"I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon my heart again."

- Pip (from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens)

Intro

So far, so good. Bill Connelly appears to have a green light thus far from the powers-that-be at ESPN to continue posting weekly updates to the SP+ ratings. The only issue is that it's not located on a static page, but is provided as a post to his column. Bill's Week 3 SP+ Update and the usual pull from the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI) page provide the source data for this diary.

As BPONE Syndrome would foretell, M did see a decline in its ratings following week 2, the diary for which does not exist. This trend was mitigated somewhat with respect to select B1G competitors due to various events of schadenfreude in week 3. However, being idle, M was not able to improve its own standing per se.

B1G Team Ratings

So without further ado, let's look at some of the usual tables and charts, beginning with the ratings themselves:

What you'll notice is a shuffle of the same teams making up the top 5 in each of the ratings (OSU, PSU, Wisconsin, Michigan and MSU), with OSU and PSU taking turns at the top spot in the conference, both of which are #5 in all the land. Iowa holds the 6-spot in both ratings, then the same 4 teams (IU, Maryland, Minnesota and Nebraska) are shuffled into places 7 through 10. Purdue, NU, Illinois and LOLRutgerz close out the bottom four of both ratings in that order.

Turning Spreads Into Likelihoods

The following four tables of tables show the overall schedules for each team in the B1G East & West divisions, including the ratings-based point spreads and attendant win probability (it is left as an exercise for the reader to subtract the OOC probabilities from the overall totals to derive the in-conference estimates of expected wins).

E(S&P+)N Schedule Tabulations

According to the S&P+ tabulations, there is one and only one team in the B1G that is favored in all of its games, and that team is a State University in Ohio. All but 2 of OSU's games have margins of less than one score: Wisconsin (in Columbus) and at Michigan. Penn State is a double-digit underdog to the Buckeyes with 3 other games favored by margins of less than one score. Michigan, for what it's worth, is an underdog in 4 games, 3 by margins of less than one score.

In the B1G West, Wisconsin is favored in all but one of its games, and by a margin of at least one score. That should be good enough to secure an invitation to Indy since next-best Iowa is an underdog to Wisconsin, as well as to Michigan and Penn State.

FPI Schedule Tabulations

As with the S&P+ projections, FPI also projects one and only one team going undefeated: a State University in Ohio. However, four of aSUO's games have margins of less than one score. Next-best Penn State is an underdog to only the Buckeyes by a margin of less than 3 points, but PSU also favored in 3 other games by less than one score. Michigan, however, will be walking through a mine field. It has 7 games with margins of less than one score, 3 in which it is an underdog not including when M goes to Happy Valley, where PSU will be favored by more than one score. At this point, FPI projects Penn State - not Wisconsin - to be Michigan's toughest game in 2019.

In the B1G West, the FPI outlook is somewhat similar to that of S&P+ with Wisconsion winning all but one game (at Ohio State). However, the Badgers have as many as four other games in which it's favored by less than double-digit margins. Next-best Iowa is an underdog in 3 games including by one by more than one score (to division rival Wisconsin).

Total Win Probabilities

Below are the composite charts of the total overall and in-conference win distributions for the B1G based on the S&P+ and FPI ratings.

The Contenders are those teams that by one rating or the other, are shown to be within 2 total expected wins of the top rated team. The Bubble consists of those teams within 2 total expected wins of being bowl-eligible (or not). The Bottom Feeders are the teams with few prospects for gridiron glory or post-season hijinks.

E(S&P+)N Projected Win Distributions

Based on the SP+ projections in the B1G East, the Contenders are Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan; the Bubble teams are Michigan State, Indiana and Maryland, with LOLRutgerz remaining the solitary Bottom Feeder. The S&P+ distributions for Penn State and aSOU show significant separation, particularly when considering the in-conference characteristics, where M pulls up closer to Penn State. Still, once again it looks like Ohio State is the team to beat with modes of 11 wins overall and 8 wins in-conference and a better than 4:1 odds of winning all its games.

In the B1G West, the picture is very similar, just change the names of the teams to Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, respectively. it's looking like Iowa is the only team able to contend with re-emergent Wisconsin, who despite being an underdog when it goes on the road to Columbus, retains a 10% likelihood of winning all its games. The remaining teams are all looking like they are in the Bubble (for now), with Illinois, Purdue and Northwestern all having nearly indistinguishable overall win distributions.

FPI Projected Win Distributions

Based on the FPI projections in the B1G East, the Contenders are Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State and Maryland. That's right - five teams have modes ranging from 6 to 8 wins; the lone Bubble teams is Indiana for now, with LOLRutgerz the solid, solitary Bottom Feeder. The FPI Conference Wins distributions show OSU and PSU sharing the 8 win mode, with PSU straddling into the 7-win mode occupied by MSU. UM actually shares the 6-win mode with Maryland, but with a strong lean toward 7 wins.

In the B1G West, FPI shows Wisconsin at the top with Iowa and Minnesota as the other two teams in contention with each occuppying the modes from 8 to 6 conference wins, respectively. The remaining teams are all looking like they are in the Bubble (for now), with Purdue barely hanging on to a glimmer of bowl-eligibility.

Schedules Matter … Big Time

So after summing up all of the projected wins and losses we can have a look at projected final standings. Head-to-head and three-way tie-breakers are taken into account where applicable. A crude strength of schedule is provided for both overall and in-conference games by calculating the average rating of each team’s opponents, and rank ordering them. This time around the SoS scores are given to better gauge the differences in strengths.

So here we can see once again for week 3 that both S&P+ and FPI are projecting outright winners in both the B1G East and West divisions - there are no ties in which a team with one or more conference losses gets and invite to Indy. Also, both S&P+ and FPI are in agreement as far as which teams are projected to play for the B1G championship: Ohio State and Wisconsin. Both are also in agreement in terms of what Michigan's final standing and record will be: 3rd place in the B1G East at 8-4 (6-3).

Michigan continues to rate as having the strongest overall schedule, which should help in terms of any potential CFP considerations provided it can get through its in-conference slate. That will be easier said than done, particularly since all of the teams projected to finish ahead of Michigan in both the S&P+ and FPI projections have easier in-conference schedules.

Yours in football, and Go Blue!