2021 Week 7 Total Conference Wins Outlook

"They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived that from the look they interchanged."
- Pip
(Great Expectations by Charles Dickens)

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This is the week. The Bye Week. The Improvement Week. An opportunity like this only comes  once a season. It’s an opportunity to heal up, strengthen up, smarten up, scheme up. It’s an opportunity to be better this week than you were last week, to be better next week than you were this week. What did you do this week to beat Ohio State? What did you do this week to beat Michigan State? Whatever you did, if it’s good enough to beat those teams, it ought to be good enough to beat Northwestern.

This is also the year. The year of Michigan’s quinquennial 6-0 record. An opportunity like this only comes once every five years. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be quinquennial, would it? What does this mean? Not the word, but the record? Six-and-oh. Not too shabby, a satisfying start, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But at this point, it’s like climbing half way up Mount Everest. You’re still breathing in a regular atmosphere without an oxygen tank, dancing across the stony regolith on two feet while you twirl that ice pick around like Gene Kelly’s umbrella in Singin’ in the Rain. It’s going to be time to put those tools to real work soon enough, my friend.

So, this is where the rest of the season begins. Maybe this Northwestern game is a good opportunity to exhibit a few things for the game film archives. You know, put some tendencies out there on display, just to make sure that those opponents are better informed about what to expect. This way, you’ll know what they’re expecting, too, so that you can, you know, do something diabolically different? We shall see.

Of course, most teams have not played anyone until…they do. And so that’s why there are computery, fancy stats sorts of things to try to conduct both a statistically sound and logically robust analysis of the vast dataset that is play-by-play statistics beyond just the relatively sparse dataset consisting of sum-total box scores and game results. Such is the nature of Bill Connelly’s S&P+, which develops tempo- and opponent-adjusted measures of college football efficiency based on play-by-play and drive data designed to be predictive and forward-facing), as well as ESPN’s own FPI (like S&P+, but “different”). These two rating systems form the baseline for this report.  However, just for kicks and for the sake of comparison, the older-school Pure Points model provided by Jeff Sagarin is included in this report.

Schedules, Spreads & Win Probabilities

So, with that, it’s on to a multiple ratings analysis. The focus is on the all-important in-conference slate so as to better illuminate the prospects for each of the teams to make it to the B1GCG in Indy, and beyond. But before delving into the details of applying the ratings to the schedules, let’s first have a look at the ratings themselves across the conference. All three ratings are points-based, but only S&P+ and FPI are relative to an average FBS team. The FPI and S&P+ are both adjusted to reflect a 2.5 point home-field advantage. The current adjustment for the Sagarin ratings is a 2.55 point home advantage.

The Buckeyes have further separated themselves from the rest of the B1G competition as the top team in all three ratings, by a margin ranging from 4.7 points (Sagarin) to 7.9 points (S&P+). Below OSU, however, it’s a mixed bag all the way down to the Bottom Feeders, Illinois and Northwestern. Now that we’re 3 to 4 games into the B1G schedule, examples of transitive dissonance are beginning to mount. Any UM fan will notice right off the bat that triple-loser Wisconsin is rated 3rd in the B1G and 7th overall in the S&P+ ratings, one spot ahead of one of their vanquishers, Michigan, not to mention 2 ahead of once-beaten Iowa (9 spots overall). In other non-transitive news, PSU is above Iowa in all 3 ratings, and the Huskers are rated ahead of Sparty in the Sagarin ratings and Minnesota across the board. Of course, it can’t be missed that Purdue remains below Iowa, Northwestern is below Nebraska across the board, and there may still be other examples. The point is that this is the way it goes in the world of fancy stats. You don’t have to beat a team to be rated ahead of them!

B1G East Schedule Rundown

The tables below are composites of the conference schedules for all seven teams in the B1G East with the latest ratings following the games of week 7. The last table in each set simply shows a rank-ordering of the B1GE teams based on their  expected in-conference win totals - it’s not a projection of divisional standings based on projected wins, losses, and tie-breakers. Those are found in a later section.

S&P+ Results

S&P+ has changed its tune since the week 5 diary, with the top three teams taking on a new member: Sparty. At the top of course is OSU with 7.9 expected wins, trailed by Michigan and Sparty at 1.2 and 1.8 wins back, respectively. Not surprisingly, OSU is favored in all of its remaining games at this point. Despite having only the 4th highest expected wins total, PSU is favored in all of its games except when they visit the Horseshoe, where the Nits are now a double-digit underdog (10.4 points or about 1:3 odds). And so it goes, UM is the underdog in two of its games, on the road at Happy Valley as well as in The Game at the Big House. Moreover, the Wolverines are a slight favorite (-3.3 points or 58.3% win likelihood) to beat Sparty in East Lansing. Despite Sparty sliding ahead of PSU in expected wins and into technical contention for a trip to Indy, Sparty is the underdog in all three of its games with the other contenders. Sparty’s largest deficit margin is a whopping 17.6 points to the Buckeyes at the Shoe.

