The Path of Least Resistance (to the B10 Championship Game) for Ohio State - Since 2014, Intentional?
There are only 5-6 stadium environs in the Big Ten that are legit, hardcore "road tests" for the visiting team, no matter the rankings, the talent "disparity", the coaching, etc. This was true in 2004. It was true in 2014. And will be true in 2024. These places are difficult to win and rank among the loudest, most inhospitable road environs in all of college football. I would class them (in no particular order) as: Ohio State's stadium, the Big House, Iowa's Kinnick, Madison / Camp Randall, Happy Valley. In certain years, Michigan State's hulking steel mass and maybe Nebraska... if Nebraska's program ever shows a pulse.
Since the divisional split in 2014:
2014 OSU: Wins @ PSU and @ Michigan State. Squeaked by PSU in 2 OTs. Doesn't travel to either Madison or Iowa. Won the National Championship this year. Do they win at both Iowa and Madison if scheduled?
2015 OSU: Gets PSU and MSU at home. Shockingly loses to Sparty. Crushes U-M at Ann Arbor. Again - no Iowa no Camp Randall.
2016 OSU: Got to give this team credit. Went to Oklahoma and won, went to Happy Valley (loss), went to MSU and went to Madison (close wins). Made the CFP without winning the Big Ten Championship.
2017 OSU: Went to Iowa (got crushed) and then went to Ann Arbor and won by 11. Once again, no trip to Madison.
2018 OSU: Traveled to Happy Valley and to East Lansing. Both wins. Stunning loss @ Perdue. Again, avoids 2 of the toughest places to play in the B10 (Kinnick and Madison).
2019 OSU: They travel to Michigan to end the season. 7 homes games. Avoid Madison and Kinnick again.
2020 OSU: HOME to Iowa and @ PSU and @ MSU per normal. No Wisconsin!
2021 OSU: @Michigan. @Nebraska (if you think they'll be semi-functional at this point). Again, no Kinnick and no Madison.
2022 OSU: HOME to both Wisconsin and Iowa
Over a span of 9 seasons: IN ONLY 2 SEASONS THEY PLAYED / WILL PLAY @Wisconsin or @ Iowa... 2 of the very toughest away environs in this conference.
Michigan meanwhile: 2016 @ Iowa (a loss), 2017 @ Wisconsin (a loss), 2019 (@Wisconsin, a loss), 2021 @ Wisconsin, 2022 @ Iowa.
With prior posts / discussions mentioning that you essentially have to go 5-1 in your division and 3-0 in your "West" cross-overs in order to have a prayer of representing the Big Ten East... at what point does it become clear that the Big Ten scheduling is very very favorable to Ohio State?
Oh and PSU? They have to open AT CAMP RANDALL in 2021.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:07 PM ^
Ohio State played at Iowa and got trucked. Was that conveniently left out of this exhaustive analysis?
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:10 PM ^
Nope, I dang sure mentioned it:
2017 OSU: Went to Iowa (got crushed) and then went to Ann Arbor and won by 11. Once again, no trip to Madison.
And that's my point - if they had to GO ON THE ROAD TO KINNICK AND WISCONSIN MORE OFTEN... the arc of the past decade looks a lot different.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
Because after the dissolution of Leaders/Legends the B1G went with parity-based crossover pairings and OSU was paired with Nebraska. Michigan was paired with Wisconsin. Iowa was paired with Penn State.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:19 PM ^
Ok, got it. But the "parity" is junk and ALWAYS WAS junk.
IOWA and CAMP RANDALL are and will always be the toughest places to play in college football. Period. Heck, they might even be more inhospitable then Ohio's stadium and Ann Arbor.
Go look up Iowa's record in night games at Kinnick.
Nebraska hasn't been a tough place to play at in DECADES. Literally decades. I don't care if 80K husker fans show up to watch them lose to Troy. It isn't a tough place to play at and win.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:25 PM ^
PSU has won in Kinnick the last 2 times they’ve played there. Both games were at night.
