Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Do Ohio State And Indiana Have The Inside Track To The Big Ten Championship Game?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Tuesday, October fourteenth. I'm
- 0:03Speaker 1: your host, Tom Moore. The Wisconsin game in four days,
- 0:05Speaker 1: the game against Michigan in forty six days.
- 0:07Speaker 2: If you're planning your next.
- 0:08Speaker 1: Event, make it unforgettable with Great Foot Brittle, Columbus's favorite
- 0:11Speaker 1: food truck serving up Smashberger scoremet sandwiches and good vibes.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Booker catering today at greatfookbriddleoh dot com. This is the
- 0:19Speaker 1: time of year when I always get a little bit
- 0:20Speaker 1: annoyed at everyone who wants to make everything about the
- 0:23Speaker 1: college football playoff and what does this game mean for
- 0:25Speaker 1: the college football playoff race and who's in and who's out,
- 0:28Speaker 1: and it's like it is early October, chill out and
- 0:32Speaker 1: enjoy the football for the football's sake. So we're not
- 0:35Speaker 1: going to do that today. We're going to do the
- 0:37Speaker 1: Big Ten Title Race conversation here, and we're gonna do
- 0:41Speaker 1: it with our buddy, Tony Gerdeman if bucke Huddle dot com. Tony,
- 0:44Speaker 1: I was looking at the Big Ten standings and thinking,
- 0:47Speaker 1: this feels like we're only like three games in for
- 0:49Speaker 1: most teams. But you look at the standings and it
- 0:52Speaker 1: is wild. There are only two unbeaten teams left. There
- 0:56Speaker 1: are nine teams.
- 0:58Speaker 2: With one loss.
- 1:00Speaker 1: So I know how people love the rules and regulations reading.
- 1:04Speaker 1: I pulled all the Big Tens tiebreakers to figure all that.
- 1:07Speaker 1: So we're going to do a real talmudic parsing of
- 1:10Speaker 1: who is going to go to Indianapolis and why.
- 1:14Speaker 3: Well, and I think one of the interesting things about
- 1:17Speaker 3: Indiana being three and zero and if they, however long
- 1:20Speaker 3: they remain undefeated, they probably won't be involved in any tiebreakers.
- 1:24Speaker 3: But if they do, that win over Oregon, I think
- 1:27Speaker 3: is going to carry them because it starts to get
- 1:29Speaker 3: into a winning percentage of teams that you've beaten compared
- 1:32Speaker 3: to that of the team that you're up against. So
- 1:35Speaker 3: not only are they in a good spot because they
- 1:40Speaker 3: have no losses, but even if they come back down
- 1:42Speaker 3: to the rest of the Big Ten, they've got that
- 1:45Speaker 3: win over Oregon that will help them. Now this is
- 1:47Speaker 3: assuming they don't lose in the old oaken bucket against Purdue.
- 1:51Speaker 3: I'm not expecting that, but there you.
- 1:53Speaker 2: Go, Tony.
- 1:54Speaker 1: When can you ever think of a team undefeated team
- 1:57Speaker 1: losing to a rival with a much more record in
- 2:00Speaker 1: the final week of the season. Ever, come on, let's
- 2:02Speaker 1: be realistic here. We'll hit the tie breakers real quickly,
- 2:06Speaker 1: just because they have changed in the last couple of years.
- 2:09Speaker 1: That these went into effect before the twenty twenty four seasons.
- 2:12Speaker 1: Because it used to be, oh, it was head to
- 2:13Speaker 1: head and then it was overall record.
- 2:16Speaker 2: It's way more complicated than that. Right now.
- 2:18Speaker 1: Number one is head to head, so that's very easy.
- 2:21Speaker 1: After that, it's all stuff that is completely impossible to
- 2:25Speaker 1: parse right now because it depends on which two teams
- 2:28Speaker 1: and we're looking at eleven different teams in this conversation,
- 2:31Speaker 1: so after that it gets basically impossible. But it's the
- 2:35Speaker 1: tide teams will be compared based on the record against
- 2:37Speaker 1: all common conference opponents than three years. The tied teams
- 2:40Speaker 1: will be compared based on record against common opponents with
- 2:42Speaker 1: the best conference record, and proceeding through the common Conference
- 2:45Speaker 1: opponents based on their order of finish with the conference standings.
