Maybe I'm just a biased or overly optimistic Ohio State fan but my take on the B1GCG is that Indiana's success will not "scale" and the Buckeyes win relatively comfortably.
Indiana is MUCH better than Ohio State at beating the everloving daylights out of bad teams. Their four biggest B1G wins are a 45 point win at UMD, a 50 point win vs UCLA, and 53 point wins vs IL and at PU. Ohio State has no wins that big. In fact, in three of those cases Ohio State played the same team and won by a smaller margin:
- IU beat IL by 53, tOSU beat the Illini by 18
- IU beat UCLA by 50, tOSU beat the Bruins by 38
- IU beat PU by 53, tOSU beat the Boilermakers by 24
Against the other two common opponents, Ohio State had the larger MoV:
- Ohio State beat PSU by 24, IU beat the Lions by 3
- Ohio State beat UW by 38, IU beat the Badgers by 24
I think the difference is in what the committee calls 'game control'. Ohio State's three closest B1G wins were 18 point road wins over M, IL, and UDub. Indiana's were one-score wins over IA and PSU and a 10 point win over Oregon. Against the best teams they have played, IU has not been able to put the games away. The only team Ohio State didn't put away was Texas way back in week 1.
There is another issue here that I think plays into this. Some of this is something that you might call "Helmet Privilege". Part of the reason that Ohio State didn't beat (at least) UCLA and Purdue by 50+ like Indiana did is simply that Ryan Day knows that Ohio State doesn't need to beat UCLA and Purdue by 50+. Ohio State's is one of the biggest helmets in the sport and they are the defending Champions so nobody is going to question whether or not Ohio State belongs so long as they win double-digit games. Indiana was never ranked above #4 prior to this season, hasn't won a league title in almost 60 years, and just in general has mostly been a doormat for as long as anyone can remember so I think that Cignetti faces a different calculus.