October 22nd, 2019 at 5:20 PM ^
IOWA and CAMP RANDALL are and will always be the toughest places to play in college football. Period.
this is such total fucking bullshit. Playing at LSU, Clemson, and Alabama is world’s harder than Iowa or Wisconsin.
Just because Michigan loses at that places doesn’t mean they’re special.
October 22nd, 2019 at 8:25 PM ^
I should have said "some of the toughest places". Obviously SEC and Texas have some Damn tough environs. I meant no disrespect...
My point still stands. The toughest places to play in the big ten are the shoe, kinnick. Camp Randall. Guess where osu plays all the time and where they don't travel to?
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
Bitch all you want, people but OP is right.
This ain't the EPL where you play everyone once at home, once away. This is college fuckin football where an easy schedule is more valuable than a returning QB (as we've proven).
At least when there was only 10 (or shit even 11) teams, we played everyone every year or damn near, anyway. Even then you have to get lucky with home and aways. In the SEC they have cupcake Saturday for a reason.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:21 PM ^
The real issue is the competitive balance between the divisions. Both divisions are competitive within themselves, but the B10 West is a notch below.
That being said, MSU, PSU, and OSU have won the conference. The major problem is with Michigan.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
In division the top 4 teams rotate 1at home, 2 on the road one season and 2 at home 1 on the road the next. They got paired with Nebraska in the crossover and Wisconsin got paired with us. During this process we’ve played at Kinnick once and they’ve played at Kinnick once. This is not some grand conspiracy theory, and has been explained here before
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:02 PM ^
The 2016-2019 schedule was also made following the 2012 season.
If you take PSU, OSU, and U-M and order them by their 2012 B1G conference record - you get (1) Ohio State, (tied 2) PSU/U-M.
Do the same with Iowa, Wisky and Nebraska - you get (1) Nebraska, (2) Wisconsin, (3) Iowa.
Now, if you "break" the East tie for 2nd by placing U-M 2nd and PSU 3rd (reasonable, given PSU was still on probation at the time) ....... the teams guaranteed to play every year from 2014-2019 were 1 v 1, 2 v 2 and 3 v3.
I think the decision was as simple as that. Nebraska WAS looking darn good in 2012. They TRIED to schedule equally-matched teams, as much as possible. Nebraska has fallen off since, of course.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:28 PM ^
Also, notice that Michigan plays at Iowa or at Wisconsin every single year that they play OSU at home. This is not the case for OSU when they play Michigan at home.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:41 PM ^
Yep, another excellent observation!
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:32 PM ^
Because Jim Delany hates Michigan ... (1) Bo called out his cheating ass when pre-game he tried to influence the head official for the key Illinois game, (2) he and Gene Smith are best buddies (in their hate for UM), (3) everyone else in the B1G also hates Michigan so we get no support from the other league ADs.
It has been like this for Jim Delany's entire career - the last 31 years. At every turn, he has dumped on Michigan including negatively influencing game officials. Hopefully, the new commissioner doesn't hold a bias and isn't a scum ball like Jim Delany.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:25 PM ^
Mongo, please don't hold back, tell us what you really think.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:31 PM ^
"There has been too much violence, too much pain. None here are without sin, but I have an honorable compromise. Just walk away. Leave the B1G, the league revenues and conference rivalries, and I spare your lives. Just walk away. I will give you safe passage to the ACC. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror."
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:34 PM ^
From 2014 to 2018:
If Ohio State went 6-0 in the division (2014, 2017, 2018), they went to Indianapolis.
If Ohio State did not go 6-0 in the division (2015, 2016), they didn't go to Indianapolis.
Sweeping your division isn't the only way to get to Indy, and it's not a guarantee of a trip to Indy either. But it's certainly the best way to get to Indy (you can screw up 1 non-division game a year, like OSU did in 2017 & 2018).
I do think OSU's "lack" (if there is one) of tough road games vs. Western division foes is overblown. OSU gets to Indianapolis because they take care of business vs. the East (a 28-2 record in the 2014-2018 time span).
