Vis-a-vis the tiers:
By my quick count, thus far there have been 57 B1G games and nine of those have been "upsets". I'm defining "upsets" here as games in which our projected winner lost. That is roughly one upset in every six games. This weekend (Fri-Sun) we have the following seven games (with projected winner):
- Michigan at Indiana - Michigan
- Ohio State at Nebraska - Nebraska
- Northwestern at Wisconsin - Wisconsin
- Illinois at Maryland - Maryland
- Rutgers at Penn State - Penn State
- Michigan State at Purdue - Michigan State
- Iowa at Minnesota - Iowa
Note that we expect the home team to win four and the road team to win the three
bolded games.
There are seven games this weekend so experience suggests that there will be one or two upsets. Then I'll post updated projections on Monday.
It should be a fun weekend. The top two teams are both playing road games in tough environments that they could plausibly lose, Ohio State has a near-must-win in Lincoln, Wisconsin needs to avoid a let-down, etc.
One game that probably doesn't interest many people but that I find interesting is Rutgers at Penn State. I expect Penn State to win and I hope for their sake that they do. Penn State got absolutely hosed by the schedule. We project that they would go 6-20 in a full double-round-robin 26 game schedule. However, our teams each miss six games and somehow PSU misses half of their projected wins (vMN, vNU, vtOSU) such that their projection dropped to only 3-17, then they lost one of their thee remaining projected wins (vIU) so now we project them to finish dead last in the B1G at just 2-18 despite the fact that we consider them to be better than both Rutgers and Illinois. If they lose at home to Rutgers their projection will drop to a woeful 1-19 and they'll be nearly a lock for the #14 basement seed in the BTT.
On the subject of schedule, at this point Northwestern appears to have the most favorable schedule (+.069) and Penn State the least favorable (-.081). All teams are within +/-0.015 except:
- +.069 Northwestern
- +.065 Ohio State
- +.046 Illinois
- -.031 Minnesota
- -.042 Maryland
- -.081 Penn State
For the eight teams within +/-0.015 the schedule doesn't really impact them much, that is just a rounding issue*. Northwestern, Ohio State, and Illinois all get a boost while Penn State, Maryland, and Minnesota all get dinged.
*Explaining the rounding issue:
The calculation here is Projected Record for the 20 games actually played minus Projected Record for a full 26-game double-round-robin schedule. Looking at Purdue, for example, we project that the Boilermakers would go 18-8 on a 26-game double-round robin. They miss six of those 26 games. Mathematically, their schedule would be exactly fair if they missed 4.15 wins and 1.85 losses. Obviously that isn't possible and Purdue actually misses four projected wins and two projected losses. They are theoretically helped by the schedule to the tune of 0.15 games. That is just rounding.
Now look at Penn State:
We project that the Nittany Lions would go 6-20 on a 26-game double-round-robin. Mathematically they should miss 1.38 wins and 4.62 losses. They actually miss three projected wins and three projected losses. They are hurt by the schedule to the tune of 1.62 games.
