Your Predictions For The West

btw...thanks for reviving the thread. It's pretty interesting how bullish the national media was on Nebraska pre-season, how foolish we felt for that optimism just five days ago, and how quickly we're back to handicapping our chances to win the division. 

My prediction? A total clusterfugg of flawed teams beating each other up, with Purdue somehow emerging to win with a tie-breaker.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
My next door neighbor is a big sports buff. We meet on the street every day and talk sports. He came over for the 49ers game last night. He went to Illinois and I asked him what he thought about the Wisconsin game. He didn't even know Illinois had won.  I asked him how he could become so disengaged from Illinois football and he said "years and years of experience." 
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That is funny!

They have done a bad job winning but because of that the student game day culture is not at all about the game.

The campus has a huge Greek life and they rent out the bars on game day, so they open up like 2 hours early for the houses that rent it out and they all party...then no one wants to leave to watch, what is usually, a bad team. 

And it is just far enough from Chicago that fans that live there are not making the drive. 

 
BoSolich said:
ur aware they lost to indiana?

i would say the west is completely up for grabs
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Illinois loss to Indiana isn't as important as a west matchup, it doesn't hurt you as a tie-breaker.  

Losing to an East team, (or even a crappy west team like NW who isn't going to be in it,) hurts you less.  They need the tiebreakers against Purdue and Minnie.  I'm not counting BB out.

 
Here is a composite of 6 different computer rankings based on "Expected point margin over an average team".  Minnesota still favorite for the West, then a cluster of Purdue, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, then Nebraska and Northwestern at the bottom.


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Couple other interesting observations looking at that:

Big 12 = SEC w/o Bama, Georgia, and Vandy

Big Ten w/o Ohio St and Michigan = Pac 12 w/o Colorado = ACC

 
Red Five said:
Couple other interesting observations looking at that:

Big 12 = SEC w/o Bama, Georgia, and Vandy

Big Ten w/o Ohio St and Michigan = Pac 12 w/o Colorado = ACC
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Interesting observations.  Pretty much everyone looks significantly worse without their best two teams.

Pac-12 without USC and Utah = AAC

ACC without Clemson = AAC without Temple & USF

 
I think we might look back and realize that the Oklahoma loss was inevitable, Georgia Southern was actually better than Northwestern, and holy s#!t....we really should have beaten Northwestern. 

 
The reason Minnesota is looking so good right now as far as coming out on top is because these are their cross-divisional games:

-Michigan State

-Penn State

-Rutgers

They don't have to play Ohio State or Michigan...and they already beat Michigan State.

 
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Red Five said:
Chances to win the West according to ESPN FPI

Purdue 48%

Minnesota 25%

Illinois 19%

Wisconsin 7%

Iowa 1%

Nebraska 1%

Northwestern 0%

https://www.espn.com/college-football/powerIndex/_/group/5
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Purdue's win over Maryland is huge. They keep only one loss to the East with Indiana remaining. They beat Minny who still has Penn St which will likely be a loss. Illinois still has Michigan and Wisky has to survive Maryland as well.

Purdue has to travel to Illinois and Wisky, but come out 1-1 there and they have done most of the work to win the division. 

 
Red Five said:
I love this graph.  Lays stuff out in a very readable fashion.


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Through week 8.  Nationally there is a top 3, big gap to 4-6, small gap to 7-9, then a tiny gap to the rest.

For the West, computers have Minny and Illinois in a dead heat followed by Purdue /Wisc (Minny is preset much eliminated from winning the West).  NU is almost an “average team”.


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