- 2:48Speaker 1: You get the picture. It's way too complicated to even
- 2:51Speaker 1: try and figure that out right now, so we're going
- 2:53Speaker 1: to keep it a little bit simple. But I have
- 2:55Speaker 1: the teams divided in to four and four different buckets.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Number one is the favorites. Number two is the strong contenders,
- 3:04Speaker 1: number three is the contenders, and number four is the
- 3:07Speaker 1: no chance. And so we'll just run through the two
- 3:09Speaker 1: teams that are three and oh in conference play right now.
- 3:11Speaker 1: Indiana and Ohio State USC is three and one. Everyone
- 3:15Speaker 1: else on this list is two and one ready Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska,
- 3:19Speaker 1: Northwestern Oregon, UCLA, and Washington. So those were listed in
- 3:24Speaker 1: alphabetical order. We'll try and do these a little more
- 3:28Speaker 1: scientifically than that. So all right, so the favorites. This
- 3:32Speaker 1: feels very lazy, But also when I went through and looked,
- 3:35Speaker 1: I was like, well, no, I think these two have
- 3:36Speaker 1: to be pretty clearly the favorites right now. They're the
- 3:39Speaker 1: two teams that are three and oh. Makes sense if
- 3:41Speaker 1: you think about it. Indiana, they have wins among the
- 3:45Speaker 1: group of you know, of this group, they already have
- 3:48Speaker 1: wins over Oregon and Iowa, who are two teams that
- 3:51Speaker 1: are probably relatively close to the top of the list
- 3:53Speaker 1: in terms of who might be able to finish with,
- 3:56Speaker 1: you know, in that Thai group. If Indiana does slip
- 3:59Speaker 1: up and lose a game, they would potentially still have
- 4:02Speaker 1: that tie break up. So Indiana shockingly likely to make
- 4:06Speaker 1: it to Indianapolis. Right now, from the remaining group, they
- 4:10Speaker 1: have games left against against just Ucla.
- 4:14Speaker 2: That's it.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Everyone else is. Their schedule is very, very weak. The
- 4:18Speaker 1: rest of their schedule is Michigan State, UCLA at Maryland
- 4:21Speaker 1: at Penn State. Who boy, you wouldn't have expected that
- 4:24Speaker 1: to be a game that's like no bearing on the
- 4:26Speaker 1: conference championship home for Wisconsin at Purdue. I look at
- 4:31Speaker 1: that and I'm like, I don't know which of those
- 4:34Speaker 1: games are they not a double digit favorite.
- 4:36Speaker 3: In well, and I think it's still We'll see what
- 4:39Speaker 3: people think about Penn State because you look at that
- 4:42Speaker 3: schedule and you're still like, well, Penn State still has
- 4:45Speaker 3: players right like, it's still a place to play. So
- 4:50Speaker 3: when you look at that, I think Penn State is
- 4:52Speaker 3: the team that stands out. But I would how would
- 4:56Speaker 3: Indiana not go into that game as a favorite. I'm
- 4:58Speaker 3: just looking at their schedule. They'd beat Illinois when Illinois
- 5:01Speaker 3: was the ninth rank team in a nation, so like
- 5:03Speaker 3: they you could qualify them as having two top ten
- 5:06Speaker 3: wins on their schedule by some accounts, But yeah, this
- 5:11Speaker 3: is this is a schedule where if you want to
- 5:15Speaker 3: go ahead and market down in Penn. I'm not going
- 5:18Speaker 3: to stop you.
- 5:20Speaker 1: Yeah, we were watching this game and it was like, boy,
- 5:23Speaker 1: is Indiana is did you have a real chance to
- 5:24Speaker 1: make the Big Ten championship game? And then it was like,
- 5:26Speaker 1: oh no, Indiana is almost certainly going to make the
- 5:29Speaker 1: Big Ten championship game. It is absolutely insane to have
- 5:32Speaker 1: these conversations. The next team on that list pretty clearly
- 5:36Speaker 1: Ohio State, the only group the only win in that
- 5:39Speaker 1: group that they have right now over Minnesota. That is
- 5:42Speaker 1: probably not going to be a tie breaker that comes
- 5:44Speaker 1: down to it. But the only remaining games in that
- 5:47Speaker 1: group are UCLA, which you figure they're probably not running
- 5:50Speaker 1: the table here, and then that that regular season finale
- 5:54Speaker 1: up in ann Arbor. That's the only other one where
- 5:57Speaker 1: in order for that to go against them, and terms
- 6:00Speaker 1: of a first time breaker, Michigan would have to run
- 6:02Speaker 1: the table and we'll get to Michigan. There's your schedule
- 6:05Speaker 1: is a little more challenging. So you know, if Michigan
- 6:08Speaker 1: runs the table and beats Ohio State, that could keep
- 6:11Speaker 1: Ohio State out. But that's really the only scenario where
- 6:16Speaker 1: it's they would clearly not be in everywhere else you're
- 6:19Speaker 1: probably you know, you would figure they've got a decent chance.
