CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on October 03, 2018, 02:05:01 PM
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The divisional races are frankly pretty boring right now. According to our Current Power Rankings (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?topic=5683.0) the #1 teams in the B1G-E and B1G-W (tOSU and UW respectively) have already defeated the #2 teams (PSU and IA) so for the time being we are left to sit and wait until one of them loses to open up those races.
So here is something else to consider, the Bowl Eligibility status of our 14 teams:
- 5-0 Ohio State, seven games left, need one win: This is a given.
- 4-1 Michigan, seven games left, need two wins: This is a given.
- 4-1 Penn State, seven games left, need two wins: This is a given.
- 4-1 Indiana, seven games left, need two wins: The Hoosiers should make it but I wouldn't consider it a given. They have home games left against Iowa, Penn State, Maryland, and Purdue. If they can't find two wins there then they'll need to win on the road either in Columbus, Minneapolis, or Ann Arbor.
- 3-1 Wisconsin, eight games left, need three wins: This is a given.
- 3-1 Iowa, eight games left, need three wins: This is almost a given but unlike the Badgers, the Hawkeyes do not get Rutgers from the East. They still should make it but if they lose in Minneapolis this weekend then we'll need to reevaluate.
- 3-1 Minnesota, eight games left, need three wins: This could be tricky. Their remaining home games are Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, and Northwestern. With the way the Gophers looked in College Park Maryland they could lose all four. They have potentially winnable road games in Lincoln and Champaign but their other road games are in Columbus and Madison. Minnesota hasn't won in Columbus since 2000 and they haven't won in Madison since 1994.
- 3-1 Maryland, eight games left, need three wins: This is almost a given. The Terps host Rutgers and Illinois but they still need one more win. I think they should get it, but none of the other six games are gimmies.
- 3-1 Michigan State, eight games left, need three wins: This is almost a given. The Spartans host Rutgers to end the season and travel to Nebraska the week before that. My concern here is that I still don't feel like I have a solid read on this MSU team. We'll know more after this weekend's game against the Wildcats in East Lansing.
- 2-2 Illinois, eight games left, need four wins: The Illini are .500 so far but other than this weekend's game against Rutgers there are no more opponents comparable to their early wins over State of Kent and Western Illinois. Four wins for this team would be shocking because their two easiest remaining opponents (RU and UNL) are both on the road. Their most realistic chance, IMHO, would be to win those two road games, beat Minnesota at home, and sneak in at 5-7.
- 2-3 Purdue, seven games left, need four wins: Purdue has certainly looked like a bowl team the last two weeks with a dominating win over a ranked team and a blowout of Nebraska in Lincoln. The problem is those three close early losses. They should beat Illinois in Champaign next weekend. After that they need to finish .500 in their last six. The difficulty is that three of those six are against highly ranked teams (vs tOSU, @MSU, vs UW) and two of the other three are on the road (MN, IU). The Boilermakers do not have much room for error.
- 1-3 Northwestern, eight games left, need five wins: The Wildcats are in trouble because three of their remaining opponents are ranked (#20 MSU, #16 UW, #6 ND). Unless they manage to knock off one of those, they need to be perfect against the rest of their remaining schedule. That is asking a lot of a team that lost at home to Akron.
- 1-4 Rutgers, seven games left, need five wins: No chance. Rutgers might beat Illinois at home this weekend and they might pull off an upset after that but that would only get them to three wins and I can't see anything more than that.
- 0-4 Nebraska, eight games left, need six wins: No chance. The Cornhuskers scheduled Bethune-Cookman on October 27 to replace the cancelled Akron game. They should win that and they have a decent chance against Minnesota and Illinois at home on October 20 and November 10 respectively. That would only get them to three wins but I just can't see anything more than that.
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Nice work.