Based on a very basic formula, which spots the home team 3.5 points and essentially compares two teams on paper based on how their stats compare to national averages, here's what I'm led to believe as things stand today:
Wisconsin - loss
Minnesota - win
Northwestern - loss
Purdue - win
Michigan State - win
Rutgers - win
Iowa - loss
Now, this obviously differs from my (and any sane person's?) gut feeling, especially with respect to Michigan State. I don't like to bet on any team with a negative turnover margin either and, as we all know, Nebraska has been one of those for a long time. Michigan State's defense is surely better than their numbers would indicate so far, too (but their turnover margin stats are great). W-L records also don't factor in at all to what I'm doing...nor do recruiting rankings...and, even if I was an X's and O's guy, I wouldn't know how to quantify that. I didn't look at these games and consider matchups, in other words.
The simple breakdown of Nebraska on paper is that they have good offensive numbers across the board but poor defensive and turnover margin ones...outside some likely misleading ones in the rushing defense category. Conference play has only just started, of course, and the real picture is just coming into view. There have been some ****ups so far but our schedule isn't that bad.