- 6:24Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you there, and we will get to Michigan.
- 6:27Speaker 3: But Ohio State, again you mentioned double digit favorites, they'll
- 6:31Speaker 3: be close to that. We'll see where they are when
- 6:33Speaker 3: they get to Michigan. How heavily they'll be favored there,
- 6:37Speaker 3: and that might be like normal circumstances, they'd be like
- 6:40Speaker 3: a thirteen point favorite, but because this is Michigan, it's
- 6:42Speaker 3: eight and a half something like that. But yeah, they're
- 6:45Speaker 3: going to be the clear favorite the rest of the
- 6:47Speaker 3: way out. And probably you've got your analytics. You can
- 6:52Speaker 3: go ahead and find out how much Ohio State would
- 6:54Speaker 3: be favored by Indiana right now in that regard. But
- 6:58Speaker 3: I do think what Ohio State would go to Indianapolis
- 7:01Speaker 3: as a favorite against Indiana. But I don't think it's
- 7:05Speaker 3: going to be a lot.
- 7:08Speaker 1: No, I don't think so, and I will look that up.
- 7:10Speaker 1: While you're talking about our next team, and that team
- 7:12Speaker 1: is Michigan. This is the strong contenders bucket. You can
- 7:15Speaker 1: only have two favorites Michigan though, kind of that next
- 7:19Speaker 1: team up among that group, they have one loss. They
- 7:22Speaker 1: have a win over Nebraska. If that comes down to
- 7:24Speaker 1: that head to head remaining teams from this group Washington,
- 7:28Speaker 1: at Northwestern and Ohio State. So this weekend we'll probably
- 7:32Speaker 1: have a decent idea how likely it is that Michigan
- 7:34Speaker 1: will go into that Thanksgiving weekend game against Ohio State
- 7:38Speaker 1: with just one conference loss, because if they get through Washington,
- 7:41Speaker 1: there's not a whole heck of a lot left here
- 7:44Speaker 1: and if that could be a winner take all in
- 7:47Speaker 1: terms of getting to Indianapolis, if both teams run the table.
- 7:50Speaker 3: Yeah, this Washington game for Michigan is going to be
- 7:53Speaker 3: interesting to see how, for one, how Michigan bounces back
- 7:58Speaker 3: and is it another close win which Baby tells us nothing.
- 8:01Speaker 3: Can they show some dominance in this one and do
- 8:05Speaker 3: kind of what Ohio State did and just completely stifling
- 8:09Speaker 3: the sorry the Washington offense and limiting demand Williams. Or
- 8:16Speaker 3: does Washington do a little bit of what USC did
- 8:19Speaker 3: and stretch the field and hit some big plays and
- 8:22Speaker 3: exposed the Michigan defense a little bit. But if Michigan
- 8:25Speaker 3: gets by this, you're talking at Michigan State, Perdue at
- 8:28Speaker 3: home at Northwestern at Maryland and Ohio State, So they're
- 8:32Speaker 3: going to be favored the rest of the way as well,
- 8:35Speaker 3: and I assume they're favored this week against Washington, so
- 8:38Speaker 3: that favored all the way up until the Ohio State game,
- 8:41Speaker 3: of course, so there's every reason to expect Michigan to
- 8:46Speaker 3: run the table until Ohio State comes to town, which
- 8:50Speaker 3: makes that, of course a significant, significant game regardless. But
- 8:55Speaker 3: then added on to the standings issue, I'm trying to
- 9:02Speaker 3: find a loss, and I'll be able to tell you
- 9:06Speaker 3: more after this week. In terms of a loss from Michigan,
- 9:10Speaker 3: I do I you know, if you can go to
- 9:13Speaker 3: usc and get beat like that, if you go to
- 9:15Speaker 3: Nebraska and you pull out a three point win like
- 9:18Speaker 3: they're clearly flaws on this Michigan team. So you know,
- 9:22Speaker 3: that game at Maryland, if Maryland hasn't given up by
- 9:26Speaker 3: that point, might be interesting. But I think Michigan's Michigan
- 9:30Speaker 3: overall just seems like they should be able to do
- 9:33Speaker 3: enough to get all of these wins. But I'm I'm
- 9:36Speaker 3: a little interested, a lot interested on that Washington game
- 9:39Speaker 3: this weekend before I'm fully committed to Michigan running the
- 9:42Speaker 3: table through until the Ohio State game.