Of the remaining teams, Maryland has the most solid position within the bowl-eligibility bubble with 3.8 expected wins to go with their 3-0 OOC record. Also undefeated in non-conference play, Rutgers has a better shot at a bowl than the Hoosiers despite being last in the expected wins tally. Still, after losing to the Mildcats last week, the Kniggets will need to win two games as an underdog, but doing so is not outside the realm of possibility. Their best chances will be at Indiana and at season’s end when the Terps go to Piscataway.

FPI Results

FPI follows suit with the S&P+ ratings in regards to the B1GE contenders, placing OSU at the top with 7.6 expected wins, with the Buckeyes favored in all their remaining games. The Wolverines are a close second, 0.5 expected wins off the lead. Sparty has advanced to 6.6 wins, 0.8 wins ahead of the Nits. Michigan is favored in all its remaining games except The Game. MSU is favored in all of its remaining games except Michigan and OSU, which means PSU is the underdog to all three of the other contenders, although two of its underdog margins are less than one point.

Rutgers, Indiana and Maryland are all between 2.0 and 2.6 expected wins, with Maryland now leading the bunch after Rutgers took it on the chin from the Mildcats. However, being favored in 2 of its remaining games, the team formerly known as LOLRutgerz has the best shot at capturing a post-season bowl bid. On the other hand, Maryland and Indiana, have a tough row to hoe. Maryland is an underdog in all of its remaining games, so it will need to scare up 2 more wins somewhere along the way. Indiana is not necessarily in a better position than Rutgers either, even though the Hoosiers are favored in 3 of its remaining games (including vs. the Terps). They will need to steal an unexpected win, and their best chance of that will be in West Lafayette to close the season, where they will be a 6.1 underdog to the resurgent Boilers.

Sagarin Results

Since week 5, the main B1GE contenders in the Sagarin ratings have expanded to include four teams, led by OSU with 7.5 expected wins, followed by UM now 0.3 wins back, and PSU at about 6.2 expected wins. Sparty is a shade behind the Nits 6.1 expected wins (up from 4.8 in week 5). Like S&P+ and FPI, Sagarin projects that OSU will win all of its remaining games. Nonetheless, OSU’s narrowest margin is in The Game, in which the Buckeyes are favored by a margin of -1.9 points. The Nits are the underdog in only one of their remaining games according to Sagarin, by 7.8 points when they visit the Horseshoe. So that brings us to Michigan, who by inference is an underdog to the Nits - by 2.4 points - when they visit Happy Valley. Sparty might be regarded as a contender as suggested above, but they are nonetheless an underdog to all of the other B1GE contenders as well as the Boilers. Sparty’s narrowest underdog margin being 1.3 points when Sparty visits West Lafayette.

Sagarin’s take on the bowl bubble teams is practically identical to FPI. Alas, poor damn Maryland may well lose the remainder of their games, which would be a sad denouement after their 4-0 start.

B1G West Schedule Rundown

The next set of schedule tables shows the conference schedules for all seven teams in the B1G West based week 7 results and ratings for the remaining games from S&P+, FPI and Jeff Sagarin’s Pure Points ratings. Again, the last table in each figure simply shows a rank-ordering of the B1GW teams based on their  expected win totals - it’s not a projection of divisional conference standings per se. Those projections can be found in the next section.

S&P+ Results

In the B1GW, S&P+ has expanded its group of contenders beyond Iowa and Wisconsin to now include Minnesota and Purdue. The Hawkeyes still lead the bunch with 6 expected wins, but the Badgers are only 0.4 expected wins back, and still have the Hawkeyes on their schedule. By the strictures of this diary, Minnesota is back in contention after beating the Huskers at home, while the Boilers have closed to within 1.5 expected wins of Iowa after beating Iowa, which gives the Boilers a key head-to-head advantage should things get even dicier at the end.  As was the case last week, the Badgers are favored in all of their remaining games, including by a whopping -8.7 point margin (7:3 odds) when the Hawkeyes come to visit Camp Randall on October 30. The Badgers have passed through their respective B1G gauntlet to open conference play, and will be looking to make hay while the sun is shining on their schedule from here on out. Ol’ Bucky Badger has a very favorable path to the B1GW Invitation to Indy, and by the way, he’s also got a message for you if you thought you could count Wisconsin out...

On the other hand, the Hawkeyes screwed the pooch in an exceedingly unsavory manner by losing to Purdue at home last weekend, turning what looked like a cake-walk to Indy for Iowa into what is now a four-team free-for-all grabastic melee.

