Scheduling Anomalies- Michigan, OSU v. Wisconsin, Iowa
Today's scheduling anomaly question.
Tomorrow, OSU hosts Wisconsin.. A week from Saturday Michigan plays at Iowa. On October 22 OSU hosts Iowa. The last 10 years' schedules show differential treatment of Michigan in games scheduled with Wisconsin and Iowa.
Here is comparison of games scheduled over the two most recent 10 year cycles:
2013 - 2022
OSU:
3 Home games v. Wisconsin, 1 Away game v. Wisconsin
2 Home games v. Iowa, 1 Away game v. Iowa
Michigan:
3 Home games v. Wisconsin, 3 Away games v. Wisconsin
1 Home game v. Iowa, 3 Away games v. Iowa
MICHIGAN PLAYED 6 AWAY GAMES WHILE HOSTING 4.
OSU PLAYED 2 AWAY GAMES WHILE HOSTING 5.
2003 - 2012
OSU:
4 Home games v. Wisconsin, 4 Away games v. Wisconsin
3 Home games v. Iowa, 3 Away game v. Iowa
Michigan:
3 Home games v. Wisconsin, 3 Away games v. Wisconsin
4 Home game v. Iowa, 4 Away games v. Iowa
MICHIGAN AND OSU BOTH PLAYED 7 AWAY GAMES AND 7 HOME GAMES.
EXPLAIN
September 23rd, 2022 at 5:56 PM ^
Is it really an anomaly?
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
Good ANSWER!
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:13 PM ^
Do you always answer questions with questions?
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:34 PM ^
I dunno, do you?
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:36 PM ^
Who's asking?
September 23rd, 2022 at 7:30 PM ^
Why do you care?
September 23rd, 2022 at 8:09 PM ^
Does it matter?
September 23rd, 2022 at 8:27 PM ^
Should it?
September 23rd, 2022 at 9:29 PM ^
Why don't you people just answer questions?
September 23rd, 2022 at 11:11 PM ^
What the fuck is going on?
September 24th, 2022 at 6:26 AM ^
WHERE ARE MY PANTS???
September 26th, 2022 at 12:53 AM ^
Did you look down?
September 24th, 2022 at 6:16 AM ^
Socratic method!
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
It means we're sitting pretty for the next decade.
September 23rd, 2022 at 7:35 PM ^
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! You must be new here...
September 23rd, 2022 at 10:01 PM ^
I just try to bring balance... like Johnny Depp's character in Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
September 23rd, 2022 at 11:03 PM ^
Are you a Mexi-can? Or a Mexi-can't?
September 23rd, 2022 at 11:14 PM ^
I'm a Mexi-CAN!
September 23rd, 2022 at 8:15 PM ^
Does this mean diminishing-returns-under-Chryst Wisconsin will cycle off the schedule ... just in time for Lincoln Riley-rejuvenated USC to cycle on
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:02 PM ^
The B1G is OSU's bitch. I thought this was a known fact
September 23rd, 2022 at 9:20 PM ^
If you believe this, whether it's true or not... Then someone else has to carry the banner.
Notre Dame "joined" the acc a while ago and has played Clemson in only 2 of 8 or so years.
Nobody in the big ten has come within a whiff of a national title in 25 years other than OSU. Period. So, they are protecting their interests. Again, if you believe it's true
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:03 PM ^
The 2013-2022 time span encompasses ----- literally ----- FOUR different scheduling formulas.
- There was the 2011-2013 period: 12 team league, Leaders & Legends.
- 2014-2015 period: 14 team league, east & west, 8 game conference schedule.
- 2016-2021 period: 14 team league, east & west, 9 game conference schedule, 1 cross-division foe that you played every year (Wisconsin for Michigan).
- 2022: 14 team league, east & west, 9 game conference schedule, 1 cross-division foe that you play every year, except switched from the opponent in 2016-2021.
You change the formula that much, you'll get some oddities in terms of how often teams play each other and at what site.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:09 PM ^
Ding ding ding.
Mostly unlucky with a dash of "just take it" from the Big10.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:13 PM ^
Yikes! For all that EXPLAIN you provided, someone gives a neg. Plus 1 for you to bring you back to even.
September 24th, 2022 at 9:21 AM ^
And the weirdness that was the 2020 football season. OSU missed playing, what, 4 teams due to covid?
September 24th, 2022 at 9:24 AM ^
You change the formula that much, you'll get some oddities in terms of how often teams play each other and at what site.
so Nittany Fan, you claim these are simply “oddities” which should be random. Please provide evidence where those EVER happen to OSU
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:12 PM ^
People like me more.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:38 PM ^
I NEARLY downvoted this, not to be negative but because I thought it'd be a funny response to "People like me more."
Unfortunately "-1" doesn't read funny.
September 23rd, 2022 at 11:15 PM ^
But did she understand who the voters are? Not like it's the general population.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:20 PM ^
What NittanyFan said above, plus you can arbitrarily pick any window that suits your data. I'll pick 2007-2013, a 7-year window which overlaps both of your windows.
OSU: 7 games against Wisconsin, 3 games against Iowa; 10 games combined.
Michigan: 4 games against Wisconsin, 5 games against Iowa; 9 games combined.
