I don't think moving Nebraska makes sense. As you point out, they're currently 0-3 in games that they should have won if they were tier 4. Moving them up wouldn't change their +2 positive upsets, it would just give them 3 negative upsets. I think you chalk Nebraska up to being a blind squirrel that found a few nuts.
Agreed, and as you and I have discussed before, Nebraska's original projection was 1-19 so they have 19 opportunities for positive variance and only one opportunity for negative variance. With 19 chances for upset wins they were bound to get some.
I want to see what Purdue does tonight. Obviously moving them to tier 3 doesn't change either of their -2 negative upsets. If they lose to Iowa, they'd be -3. If they move to tier 3 it doesn't solve any of those upsets, but gives them a positive upset vsMSU to get them back to "only" -2.
I get what you are saying, but I generally try to arrange the tiers so as to minimize the total number of upsets not to get a single team as close to even as possible. Using Purdue as an example, where they are in tier-2 they have two upsets:
- A road loss to Nebraska, and
- A home loss to Illinois
If we moved them to tier-3 they would have three total upsets:
- A home win over MSU, and
- A road loss to Nebraska, and
- A home loss to Illinois
That would move Purdue to -1 instead of -2, but it would also move MSU to -3 instead of -2. Ie, Purdue would be closer to even but MSU would be further from even. Instead, I just look at total upsets. In tier-2 Purdue has two upsets, in tier-3 they would have three. Thus, they stay in tier-2.
This year is just a big mess.
Yes, it sure is.
I disagree with both of you. We have had less upsets this year (as a percentage of games played) than usual. Maybe it just seems like a mess because your teams have been involved in more upsets than most. Total upsets per B1G team:
- Zero: UMD, RU, NU
- One: IA, IU, MN
- Two: MSU(-2), PU(-2), UNL(+2)
- Three: IL(+3), PSU(+2,-1), UW(+2,-1), tOSU(+1,-2), M(-3)
Penn State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State are the real odd-balls here because their upsets go both ways:
- How can PSU be good enough to win in Ann Arbor and East Lansing yet bad enough to lose at home to Wisconsin?
- How can Wisconsin be good enough to win in State College and Columbus yet bad enough to lose at home to Illinois?
- How can Ohio State be good enough to win in Ann Arbor yet bad enough to lose at home to both UW and MN?
It isn't any messier than most years. Actually, it is less messy than usual. The bottom line is that upsets happen. Teams have bad shooting nights (or months in the case of tOSU). Teams have good shooting nights. Upsets happen.
The other thing is that I don't think the conference is very good.
I mean, if you put 12 teams in, as some have suggested, you might well be looking at 0-12 - unless all 12 teams get to play at home.
This I completely disagree with. The conference is getting major respect nationally because overall the conference did very well in the OOC. I think the conference is very good.