As for the rest of the B1GW, Nebraska still remains in the Bowl-eligibility Bubble, but will need to upset either OSU (20% chance) or Wisconsin at Camp Randall (27% chance), as well as win the remaining games in which they’re favored versus B1GW contenders Purdue (66% chance) and Iowa (54% chance).   Having already won at least one game in which it was an underdog, Purdue is in a strong position to become bowl-eligible. Meanwhile, the state of Illinois still has the bottom of the standings secured, despite Northwestern’s upset of Rutgers.

FPI Results

Like S&P+, FPI has re-opened its group of contenders to include four teams. Iowa’s upset loss to Purdue has reopened the race to the teams that had seemingly been relegated to the Bowl-eligibility Bubble. Though Iowa still remains atop the B1GW standings at 6.4 expected wins, their lead has diminished from 3.0 to 1.0 expected wins ahead of next-best Minnesota. Purdue lags 1.6 wins behind Iowa, sliding ahead of Wisconsin, who remains in contention at 4.4 expected wins. S&P+ continues to hold that the Hawkeyes will be favored in all of their remaining games, keeping them on a lightning and wind-shear riddled glide path to Indy in December.

Meanwhile, The Huskers are approaching Bottom Dweller status after their loss to the Mildcats. The Huskers will need to win 3 of their 4 remaining games to become bowl-eligible, but since FPI still has some love for the Huskers, only one of those wins is by upset, and as only a 0.6 point underdog to Wisconsin. The other side of that coin is that the Huskers are only a -0.4 point favorite to beat the Hawkeyes, so much chaos has been introduced into the B1GW!

Lastly, FPI is in agreement with S&P+ in that the state of Illinois is not good at football, with the only win coming for either team is when they play each other.

Sagarin Results

The Sagarin ratings also show Iowa as the B1GW leader, but at 6.7 expected wins, their margin has narrowed to 1.2 expected wins ahead of next-best Minnesota. Purdue is marginally in contention, 2.0 expected wins behind Iowa, By the strictures of this diary, the Badgers are relegated to the Bowl Bubble. This is reinforced by Iowa being favored in all of its remaining games, including in its tussle at Camp Randall on Halloween weekend, where the Hawkeyes are a -2.6 point favorite. The Badgers are favored in all of its remaining games other than Iowa, all but one by less than one-score margins. Still, Wisconsin is an easy lock for a bowl bid, as are Minnesota, who is favored in 4 of its remaining games; and Purdue, who is also favored in 3 of its remaining games - including by a -1.3 point margin over Sparty! Conversely, the Huskers will need to win 3 of their last 4 games, including at least two games in which they’re not favored to retain bowl eligibility.

Expected Conference Wins Distributions

Before getting into the projected final standings, it’s worth having a look at the distributions of expected wins across the conference. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that point spreads  are subject to very wide statistical variations (two standard deviations is +/- 34 points), wide enough to account for just about anything happening!

The plots below show the expected total conference wins distributions for the teams in each division. The legends list the teams in order of decreasing expected win totals. The expected win total is determined by the value at which half of the area under the curve is to the left, and the other half is to the right! The number of wins with the highest probability (i.e. the most likely outcome) for a given team is referred to as the “mode”.

S&P+ Results

The S&P+ distributions show clear separation between OSU and the other three contenders in the B1GE. OSU and UM still occupy the same 8 and 7 win modes, respectively. However, the UM distribution is slightly biased toward the 6-win mode that is shared by PSU and MSU, both with balanced distributions. Obviously, with each successive week, OSU’s chances of going undefeated in the B1G improve and now stand at 28%. UM’s chances of going undefeated stand at 3.8%, and though Sparty still has a chance, it is vanishingly small.

On the other side, the coalescing distributions show how the competition in the B1GW has opened up to include 4 contenders. Iowa and Wisconsin now share the lead at the 6-win mode, with the resurgent Gophers at the next-best 5-win mode, but with a strong bias toward 6 wins. Still hanging around are the Boilers with a similar distribution as the Gophers, just shifted 1-win fewer.

As for the Bowl Bubble teams in the B1GE, there’s really only one to speak of. The distribution of Maryland at a 4-win mode, together with a 3-0 OOC record, means the Turtles have nearly an 87% chance to get a bowl invitation. However, Rutgers' loss to Northwestern really hurt the Kniggets postseason chances, which now stand at 14.3%, despite their 3-0 OOC record, and so it looks like they may in the end revert to their historical position as a Bottom Feeder. But Rutgers is not alone there, because the worst off is poor damn Indiana, with a less than 10% chance of making a bowl game.

As for the remains of the B1GW Bubble teams, the Huskers find themselves in a similar - if not, worse - predicament as the Kniggets. Needing 3 more wins with 4 left to play is not good for the Huskers, and so their postseason chances now stand at just over 17%. So at this point the Huskers are in the same bowl-eligibility boat as the not-dead-yet Mildcats.

