The Big Ten West seemed all but decided a few weeks ago when the Illini were on a roll. Now it’s a two team race without the Illini.
The Big Ten west has always been the inferior division and the west division is basically famous for being so inferior to the East division. Regardless the west division offers more challengers to the title game than the east. We know each year it’s one of two teams, sometimes three on the east side of the Big Ten. The West normally has been one of two teams recently but there have been plenty of different teams comparatively since 2000. This year it was looking a lot like Illinois would win the Big Ten West as they were rolling into a relatively easy part of their schedule.
Illinois after a bye had Nebraska, Michigan State and Purdue. They beat Nebraska away and had Michigan State at home right after they got smoked by Michigan and suspended 8 players. Illinois lost. Then with their last easy chance to secure the Big Ten West they play Purdue at home. Illinois lost. Then of course they go to Michigan and played their best football all year but just two weeks too late.
We also knew whether it was the refs, the NCAA, the football gods or whoever, that Michigan team was not going to lose that game one week out from the biggest rivalry game since 2006. The fact of the matter is that Illinois had possibly one of the easiest paths to the Big Ten title game and they simply gave it away.
So who looks favorable to win the Big Ten West? Well it seemingly is a two horse race at the top and to be honest the top of the standings is hard to stomach. We all thought they were dead but Iowa has risen up to have a co-lead with Purdue.
Both of their conference records are at 5-3 where three teams below them sit at 4-4 in the Big Ten conference. Iowa will be playing Nebraska in Iowa on Friday the 25th where it looks quite favorable for Iowa for many reasons. Purdue has to play at Indiana on Saturday the 26th where it genuinely could go either way as Purdue is the most inconsistent team in America every single year. Indiana has played horrible this year but just in time they beat Michigan State in OT last week so who really knows.
If both Iowa and Purdue lose and the teams that are 4-4 win then it would be a 5 team tie for the Big Ten West where all sorts of tie breakers would come in to play and I simply don’t know what those are because there’s five different teams. That’s just way to many scenarios. We will have to wait and see how the games play out this week to see who makes the trip to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game. All in all the Big Ten West was fun until Illinois ended up doing what they did. Now the Big Ten West is back to being the jumbled up mess of inferior football.
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