October 24th, 2019 at 9:24 AM ^
No no no.
Don't you get that Michigan needs a 2 game lead heading into the OSU game.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:36 PM ^
You are nuts. These schedules rotate.
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:29 PM ^
Cool, when does the schedule rotate to when Michigan doesn't have to play a ranked opponent on the road until the last game of the season(or possibly not at all...*shutters*)?
October 22nd, 2019 at 5:16 PM ^
Well, if you can publish the rankings for the next couple seasons now, I’ll be happy to check
October 23rd, 2019 at 8:37 AM ^
I’ll save me the effort of time travel, we won’t have a season like that. But OSU will every few years, rinse, repeat.
October 22nd, 2019 at 2:45 PM ^
OSU ending the season with back to back games with Penn State and Michigan is nothing to sneeze at. Regardless where they're played imo
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:01 PM ^
I don’t understand. It doesn’t matter because OSU beats Michigan practically every year. If Michigan beat OSU and they still went to Indy because of an unbalanced schedule, I would agree but since they’ve won 15 out of 16 against Michigan I don’t see your point.
If you’re a Wisconsin fan saying it’s not fair that OSU gets to play Michigan every year, that would make more sense.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:55 PM ^
In 2012, Michigan had what OSU has this year, being at Nebraska and at OSU as the only “hard” road games. But guess what? That was the year that Michigan played Alabama in Texas and at Notre Dame. More than anything, our stupid ADs have screwed us, putting the money of playing a big time non-con team over doing all they can for Michigan to make the playoff.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:04 PM ^
more excuses ?
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:51 PM ^
None of this changes that Don Brown's defense surrendered 55 points.
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:22 PM ^
If you want to talk "team with easy path to the B1G Championship" the answer is Wisconsin.
Being in the East already makes OSU's schedule harder because they will need to play M and PSU every year (fine, MSU too).
In most of the years you list, a loss to Michigan would have knocked them out of the championship game, and I believe that in several of them a cross division loss would not have mattered.
Plus the cross division schedules are weirdly streaky because of the conference size. OSU will over the long term have just as many games @Iowa and @Wisconsin as anyone else in the East.
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:29 PM ^
For the record, OSU has played Wisky every year 2007-2014 with the 14 game being the Big Ten title game. They also played in 2016 and are playing this year. They also played in the 2017 Big Ten game. That's regular season 9 out of 13 times since 2007. Add in 2 more with Big Ten title games. I would guess that OSU has played Wisky as much or more than anyone else in the East.
2012 and 2016 were the last 2 Madison games. OSU won both in OT. The 2016 game was a night game followed by a night game the following week at Penn St (yep, white out). That was the night OSU blew a good lead and lost on a blocked FG return. You probably remember that one. I would say that back to back road night games at Wisky and PSU are not an optimal schedule for anyone in the Big Ten.
Lastly, playing PSU and Michigan back to back this year is a disadvantage to OSU. I think this will help you guys on 11/30.
For some reason, the Big Ten has not put OSU/Iowa together much in recent years. I don't know why. OSU lost at Kinnick in 2017 and there has been no return game to OSU the last 2 years. Nebraska? The league seems hellbent on having these two play almost every year. Again, I don't know why.
I do believe the league needs to balance the interdivisional games better.
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:30 PM ^
You may have a point but OSU's greatest scheduling advantage is that they don't have to play OSU.
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:38 PM ^
You are way over thinking this. Conference Schedulers can't predict that Post-Pelini Nebraska will tank.
Wisconsin and OSU were in the Leaders division together. And Nebraska and UM were in the Legends.
So when the 6 year crossover came up it wouldn't have made sense to place teams that were previously in the same division and played every year in a protect crossover.
So they tried to align teams that were not together under leaders/legends with teams that were not together under east/west so that the teams would play each other.
Did Michigan get screwed because Wisconsin is a solid program and OSU gets lucky that Nebraska fell off the face of the earth under Mike Riley (Shocking I know)? Of Course. Is it some grand conspiracy to get OSU the easiest path to Indy? No.