- 9:46Speaker 1: Well, I pulled up the SP plus rankings and Washington
- 9:49Speaker 1: is sixteen point nine plus sixteen point nine is and
- 9:51Speaker 1: then beat the average team on a neutral field by
- 9:53Speaker 1: sixteen point nine points Michigan sixteen point eight points. So yes,
- 9:58Speaker 1: one tenth of a point seven rating those two teams,
- 10:01Speaker 1: that is not very much. To answer your earlier question
- 10:03Speaker 1: about Ohio State in Indiana on a neutral field, Buckeyes
- 10:06Speaker 1: are number one in the nation in SPPLUS three points
- 10:10Speaker 1: exactly three point zero points better than Indiana, So on
- 10:13Speaker 1: a neutral on a home field for the Hoosiers, you
- 10:17Speaker 1: normally get three points. That would be a push between
- 10:20Speaker 1: Ohio State and Indiana on a neutral field. The team
- 10:23Speaker 1: in between Ohio State number one and Indiana number three
- 10:26Speaker 1: in sp plus this week is number two Oregon. They
- 10:29Speaker 1: are about a half a point better than Indiana, so
- 10:32Speaker 1: two and a half points behind Ohio State. They have
- 10:34Speaker 1: one win among this group of teams we're talking about.
- 10:37Speaker 1: They beat Northwestern. Remaining on their schedule at Iowa USC
- 10:42Speaker 1: and at Washington. None of those are games where they
- 10:45Speaker 1: should be underdogs. But this is one of these also things, Tony,
- 10:49Speaker 1: where your first trip to Iowa City, Everyone remembers their
- 10:52Speaker 1: first trip to Lovely Kinnick Stadium to play Iowa. What
- 10:56Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong?
- 10:58Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you've been in a Big Ten long enough,
- 11:01Speaker 3: you have memories of Kinnick Stadium that are not good memories,
- 11:05Speaker 3: which should help you the next time you play there
- 11:07Speaker 3: and remember the badness that's Kinnick Stadium. So that will
- 11:11Speaker 3: be an interesting one. Certainly, they're very familiar with Washington.
- 11:15Speaker 3: That's gonna be an interesting one as well. That one
- 11:17Speaker 3: feels like an opportunity for Washington to ruin Oregon season,
- 11:21Speaker 3: perhaps because to that point, you know, if especially if
- 11:27Speaker 3: they lose at Iowa, Washington's gonna be looking at that
- 11:30Speaker 3: game like, we can knock we can keep Oregon out
- 11:32Speaker 3: of the playoffs. Wouldn't that be fantastic? Wouldn't that be fun?
- 11:36Speaker 3: And you know, out of the playoffs, perhaps out of
- 11:38Speaker 3: the Big Ten title game. So that'll be a good one.
- 11:42Speaker 3: And you know, maybe if the undefeated told Steady or
- 11:45Speaker 3: even if they you know, have a loss or whatever,
- 11:48Speaker 3: that game for Washington is an opportunity to just stick
- 11:51Speaker 3: a knife in the Oregon Ducks. But having watched USC
- 11:55Speaker 3: this past week, I'm saying beware, I think they're they
- 12:01Speaker 3: may hurt themselves as much as they hurt the opponent
- 12:03Speaker 3: at times, but if they're hurting the opponent at the
- 12:05Speaker 3: right times, they can get a win.
