3 of those games make sense
that's pretty good for the leadership of the conference
I honestly think they did a fine job and that this was the obvious solution.
It appears to me that priority #1 after the CG was set was to preserve ancient rivalries. Thus these three were pretty much automatic:
Then they had to create a B1G-E match that hadn't already been played. With tOSU unavailable there were only two choices:
They picked MSU because M is a bigger ratings draw, plain and simple.
With those four set they were left with three teams each from the B1G-E and B1G-W,
B1G-E:
- 3-5 PSU (already played UNL and IA)
- 3-5 RU (already played IL)
- 2-4 M
B1G-W:
- 6-2 Iowa (already played PSU)
- 2-5 IL (already played RU)
- 2-5 UNL (already played PSU)
PSU/IL was automatic because PSU had already played the other two.
At that point there were just two choices, either:
- RU/IA and M/UNL, or
- M/IA and RU/UNL
I agree with their decision of #2 here. It puts a helmet in each game and even though Michigan isn't much (if at all) better than RU still, M just "sounds" like a better match-up for ranked Iowa than Rutgers.