FPI Results

The FPI distributions for the B1GE once again show four contenders in a loose grouping aligned on the 6-win, 7-win and 8-win modes. MSU shares the 7-win mode with UM, wherein MSU is biased toward 6 wins, and UM toward 8 wins. PSU stands alone with a downward-biased 6-win mode, while OSU is loud and proud with a 8-win mode slightly biased toward 7 wins. OSU has the best chance of going undefeated in the B1G at 19.4%, followed by UM at 8.4% and MSU at 2.3%.

On the other side, Iowa largely stands alone and a relatively uncontested favorite to make the trip to Indy. The Hawkeyes are still in the cathawk seat with a mode of 7 wins, although now with a strong downward bias toward 6 wins. This bias opens up the chances for other contenders like Minnesota, with an upward-biased 5-win mode, to catch Iowa. Further back is Purdue, with a more balanced 5-win mode who now has a head-to-head advantage over Iowa in the event of a tie at the top. As of now, Wisconsin is on the outside looking in from the FPI probabilistic standpoint.

Regarding the Bowl Bubble teams in the B1GE, the remaining 3 teams have all been reduced to the 2-win mode. From that position, Maryland has the best chance of enjoying a postseason at just over 50%, followed by Rutgers with a 32% chance. With an OOC loss, Indiana’s chances of becoming bowl-eligible stand at about 14%.

 Meanwhile, the B1GW Bubble has a couple of teams - Nebraska and Northwestern - who are more likely to have their bubble burst than to receive an invitation. Nebraska is clinging to a 26% chance at a bowl game after a very damaging loss to Northwestern last week. Northwestern is even worse off with about a 19% chance, but that’s a lot better than it looked last week!

Sagarin Results

In the B1GE, Sagarin has the same four contenders - MSU, PSU, UM and OSU - grouped among the 6-win,  7-win and 8-win modes. PSU and MSU show very similar 6-win modes, with PSU being biased a bit toward 7 wins. UM stands alone with 7-win mode, biased toward 8 wins, while OSU shows an 8-win mode with a downward bias. The chances of OSU and UM going undefeated in B1G play are 16.4% and 8.1%, respectively, while MSU has a vanishingly small prospect of winning out. Having already registered a conference loss, PSU has practically zero margin for error the rest of the way. But suffice it to say, if the B1GE champ is not OSU, it will likely be the team that can manage to knock OSU off, and it’s more than likely that no team will be undefeated by season’s end.

On the other side, one-loss Iowa remains the clear favorite, standing alone with a solid 7 win mode. Lurking just below, however, is Minnesota with a 6-win mode biased toward 5 wins, while Wisconsin and Purdue share the 5-win mode with nearly identical downward biased distributions. All four of these teams are now engaged in a race to Indy that up until last week seemed to be locked up by the Hawkeyes. Regardless, all four are at least solid locks to become bowl-eligible.

Meanwhile, the Mildcats and Huskers are straddling up to the 3-win mode, which is not the best complement to either team’s two OOC wins. These two teams seem to be trending in opposite directions, but either way, leaving them both with slightly better than a 20% chance at bowl-eligibility. Meanwhile, the Illini have declined to a very prominent 2-win mode, when combined with 2 OOC losses pretty well locks them in the basement.

B1G Expected Final Standings

As alluded to above, following are projections of the divisional conference standings at the end of the season based on the combination of current records and the projected wins and losses for the remainder of the season.

S&P+ Forecast

FPI Forecast

Sagarin Forecast

Surprise, surprise! Based on simple point-margin enforced wins and losses, all three ratings systems forecast OSU to win the B1GE with a 9-0 conference record. Two of the ratings - S&P+ and Sagarin - place a 7-2 (10-2) Penn State as the next-best team. Michigan would have the same record as PSU, but would lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Nits. The FPI results posit that an 8-1 (11-1) Michigan team will take 2nd place, with its only loss being The Game. In any case, it appears that the winner of The Game will be the team that will go to the B1GCG. Clearly, in the case of the FPI results, if everything else goes as predicted except Michigan beats OSU, Michigan goes to Indy by winning the B1GE outright. Likewise with the S&P+ and Sagarin results, Michigan goes to Indy by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker with OSU. PSU would be relegated to 2nd place with 2 losses, despite having beaten Michigan.

As for the B1GW, the S&P+ ratings still project a 7-2 (9-3) Wisconsin team to earn a trip to Indy, beating out a 6-3 (9-3) Iowa team that is tied with a 6-3 (8-4) Minnesota. In contrast, FPI sees a 7-2 (10-2) Iowa rising above the melee to beat out a three-way tie at 5-4 (7-5) among the other combatants: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Purdue. Sagarin sees an 8-1 (11-1) Iowa squad more or less running away with it over a next-best 6-3 (8-4) Wisconsin team.

Yours in football, and Go Blue!