- 12:07Speaker 1: Yeah, and USC is kind of in the next bucket
- 12:09Speaker 1: down for me, I would have had them in the
- 12:12Speaker 1: strong Contenders group, but they have a win over Michigan,
- 12:16Speaker 1: which will help them in a potential tiebreaker scenario. However,
- 12:19Speaker 1: among their remaining schedule at Nebraska home for Northwestern, they'll
- 12:23Speaker 1: have that they'll handle that one Iowa at home, which
- 12:25Speaker 1: is where you get where you want to get Iowa,
- 12:27Speaker 1: but then at Oregon and then they play UCLA at home.
- 12:31Speaker 1: At Nebraska could be tricky. At Oregon feels like that's
- 12:36Speaker 1: gotta be They're going to have to be an underdog there,
- 12:38Speaker 1: and they're at this point where they're going to have
- 12:40Speaker 1: to if they want to get to Indianapolis, they're probably
- 12:43Speaker 1: going to have to run the table to do it.
- 12:44Speaker 1: And that that feels like that's probably too much to ask.
- 12:48Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, especially for you know, they're still building
- 12:51Speaker 3: up that roster. They have good moments to have, but
- 12:53Speaker 3: bad moments. If you're bad enough to lose to Illinois,
- 12:59Speaker 3: then not saying that you know you have to be
- 13:02Speaker 3: bad to lose to Illinois, but that means your ceiling
- 13:06Speaker 3: on any given week is not all that high or
- 13:08Speaker 3: could be lowered. So yeah, I don't think you can
- 13:11Speaker 3: count on them to run the table. If they do, though,
- 13:15Speaker 3: I mean kudos to them and including that Notre Dame game,
- 13:18Speaker 3: which doesn't factor in to here, but they've got to
- 13:20Speaker 3: go to South Bend as well.
- 13:22Speaker 1: Yeah they do, and that would have an impact obviously
- 13:24Speaker 1: in college football playoff, but not on the Big Ten
- 13:26Speaker 1: title race this weekend, the next the next game with
- 13:30Speaker 1: something we've already talked about. Washington, they're in this next
- 13:33Speaker 1: group just because they've got a couple tough games on
- 13:35Speaker 1: the schedule remaining. They have not beaten anyone in this
- 13:38Speaker 1: group of the teams that are tied with the one
- 13:42Speaker 1: loss in the conference standing, so no advantage right now
- 13:44Speaker 1: in terms of tiebreaker. They have to go to Michigan,
- 13:48Speaker 1: they have to go to UCLA, and then they get
- 13:49Speaker 1: Oregon at home at the end of the year, and
- 13:52Speaker 1: I think Washington. It's kind of crazy that Washington is
- 13:55Speaker 1: five to one and still not ranked and their only
- 13:57Speaker 1: loss is a perfectly respectable loss to All High State
- 14:00Speaker 1: where they were down eight points at the start of
- 14:02Speaker 1: the fourth quarter. Like there's that feels like an SEC
- 14:06Speaker 1: team that's ranked sixteenth and everyone's going that's probably a
- 14:09Speaker 1: little high. Well, twenty seventh or twenty eighth or whatever
- 14:11Speaker 1: they are, it's probably a little low. They are not
- 14:16Speaker 1: likely to make it to Indianapolis. But also you look
- 14:19Speaker 1: at the schedule and it's like there's nothing there that
- 14:21Speaker 1: they couldn't win.
- 14:23Speaker 3: No, no, for sure. And you know, even if they
- 14:25Speaker 3: get to win at Michigan, people may look at it
- 14:27Speaker 3: and be like, well, that's just a four and three
- 14:29Speaker 3: Michigan team. Now it's like is that a big win?
- 14:32Speaker 3: But if they if they go to Michigan get a
- 14:36Speaker 3: win and then be Illinois, I think that's two quality
- 14:39Speaker 3: wins and that's something that you better start taking notice
- 14:44Speaker 3: of because they'll go to Wisconsin and that should be fine.
- 14:47Speaker 3: Then they have Purdue and then and then they hold
- 14:50Speaker 3: hold on to your butts. Now I can't believe we're
- 14:52Speaker 3: talking about UCLA and like who knows, because it's like
- 14:56Speaker 3: this is very dangerous territory and dangerous meaning like playing
- 15:00Speaker 3: with fireworks, because you just don't know how well these
- 15:03Speaker 3: things are made. You never know when something's gonna go off.
