CFB51 College Football Fan Community

The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on October 21, 2025, 12:33:24 PM

Title: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 21, 2025, 12:33:24 PM
I'm going to limit this to the teams with one loss or less for several reasons.  First, I think it is relatively unlikely that a 2-loss team is going to make the CG.  Second, brevity.  

Obviously the Buckeyes and Hoosiers control the race.  If they keep winning that ends the discussion.  Here are their remaining schedules:
Ohio State:

Indiana:


Then we get to the 1-loss teams:
3-1 USC (lost to Illinois), opp win % .528:
3-1 Northwestern (lost to Oregon), opp win % .528:
3-1 UCLA (lost to NU) opp win% .528:
#6 3-1 Oregon (lost to IU), opp win% .500:
#25 3-1 Michigan (lost to USC), opp win% .417:
3-1 Iowa (lost to IU), opp win % .417:
3-1 Minnesota (lost to tOSU) opp win% .417


For now there are really too many moving parts to get any more detailed than that but you can see the games that shape the race.  There is a pretty good chance that NU (@UNL) and UCLA (@IU) fall off of this list this weekend.  Also the IA/MN loser will fall off the list as well so it should be a lot more digestible next week.  
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: ManHawk on October 21, 2025, 07:32:04 PM
If had to guess final Big Ten records

Ohio St 9-0
Ind 9-0
Oregon 7-2
Mich 7-2
USC 6-3
Iowa 6-3
ILL 6-3
Wash 5-4
UCLA 5-4
Minn 5-4
Neb 5-4
NW 4-5
PSU 3-6
MD 2-7
Pur 1-8
Rut 1-8
MSU 0-9
Wisc 0-9
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: Brutus Buckeye on October 21, 2025, 08:41:07 PM
Technically nobody is mathematically eliminated yet, right? 
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: ManHawk on October 21, 2025, 11:27:30 PM
Quote from: Brutus Buckeye on October 21, 2025, 08:41:07 PM
Technically nobody is mathematically eliminated yet, right?
Correct, but I believe with the current setup,  any team with 5 or more losses would be eliminated. I believe any team with 5 losses would have no mathematical chance to make  the CCG.  Its different from the old days with divisions where it was possible to win a division with a 4-5 record.

So Wisc,  MSU, PSU,  Purdue and Rutgers will all be eliminated once they each lose their next game. 
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: Hawkinole on October 22, 2025, 12:13:42 AM
Michigan has such an easy schedule this season. They are not really a 7-2 in the conference record team, but they are with their schedule.
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 22, 2025, 01:01:57 AM
Quote from: ManHawk on October 21, 2025, 11:27:30 PM
Correct, but I believe with the current setup,  any team with 5 or more losses would be eliminated. I believe any team with 5 losses would have no mathematical chance to make  the CCG.  Its different from the old days with divisions where it was possible to win a division with a 4-5 record.

So Wisc,  MSU, PSU,  Purdue and Rutgers will all be eliminated once they each lose their next game. 
Eh . . .
Ppossibly but if you actually traced it out it probably isn't possible for all the 4-0 and 3-1 teams to end up 5-4 because a lot of them play each other and each time that happens one of them has to win.

I'm not tracing it out because everyone knows it won't happen anyway. 
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 22, 2025, 01:09:05 AM
Quote from: Hawkinole on October 22, 2025, 12:13:42 AM
Michigan has such an easy schedule this season. They are not really a 7-2 in the conference record team, but they are with their schedule.
It isn't just Michigan. This is the reality of only playing about half of the other teams in the conference. The gap between the toughest and the easiest schedules is significant. Indiana last year is a great example. 
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: Hawkinole on October 22, 2025, 01:59:32 AM
This season, Wisconsin and Iowa are on the extremely difficult side. As for Ohio State, if you are #1,the toughest schedule might make a b-b mark shot into the record if it does.
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: ManHawk on October 22, 2025, 10:02:06 AM
Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on October 22, 2025, 01:01:57 AM
Eh . . .
Ppossibly but if you actually traced it out it probably isn't possible for all the 4-0 and 3-1 teams to end up 5-4 because a lot of them play each other and each time that happens one of them has to win.

I'm not tracing it out because everyone knows it won't happen anyway.
Yeah,  I agree its not worth it to map it all out,  but still blows my mind to think about everything that would need to happen for Wisconsin to win the Big Ten. 

Wisconsin would need to win its 5 final games,  which includes games against Oregon and Indiana.

Wisconsin would have to finish in a tie for at least 2nd place at 5-4,  and then win that tiebreaker.

Then Wisconsin would have to win the BigTen CCG.

Odds of it happening would have to be astronomical.


Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 22, 2025, 11:10:24 AM
Quote from: ManHawk on October 22, 2025, 10:02:06 AM
Yeah,  I agree its not worth it to map it all out,  but still blows my mind to think about everything that would need to happen for Wisconsin to win the Big Ten.

Wisconsin would need to win its 5 final games,  which includes games against Oregon and Indiana.

Wisconsin would have to finish in a tie for at least 2nd place at 5-4,  and then win that tiebreaker.

Then Wisconsin would have to win the BigTen CCG.

Odds of it happening would have to be astronomical.
I'll do a little bit of the math:
There are 18 teams and they each play 9 games so there are 162 results (9*18).  There are actually only 81 games (162/2) because each game is a result twice, once for each team.  Each game produces a winner and a loser so there will be 81 wins and 81 losses.  

In theory nine teams could go 5-4 while the other nine went 4-5.  The math there works ([5+4]*9=81).  It is a little easier, however, if one team goes 9-0 thus absorbing more of the wins and leaving more losses for all the others.  

In this case Wisconsin would have to beat Indiana to get to 5-4 so assume that Ohio State (the only other undefeated) goes 9-0.  Then we'll let IU finish 5-4 and we already stipulated that Wisconsin wins out to finish 5-4 so that gives us:
In total, 19 wins and 8 losses are accounted for leaving 62 wins and 73 losses for the other 15 teams.  The easiest way is for two of them to go 5-4 while the rest go 4-5 which gives us:
That adds up to:


So Wisconsin would need to win a 4-way tie.  

Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: Brutus Buckeye on October 22, 2025, 11:43:09 AM
What about a Penn State-Wisconsin final? 
Title: Re: B1GCG race heading into week 9 (Sat Oct 25)
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 22, 2025, 11:50:18 AM
Quote from: Brutus Buckeye on October 22, 2025, 11:43:09 AM
What about a Penn State-Wisconsin final?
You just love doing this . . .

I *think* that one is mathematically impossible.  They each already have four losses so they would each have to win out to get to 5-4.  Ohio State and Indiana each already have four wins so they each would have to win no more than one game to finish 5-4 or worse.  

Since this requires two 5-4 teams we can't absorb a bunch of wins by having one team go 9-0 so we are stuck with:
In any case there would have to be AT LEAST a nine-way tie for first at 5-4 and so many of the 3-1 and 4-0 teams play each other that I doubt it would be even mathematically possible because they can't both lose those games.