EXPLAIN
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:27 PM ^
Michigan & Wisconsin didn't play at all from 2011-2015 ...... and an often heard (from some) MGoBoard comment in 2014-2015 was "are we even in the same conference as Wisconsin any more??? How come we're in a conference with a school we never play?"
7 years later, U-M now plays (according to some) Wisconsin too much. One can never win, I suppose.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:40 PM ^
I think the OP is manufacturing a controversy - yes, M's x-division foe was the toughest from 2016-2021, but them's the breaks. had we beat Ohio it wouldn't have mattered
HOWEVA, I think the griping you're pointing out is actually valid. Not so much that we play Wiscy too much - but I really don't feel like we're in the same conference as any Big Ten West team not named Wisconsin. We played for the Jug in the pandemic, but the oldest trophy game in college sports hasn't had fans in attendance since 2017. That was also the last time we played Purdue and Illinois. I think until 2020, Harbaugh had coached more games against Florida than he had against any BT West school, excepting Wisconsin.
I can't wait for a divisionless Big Ten. I miss the big ten west. I don't even hate them anymore, and I hate not hating them.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:56 PM ^
That's fair.
I'm a proponent of keeping 2 divisions and am not a fan of going division-less. I think schedule inequality (versus the teams one is directly competing for a Championship game bid with) is liable to increase by going division-less.
But I do understand that it will make certain match-ups more frequent, and I understand why that's important to folks.
September 23rd, 2022 at 7:09 PM ^
yea it probably will, i think having tie-breakers set up bsaed on record of opponents, or who the #1 team hasn't beaten yet, can mitigate that and keep things fair. But it'll definitely be more of a pain. But it's worth it if I get to see Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa as often as Rutgers, Maryland and the Nits (no offense, I actually have enjoyed hating you guys in the Franklin-Harbaugh era).
September 23rd, 2022 at 8:22 PM ^
Why would inequality increase by going divisionless? Seems much easier to essentially round robin everyone if there are no divisions. Just a couple of constraints around protected matchups
September 23rd, 2022 at 10:40 PM ^
Take the current B1G East —- the only teams Michigan is directly competing against for a chance to get to Indy.
Of the 6 other division teams, Michigan plays all of them directly, and also has at least 5 common opponents with each of them as well.
EG - Michigan has a chance to beat all their direct competition, and has significant overlap in common opponents too.
We won’t have the same dynamic with one division. There will be many teams Michigan (1) doesn’t play in a season, while also (2) having considerably less common opponents.
September 24th, 2022 at 10:22 AM ^
I think almost all controversy is manufactured.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:27 PM ^
He/she isn't comparing number of games. They're comparing home/away. Not surprised you didn't get it.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:53 PM ^
He was making a different point -- that there are other ways of looking at things where OSU gets screwed. Picking one particular fact that supports your "we always get screwed" argument but ignoring others that don't support it is his point.
Let's not be too committed to the "poor me" whining, shall we?
September 23rd, 2022 at 8:30 PM ^
As an example of his point, he only showed how many games and not home or away. I can't believe you don't see the difference. Maybe you went to Ohio State too.
September 24th, 2022 at 9:13 AM ^
I never attended Ohio State.
I'm a Big Lots Buckeye.
September 24th, 2022 at 10:28 AM ^
That's the first I heard of that one, but i doubt I'll use it. I despise Walmart Wolverine as a term so I don't want to use Big Lots Buckeye so I can avoid being that which I hate.
Fun fact though, Big Lots headquarters is actually in Columbus.
https://www.biglots.com/corporate/about-us
September 23rd, 2022 at 7:02 PM ^
I'd suggest a proportion t test for statistical significance (10 games vs 9 games) but that would just go over your head.
September 24th, 2022 at 9:00 AM ^
Just know that M fans will always be looking for the little things that give Ohio State an unfair advantage over us after you got Ohio State fans to ref the 2016 game. As far as sports related sleights go, that one is unforgivable and cemented your reputation that you are now observing here.
September 24th, 2022 at 9:17 AM ^
Understood.
Not often understood here is that the ref patting Weber's tooshie (a pic posted often) is actually from Indiana and not one of the Ohio refs. That's a fact that gets confuscated here.
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:43 PM ^
TL/DR the post. (No one said there'd be math on the quiz.)
But a scan of the title has me wondering, what does scheduling have to do with anemones?
September 23rd, 2022 at 6:51 PM ^
I don’t really care. If we were up to the standard of what Michigan football should be, we would beat them most times, and if we didn’t, it would be an upset. Does anyone think this years team loses consistently to any Iowa or Wisconsin team from this past decade? Maybe 2017 Wisconsin and maybe 2015 Iowa, but that’s about it. If we were at Ohio’s level, as I believe we are now, I don’t think it would matter who we played from the west. Whoever it is, we should beat them!!
September 23rd, 2022 at 7:03 PM ^
To further your point - in 2016 and 2018, Wisconsin didn't keep us from Indy, Ohio did (and Iowa in 2016). In 2017 and 2020, we'd lost to Sparty and Penn St before the game as well as IU in 2020. 2019 we lost to PSU - had we beaten OSU then maybe we can complain about the Wiscy game. But we didn't. So we can't.