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It's too bad, but at least they had the good sense to cancel.

*I omitted Wisconsin because they can't/won't even field a team right now. So that would make them my "14" by default.

This is one of the reasons that I drop the high and low vote.  

Would they beat Minnesota today on a neutral field?

No, they wouldn't be willing/able to play the game.

I get that, but Wisconsin's ranking is weird right now.  There are 14 voters, here are the votes for Wisiconsin:

• 8 votes for #2
• 1 vote for #4
• 2 votes for #5
• 1 vote for #8
• 1 vote for #9
• 1 vote (yours) for #14

The problem in compiling this is that I see these votes as apples and oranges.  Obviously those of us (myself included) who voted them #2 are basing that vote on what we think Wisconsin is or will be at full strength.  

Your vote has nothing to do with Wisconsin at full strength.  You stated that you based it on their inability to play right now.  The votes at #4 and #5 could be either and I would assume that the votes at #8 and #9 are some hybrid of the two.  

As I said, apples and oranges.  

I posted results.  

Things are weird.  For one thing there is the issue of what to do with Wisconsin (discussed above).  That is part of the reason for a big logjam at #2.  Right now Wisconsin, Indiana, and Penn State are all exactly tied for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place with Northwestern just barely behind in 5th.  Effectively we have a four-way tie for 2nd through 5th.  

Purdue is just behind that in sixth place and they are now guaranteed to remain undefeated for another week because their game with Wisconsin this weekend has been cancelled.  Next weekend they'll face Northwestern in what could be a battle of the Division's top two eligible teams.  

Then we have the two Michigan schools.  What to do with them?  They both have one great looking performance and one horrible looking performance.  Michigan looked like a serious contender against Minnesota in their opener but then Minnesota looked awful against Maryland and after that Michigan looked dreadful against the Spartans.  Speaking of the Spartans, they looked hopelessly lost in their opener against Rutgers then turned around and beat the Wolverines in Ann Arbor.  

Iowa is next and they are hard to rank as well.  They are 0-2 which is obviously never a good thing but their opponents are a combined 4-0 and they are oh-so-close to 2-0.  

Next is Rutgers who looked great in their opener against MSU then looked like Rutgers again against Indiana.  

Nebraska is next and we only have one data-point for the Cornhuskers because their week-2 game against Wisconsin got cancelled.  They lost pretty badly to Ohio State but at this point that doesn't disqualify a team from potentially being #2 behind the Buckeyes and, to Nebraska's credit, they were competitive for a while.  

Next is Maryland who looked woefully inept against Northwestern then turned around and beat a team that finished in the AP top-10 last year.  

The last two are a pair of 0-2 teams (IL and MN) who play each other this weekend.  

I feel like they would have lost those games short handed, and by cancelling the games they are essentially admitting as much. Had the Big Ten held them out then I would treat them as cancelled games. But I feel like they need to be dinged for ducking losses.

I just feel like a "power" team would have a "next man up" mentality, where they want to play anyone anywhere, and they would only be stopped from playing by some higher entity; the league office or the NCAA or whatever else.

Ducking games that you are unlikely to win is the antithesis of the mentality that I would associate with what I consider to be a strong "power" team.

I am willing to treat them as ties instead of losses, but I am not going to reward them for exploiting a loophole.

It's a complicated situation. 

Counting the games as ties is the best way to represent both truths; that they would have won the game at full strength, and that they would have lost those games short handed. 

I don't buy that the only reality that we should take into account is what would happen if they were at full strength. Had the game actually been played, they wouldn't have been full strenth. They would have been short handed. We don't pretend that teams have all their injured players available when we do these. We didn't spend 2014 ranking OSU as though Braxton Miller was healthy. We accepted the reality of their situation and ranked them accordingly. 


At any rate, all of this is moot if they are actually going to scrap the rest of the season. In that case, I'm just not going to include them at all.