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:50 PM ^
Its all the schedule makers fault..its the refs fault.. its because Brady Hoke left Harbaugh with nothing.... Ohio State cheats.....Michigan has restrictive acceptance policies....Those who stay will finish 3rd ... Am I missing anything ?
October 22nd, 2019 at 4:52 PM ^
LOL, you gotta be kidding me... OSU is 9-1 in their last 10 vs, Wisconsin including 4-0 at Camp Randall. They are 9-3 in their last 12 vs. PSU, including 5-1 at Happy Valley.
Sparty has given OSU the biggest trouble recently, but OSU is 5-0 in the last 5 games played at East Lansing...
I'm sure you know OSU's record vs. Michigan....
The problem is not the schedule, it's the teams in the B1G not providing competition...
October 22nd, 2019 at 8:36 PM ^
They've barely won at Penn state or at camp Randall. Barely. And they got crushed at kinnick...that lone time they had to travel to Iowa in PAST 9 YEARS.
That's the point of the post. If osu had to travel more outside the regular big ten east (to Iowa and Wisconsin) they would surely have a few more losses.
I guarantee you they aren't getting better then 50-60% on regular trips to Iowa and Wisconsin. But we'll never know...because the big ten protects Ohio state!
October 24th, 2019 at 11:17 AM ^
look, I hate ohio as much as anyone around here but like every coach says winning takes care of everything and that is something we can't do. I also think you are giving Kinnick way more credit than it deserves. It is a tough place to play but to act like because they don't play there "enough" is the big reason ohio keeps winning is just pure speculation and guessing. they don't make up the schedules a week before the game or even at the beginning of the season. I mean hell, let's say the B1G decides to make ohio play at Camp Randall and Kinnick every other year and then they only have a few cross over games every 3-5 years with Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois then how is that fair to those last three teams in trying to get to the CFP. All of the scheduling is a BEST GUESS scenario on who is going to be great at the time of the game. Do you hear ND bitching about their schedule? damn near every game they play is a rival game, EVERYONE hates ND, including me probably more so than ohio but us creating threads about how we think ohio gets unfair advantages is just fucking weak sauce and makes us look inferior. It is NOT a warrior mentality, a warriors mentality is to not give AF about their opponents and what they are doing and destroy who ever dares cross our path. We have not had that mentality in forever. if ever.
October 22nd, 2019 at 6:14 PM ^
I wouldn't rank Michigan as a tough road game. Especially not for osu. There's plenty of red in the stands. Just wait till Michigan has 3 losses going into this year's game. The amount of red will be embarrassing.
October 22nd, 2019 at 7:13 PM ^
I'm not sure Michigan's in the top 5 of toughest places to play in the Big Ten
Hell, Ross-Ade seems like a tougher road environment than Michigan sometimes.
October 22nd, 2019 at 10:01 PM ^
Let's run through your list:
2014 - "OSU doesn't travel to either Madison or Iowa." OSU/UM skip them altogether.
2015 - Same
2016 - "Got to give this team credit... went to Madison". UM went to Kinnick.
2017 - "Went to Iowa". UM went to Madison.
2018 - "Again, avoids 2 of the toughest places". As did UM.
2019 - "Avoid Madison and Kinnick again." OSU hosts UW, UM visits UW.
So after 5 identical seasons, there is one outlier in 2019 (b/c of Nebraska cross over).
In years 7-11, UM has 2 road trips and OSU has 1
in year 12, osu travels to both of them while UM plays neither
Which makes it dead even, as a result of the weirdest conspiracy I've read in awhile.
Everyone dreads traveling to Camp Randall. There's absolutely no one who feels the same way about Kinnick. Pretending otherwise is absurd.
@ UW, PSU, UM are games OSU circles in January
MSU, Purdue, IU would be the next tier for road trips recently. (MSU was a monster but not as much in EL)
Kinnick checks in below that for OSU historically.
