The Big Ten has been, how should I put this, challenged in
bowls recently. The past five seasons have seen the conference put up middling
bowl records of 3-5 (2007-08), 1-6 (2008-09), 4-3 (2009-10), 3-5
(2010-11), 4-6 (2011-12). This season presents the additional challenge of two
of the conference’s top teams sitting out under NCAA bowl bans.
Ohio State is the best team in the conference. The
Buckeyes ran the table to finish 12-0 and played 3 of the top 4 teams in the
opposite division, missing only the mighty Northwestern Wildcats. Penn State
recovered from their initial losses to Ohio and Virginia to put together an 8-2
finish to the season including wins over Northwestern and Wisconsin. Neither
Ohio State nor Penn State will be playing in bowls this year – the Nittany
Lions won’t be back in a bowl until 2016-17 at the earliest.
Strength of
Schedule
The bowl schedule for the Big Ten does no favors to the
remaining teams. The tie-ins arranged by the conference ensure that teams will
be meeting stiff competition in unfavorable locations.
1 – Rose Bowl – Pac 12 #1 –Even when the team is not one
of the local powers, USC or UCLA, the LA area guarantees a significant base of
alumni for most other schools in the conference.
2 – Capital One
Bowl – SEC #2 – The SEC is better
than the Big Ten.
3 – Outback Bowl –
SEC #3-4 (Eastern Div) – See #2,
plus they’ll be out of the East.
4 – Gator Bowl – SEC #6 – At least this one has the
possibility of being fair, except location.
5 – Buffalo Wild
Wings Bowl – Big 12 #4 – The Big
12 is better than the Big Ten (at least this year).
6 – Meineke Car
Care Bowl of Texas – Big 12 #6 –
Pretty fair except for the location (Houston).
7 – Heart of
Dallas Bowl – Big 12 #8 – The first
non-SEC mismatch in the Big Ten’s favor.
8 – Little
Caesar’s Pizza Bowl – MAC #1 – The
8th (or really 9th when two Big Ten teams make the BCS)
Big Ten team is pretty typical for the kind of team that loses to a good MAC
team.
At best there are two favorable mismatches and one of
those is the Outback Bowl, in which the Big Ten is 5-5 in the last 10 years
(the other recently changed alignments).
Predicting
Outcomes
Jeff Sagarin is widely known for his eponymous rankings
across multiple sports. College football fans may know him as the creator of
one of the six computer rankings that combine to make up 1/3 of a team’s BCS
ranking. The universities involved in the BCS, however, decided that they did
not want to encourage teams to run up the score and directed computer rankings
to remove margin of victory from their rankings. Sagarin complied and added a
rating system that ignores margin of victory. A quick visit to his website
makes it clear that his preference remains a system that includes margin of
victory.
He notes that his “Predictor” rankings are the best
predictor of future games. The rankings range from 99.10 for Alabama to 12.34
for Campbell University. This means that if the two teams played on a neutral
field the Crimson Tide would be favored by 99.10 minus 12.34 or 86.76 over the
Fighting Camels. Using these rankings we can put together a look at what the
Big Ten can expect this year – and what they might have seen had all of their
teams been available.
Actual Matchups
|
Rose
|
Wisconsin
|
83.3
|
Stanford
|
88.6
|
|
Capital One
|
Nebraska
|
80.0
|
Georgia
|
90.9
|
|
Outback
|
Michigan
|
82.0
|
South Carolina
|
87.9
|
|
Gator
|
Northwestern
|
78.1
|
Mississippi St
|
77.5
|
|
Buffalo Wild Wings
|
Michigan St
|
76.9
|
TCU
|
81.2
|
|
Meineke Car Care
|
Minnesota
|
66.5
|
Texas Tech
|
81.3
|
|
Heart of Dallas
|
Purdue
|
69.6
|
Oklahoma St
|
87.8
|
|
Little Caesar’s
|
WKU (no Big Ten avail.)
|
|
Central Mich
|
55.1
|
 |
| Big Ten projected margin of victory (defeat) according to Sagarin projections |
This is bleak. The Big Ten is favored in precisely one
matchup and they are favored by less than a point. These lines don’t even
consider the possible home field advantage enjoyed by Stanford, Georgia, South
Carolina, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Collectively, the Big Ten is an
underdog by 59 points in 7 games.
Hypothetical
Matchups
This requires a little massaging since bowls are not
required to take the 2nd best
team when they have the #2 pick, but I will assume that Ohio State takes
the Rose Bowl slot while Penn State moves into the Outback Bowl. Everything
else moves down in order with Wisconsin dropping to the Buffalo Wild Wings
Bowl.
 |
| Big Ten projected margin of victory (defeat) according to Sagarin projections |
|
Rose
|
Ohio State
|
82.0
|
Stanford
|
88.6
|
|
Capital One
|
Nebraska (-)
|
80.0
|
Georgia
|
90.9
|
|
Outback
|
Michigan (-)
|
82.0
|
South Carolina
|
87.9
|
|
Gator
|
Penn State
|
79.1
|
Mississippi St
|
77.5
|
|
Buffalo Wild Wings
|
Wisconsin (-4)
|
83.3
|
TCU
|
81.2
|
|
Meineke Car Care
|
Northwestern (-2)
|
78.1
|
Texas Tech
|
81.3
|
|
Heart of Dallas
|
Michigan St (-2)
|
76.9
|
Oklahoma St
|
87.8
|
|
Little Caesar’s
|
Minnesota (-2)
|
66.5
|
Central Mich
|
55.1
|
**Purdue was bumped out of the conference lineup, but
would likely find a home in one of the slots left unfilled by another
conference
The Big Ten is still not looking at a winning bowl
season, but these look like good matchups. The conference dropped from three to
two teams losing by 10 or more and picked up 2 additional expected wins. Given
the love that the model has for teams like Georgia, Stanford, South Carolina
and Oklahoma State – all would be favored by 4 points or more against
Wisconsin, the Big Ten’s strongest team after their dominant win over Nebraska
– getting over .500 is impossible. Moving Michigan down to the Meineke Car Care
Bowl, however, could get the conference up to break-even expectation.
The bowl season is frequently unpredictable, as teams
that have not played significant out-of-conference opponents face their
stiffest test of the season. Sometimes a conference is unexpectedly strong, but
I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for this set of teams from the Big Ten. It’s
going to be a long December.