- 15:05Speaker 3: So they have to go to Ucla and that second
- 15:08Speaker 3: to last week and then home against Oregon. I'm if
- 15:15Speaker 3: they get through Michigan, you know, I think they're gonna
- 15:18Speaker 3: they're gonna run until that Oregon game. And then now,
- 15:23Speaker 3: if that Washington and Oregon game is between like two
- 15:27Speaker 3: one loss teams and they're both like out of the
- 15:31Speaker 3: picture perhaps of the Big Ten championship game one, that
- 15:34Speaker 3: would be amazing and then two. Uh, you know, that's
- 15:38Speaker 3: a pretty good rivalry about right there.
- 15:41Speaker 1: Yeah, you could potentially have a weird combination of games
- 15:45Speaker 1: where Ohio State and Michigan are playing and Oregon and
- 15:49Speaker 1: Washington are playing, and depending on the tie breakers and
- 15:51Speaker 1: depending on which combination of teams win, any of those
- 15:54Speaker 1: four teams could potentially get to Indianapolis. That's something that's
- 15:57Speaker 1: a scenario that's potentially alive. Obviously a lot of stuff
- 16:00Speaker 1: that needs to get sorted out between now and then
- 16:02Speaker 1: that will potentially change that quite a bit starting this
- 16:05Speaker 1: weekend against against Michigan with the Huskies plan there. So
- 16:09Speaker 1: the other two teams that I had in the contender's bucket,
- 16:13Speaker 1: first one Iowa. They have Oregon at home, they have
- 16:16Speaker 1: USC on the road. They're at Nebraska, it feels like
- 16:20Speaker 1: you're not winning all three. You're not going three to
- 16:22Speaker 1: oh against that group. I don't know which one they're
- 16:25Speaker 1: not winning. They're going to win something. They're going to
- 16:27Speaker 1: ruin someone's season. I don't know which team it is,
- 16:30Speaker 1: but they're not going to go I don't think three
- 16:33Speaker 1: O there.
- 16:34Speaker 3: No, I would agree. And you look at that any
- 16:37Speaker 3: of those games are losses except for maybe the Penn
- 16:41Speaker 3: State game right now, but I think they could lose
- 16:44Speaker 3: any of those. I don't expect them to win all
- 16:46Speaker 3: of them, certainly know.
- 16:48Speaker 1: And then speaking of teams, you don't expect to win
- 16:50Speaker 1: all of them. Last team I have in this contenders
- 16:52Speaker 1: group is Nebraska. Right now, they do not have any
- 16:55Speaker 1: wins tiebreaker advantages over any of these teams. They're remaining
- 16:58Speaker 1: schedule among the groups. The teams in this group at Minnesota, Northwestern,
- 17:03Speaker 1: USC at UCLA, and Iowa now not exactly any real
- 17:08Speaker 1: you know, that's not exactly a murderer's row. USC at home,
- 17:11Speaker 1: Iowa at home. Those are games that are going to
- 17:14Speaker 1: be probably closer at Ucla. You know, how much faith
- 17:18Speaker 1: do you have in Nebraska to go win on the road.
- 17:20Speaker 1: What's wild is the only game I didn't mention that's
- 17:23Speaker 1: left on their schedule, the only game that I didn't
- 17:24Speaker 1: mention against all these other Big Ten title contenders at
- 17:28Speaker 1: Penn State the next next to the last week of
- 17:30Speaker 1: the season, Tony, do you think there's going to be
- 17:32Speaker 1: any questions for Matt Ruhle, Nebraska head coach, state college native,
- 17:36Speaker 1: former Penn State football player with the Penn State job,
- 17:39Speaker 1: As you may have heard, currently vacant think there's going
- 17:42Speaker 1: to be any questions for Matt rule about going on
- 17:44Speaker 1: the road to Beaver Stadium the next to last week
- 17:47Speaker 1: of the season.
- 17:48Speaker 3: There will, and assuming he's still the Nebraska head coach
- 17:52Speaker 3: at that point and not already state Penn State's head coach.
- 17:55Speaker 3: He was already answering questions about it at his Monday
- 17:57Speaker 3: press conference. So I don't you know that's going to continue.