October 22nd, 2019 at 10:44 PM ^
In the entire history of the Ohio State vs. Iowa series, the Hawkeyes have won 15 games. 7 of those were in Iowa, 8 were in Columbus. Coincidentally, Iowa has also won 15 games against Michigan in their series; 8 of them in Iowa, 7 in Michigan.
But feel free to go on providing massive entertainment value to Ohio State fans, who are reading this thread and joking about just how far the Michigan program has fallen, and how delusional and whiny the fan base has become. If you want to wrap your present to them with a ribbon and tie it up with a bow, consider creating an additional thread to go through every bad call that's gone against Michigan and extrapolate out to what the "real" won/loss record is between the two teams.
October 22nd, 2019 at 11:23 PM ^
I do love that one.
October 22nd, 2019 at 11:42 PM ^
My point is valid. Ohio has missed traveling to the tough road environs of Madison and kinnick while Michigan hasn't been spared, as much. Maybe this corrects in future. Great. In the meantime, they've used their clout to become a national brand... It is a self reinforcing cycle.
There has never been any doubt: kinnick and Wisconsin are the toughest places to play in the big ten west. And Ohio state misses them routinely.
October 22nd, 2019 at 11:54 PM ^
I mean no disrespect here, but are you like 16 years old?
October 23rd, 2019 at 12:05 AM ^
Michigan has had the exact same path through these two venues over the past five years, during this imaginary time when OSU used their clout to stack the deck.
Was it part of their clout to play MSU + UM back to back to end the season multiple times? Or psu-um many times? Or my personal favorite, all 3 to end the season while traveling to UW and Iowa? (And Texas)
You spent so much time explaining how protected they are, how could this be?
Or maybe, only playing 2/7 of the conference each year results in large gaps, particularly for conspiracy theorists who only count the game when it's a road contest, meaning it's 2/14.
There is no other consistently tough venue in the west besides Wisconsin. Nebraska can be good though they've stumbled (and their current slump is the ceiling for Iowa). Iowa is infrequently coached up well, the rest of the time they pay a premium for middling results. Northwestern can put teams to sleep because there's no atmosphere or traction. Illinois can be a weird place to play with iffy weather. Same with west Lafayette. Indiana isn't noteworthy at all yet was an almost constant challenge for OSU
October 23rd, 2019 at 1:29 PM ^
It's a conspiracy. I'm sick of bagmen and conspiracies to elevate OSU. How can these crimes go unreported? I wonder if OSU had the media on the payroll too. Disgusting.
October 23rd, 2019 at 1:41 PM ^
Ok but before the divisions, the two protected games for UM was OSU and MSU while for OSU it was UM and PSU, surely if the big ten wanted OSU to have easier schedules, they would have given OSU, UM and Indiana.
The issue is how far Nebraska has fallen off, when the cross-division schedules were set they were actually pretty good (2013-14) and I think had better records than Wisconsin, including going undefeated at home. Lincoln also used to be a tough place to play.
October 23rd, 2019 at 4:19 PM ^
A lot of this is because Michigan didn't play Wisconsin from 2011-15, while I'm pretty sure Ohio St played them at least 3-4 times in that span. However, I can't really explain why they play them at home each of the staggered times they play them now. Either way, we could've ruined their season numerous times and failed.
October 23rd, 2019 at 4:50 PM ^
Yep. They played every year from 07-13 (and OSU faced PSU, UW and UM every year, hardly very protective). Then the division shift happened.
In the 6 seasons since then, they played them in Indy (not scheduled) and in Madison ('16). They have not hosted them yet, but will on Saturday.
They play them at home in '24 and on the road in '25, which is what happens with crossovers and only playing 2/7th of a division each year (and having bitter fans only count 1/2 of those).
Here's the series history:
October 25th, 2019 at 3:55 PM ^
Do you know what's funny? Since 2000, Iowa is 53-27 at home in conference. Over that same period Nebraska is 53-26 at home in conference.
How about since Nebraska joined the Big10? Iowa 21-15, Nebraska 22-13.
Yeah, huge advantage getting Nebraska more often than Iowa...