B1G-East:
It is early so everyone is, of course, still mathematically in the race. That said, Rutgers and Indiana are both 0-2. The Scarlet Knights have two divisional losses (tOSU, M) while the Hoosiers have one (PSU) so for all practical purposes they are out of the running.
Maryland technically controls their own destiny since their conference loss (IA) was non-divisional but after seeing how they looked against Iowa while tOSU, M, and PSU all throttled their opponents last weekend I just don't think they have a plausible shot either.
That leaves the top-4 who are each 2-0 in the league and don't start playing each other until October 30. Even if one of them gets upset or loses to a B1G-W team before then, that doesn't matter nearly as much as the H2H games because those determine tiebreakers. The H2H games among the top-4 are:
- #3 PSU at #2 tOSU, 10/30
- #4 M at #5 MSU, 10/30
- #4 M at #3 PSU, 11/13
- #5 MSU at #2 tOSU, 11/20
- #2 tOSU at #4 M, 11/27
- #3 PSU at #5 MSU, 11/27
Not much will be clarified until at least the two big H2H match-ups on October 30.
B1G-West:
Like the East, everyone is still mathematically in the race but in the West the bottom four teams have two losses each. They all need Iowa to start losing and soon. The only thing keeping this interesting at all is that Iowa's two league wins were both non-divisional so the other six teams still get a crack at them. Here is each teams' shortest path to the B1GCG:
- 2-0 Iowa: Controls their own destiny. They go if they win out or lose just once and not to MN or PU.
- 1-1 Minnesota: Controls their own destiny. They go if they win out.
- 1-1 Purdue: Win out and for MN to lose at least once.
- 1-2 Illinois: Win out, Purdue loses twice, Iowa loses one additional game.
- 1-2 Nebraska: Win out, Illinois loses, Iowa loses one additional game.
- 0-2 Northwestern: Win out, Nebraska loses, Iowa loses one additional game.
- 0-2 Wisconsin: Win out, Iowa loses one additional game.
For being 0-2, Wisconsin isn't in that bad of a situation because both losses (PSU, M) were non-divisional so they still control their own destiny relative to all but Iowa and they only need one Iowa loss to control their own destiny completely.