- 18:02Speaker 3: But you look at the schedule. This schedule is one
- 18:04Speaker 3: of the reasons why I had Nebraska is one of
- 18:07Speaker 3: my sleeper playoff teams because there's nothing here that they
- 18:12Speaker 3: can't do, and now that Penn State is looking shaky,
- 18:17Speaker 3: this makes it even more plausible, not possible or plausible,
- 18:22Speaker 3: But again, like the last team we just talked, about
- 18:26Speaker 3: with Iowa. I could see them losing four of these
- 18:30Speaker 3: six games, just you know, of their remaining just because
- 18:33Speaker 3: it's Nebraska and because it's a similar Big Ten team.
- 18:37Speaker 2: And then the last three teams.
- 18:39Speaker 1: I don't think we need to spend a lot of
- 18:40Speaker 1: time talking about them. Minnesota. They still have to play Nebraska,
- 18:44Speaker 1: at Iowa, at Oregon, at Northwestern.
- 18:46Speaker 2: They're not winning those four games.
- 18:48Speaker 1: They might not win three of those games, very very
- 18:50Speaker 1: likely won't win three of those games. Northwestern they do
- 18:54Speaker 1: have a tie burger over Ucla if it comes to that.
- 18:56Speaker 2: I am not expecting it to come to that.
- 18:58Speaker 1: They still have to play at Nebraska, at USC and Michigan.
- 19:01Speaker 1: They're not going three o there and Ucla. They still
- 19:04Speaker 1: have to go to Indiana, get Nebraska at home, they
- 19:07Speaker 1: have to go to Ohio State, they get Washington at home,
- 19:09Speaker 1: and they have to go to USC.
- 19:11Speaker 2: So it's been a great story.
- 19:13Speaker 1: I think the story is probably I think the you know,
- 19:16Speaker 1: heroic redemption arc is probably not going to last too
- 19:18Speaker 1: much longer in Westwood. But you know, hey, congratulations Tim's skipper.
- 19:23Speaker 1: Heck of a first couple of games there.
- 19:25Speaker 3: Hey, you know, Rocky didn't actually win the first fight
- 19:27Speaker 3: against Apollo, so it was the next fight. You just
- 19:30Speaker 3: keep you keep battling. Good job this year, iseho what
- 19:33Speaker 3: happens next year?
- 19:34Speaker 1: And I do want to just be clear on something
- 19:37Speaker 1: I said earlier. You know, Ohio State and Michigan and
- 19:39Speaker 1: Washington and Oregon could potentially have some kind of a
- 19:42Speaker 1: weird tiebreaker thing going into that last last week where
- 19:45Speaker 1: they could all be potentially part of the College foot
- 19:48Speaker 1: or the Big Ten championship game. It's entirely possible you
- 19:51Speaker 1: get a two two loss team in here. Obviously Washington
- 19:54Speaker 1: and Michigan, one of those teams is going to have
- 19:56Speaker 1: two losses in conference after this week, so well, you know,
- 19:59Speaker 1: it is entire hirely possible that you have an undefeated
- 20:01Speaker 1: Indiana against a two loss someone else. So tired of
- 20:05Speaker 1: watching these overpowering Big Ten East teams take on these terrible,
- 20:08Speaker 1: middling Big Ten West teams. But it is a possibility.
- 20:11Speaker 1: So just wanted to just kind of touch base on that,
- 20:14Speaker 1: because it is a fascinating race for the Big Ten
- 20:16Speaker 1: title this year, and it's going to be a really
- 20:18Speaker 1: interesting race to the College Football playoff as well. But
- 20:21Speaker 1: let's wait on that a little bit longer. I thought
- 20:23Speaker 1: about doing a college football playoff, like what would the
- 20:25Speaker 1: bracket look like?
- 20:26Speaker 2: I was like, I just I'm not emotionally ready to
- 20:29Speaker 2: do that.
- 20:29Speaker 1: Let's just enjoy the really fun college football season for
- 20:33Speaker 1: the sake of the really fun college football season for
- 20:35Speaker 1: just a little bit longer. And a great place to
- 20:37Speaker 1: enjoy this really fun college football season is at buckeyehuddle
- 20:40Speaker 1: dot com. That's where we've got our whole team of
- 20:42Speaker 1: insiders covering the buck, guys covering recruiting, covering x's and o's,
- 20:45Speaker 1: all that and more, all at Buckeye huddle dot com.
- 20:48Speaker 1: We hope to see you there do it for today.
- 20:49Speaker 1: Thank you guys all for joining us.
- 20:51Speaker 2: Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.