I'll be updating the tiers tomorrow after taking tonight's games into account.
One possibility I'd like to discuss is that IF Ohio State wins their home game against Nebraska tonight, I think they should move back up to Tier-3 but it is a borderline case and it involves my team so I'd appreciate the thoughts of others.
The difference between Tier-4 (where the Buckeyes are currently) and Tier-3 is the projected results in home games against Tier-2 and road games against Tier-5. There are four such games but the Buckeyes do not host Northwestern nor Michigan State so Ohio State only plays two:
- At Michigan L on 1/15
- Vs Nebraska tonight.
If the Buckeyes win tonight, they'll be 1-1 so we either leave them in Tier-4 where they'd be +1 in upsets with three up and two down or move them up to Tier-3 where they'd be -1 in upsets with two up and three down.
It is somewhat of a six-and-one-half-dozen-the-other proposition but if they DO beat Nebraska tonight I think we should move them up due to the timing of the upsets. They are:
- Home loss to Wisconsin on 1/10
- Road loss to Michigan on 1/15 (upset only if we move them up)
- Home loss to Indiana on 2/6
- Home win over Purdue on 1/18
- Road win over Michigan State on 2/25
- Home win over Nebraska on 2/29 (Upset only IF they win AND we don't move them up).
If the Buckeyes win tonight, they'll have three positive upsets in their last four games while all the negative upsets were 2/6 and earlier. Thus, I feel that IF Ohio State beats Nebraska tonight they should be moved up because I feel like they are a MUCH better team now than they were when they suffered their negative upsets in January and early February.
All of this said, I don't want to infect the conference-wide projections with Buckeye-fan bias so I don't want to make this move without getting input from neutral fans on the subject.