand it to somebody, quarterback play is imperative."

Problem is, it is harder to play quarterback in college football. In the last five years, the passing game has become extremely sophisticated and defenses have become faster and more deceptive.

That has made it difficult for a new quarterback to excel, even if you're a fifth-year senior such as Evridge.

"It's much easier (for a quarterback) to make a mistake today than it was in the past," Tiller said. "The zone blitzes started at the NFL level and have now totally infiltrated the college level. As a result, it's very challenging and it's easier for a quarterback to make an error based on the defensive changes that you're seeing after the ball has been snapped."

No matter who starts at quarterback for UW against Iowa on Saturday — and the time probably has come to see what Sherer can do — this much is clear: The Badgers had better find a playmaker at the position quickly or it will undermine everything they're trying to do.