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Results posted, votes through HawkFrenzy, 19 voters.  

Changes this week:

• Wisconsin broke out of their 3rd/4th place tie with Minnesota and passed Penn State to take over 2nd place.  
• Penn State was down a spot, passed by UW.  
• Michigan was up a spot, passing MN.  
• Minnesota fell out of their 3rd/4th place tie with Wisconsin and got passed by Michigan.  

That is it.  

Note my comment from the results post, the relative lack of upsets this year is highly unusual.  There were only six games all year in which a team lost to a team that ended up ranked worse than them:

• #2 Wisconsin lost on the road to #8 Illinois by 1 point.  
• #3 Penn State lost on the road to #5 Minnesota by 5 points.  
• #5 Minnesota lost on the road to #6 Iowa by 4 points.  
• #7 Indiana lost on the road to #9 Michigan State by 9 points.  (Note, however that this was a 3 point game at the final snap but IU fumbled and MSU returned it for a TD).  
• #8 Illinois lost at home to #11 Nebraska by 4 points.  
• #8 Illinois lost at home to #12 Northwestern by 19 points.  

Three of the six are highly excusable examples of a team losing on the road to a team that is almost as good as they are (PSU's, MN's, and IU's).  Wisconsin's loss to Illinois and both of Illinois' "upset" losses are just goofy.  Thus, Illinois was involved in all three significantly unusual results this year.  

Do you think PSU would beat UW without him?

No idea.  Levis is a good QB, just young and inexperienced.  A road game in Columbus is a tough place to start, but he did well there until the crowd noise destroyed his communications with the O-Line.

Clifford is a better passer for sure.

The staff made the decision to have Clifford play injured against the Minnesota/Indiana/Ohio State stretch.  Apparently the choices were to play him injured or have a minor procedure done and have him miss a week or two.  I'd like to think he'd have been back for the B1G championship, had Penn State gotten there, but I can't be sure of that.  He will be back by the bowl game, or so I've heard.

If Clifford was not injured, I do think that PSU would beat UW on a neutral site.  I think PSU matches up very well with UW.  The game would probably be close, and I have no issues with anyone thinking UW is the better team.  I do have an issue with people thinking that games against OSU clearly show UW was the better team.

OSU was the better team, no doubt.  I was responding to the Wisconsin/PSU comparisons in this thread.

I know and I really did take it the way you meant it. I just work with a few PSU fans (remotely, but we talk almost daily) and they were complaining that the stadium was too loud to allow the PSU offense to function. They thought it was unfair. I had to remind them that every other year, tOSU gets to go to Happy Valley AT NIGHT and get welcomed with their White Out. I don't hear them complaining about that every other year. Just an observation that was triggered by your post. Nothing more. 

Comparing any two teams and their performance against OSU is not valid, in my opinion, because OSU presents matchup nightmares for any team - regardless of their respective strengths.

Comparing PSU's and UW's performances against Minnie is valid. Both were in Minnie. The results were very different.

Here's what I'd like to see:

Beat OSU in the B1G championship and then there's no more debate. 

In the meantime, however, I'd like to mention that even Northwestern could beat Illinois...

Here's what I'd like to see:

Beat OSU in the B1G championship and then there's no more debate. 

In the meantime, however, I'd like to mention that even Northwestern could beat Illinois...

and the Frosted Huskers

Please don't take it as "outrage".  I don't think anybody gets outraged over the placement of the bottom few teams in the league. 

I questioned it because I just don't see it.  I disagree with your analysis and do not see this as being close at all.  Both went 1-8 in conference, I'll compare wins first:

• Maryland's win was a blowout of Rutgers but Rutgers is BY FAR the worst team in the league.  Their closest B1G game all year was a 21 point loss to a PSU team that just didn't care coming off of losing their hopes and dreams the prior week.  Blowing out Rutgers proves next-to-nothing to me. 
• Northwestern's win was a blowout of a decent Illinois team that has four B1G wins to their name and will go bowling this year.  Northwestern's is a MUCH better win. 

They had six common opponents:

• Both got blown out by Ohio State, Maryland's loss was worse. 
• Both lost to Minnesota but NU's was a 16 point loss that was reasonably competitive while UMD lost 52-10 in a game that was never in doubt. 
• Both lost to Indiana but Maryland's loss was competitive while Northwestern got run off the field. 
• Both lost to MSU but Maryland's loss was competitive while Northwestern got run off the field. 
• Both lost to Purdue but the Boilermakers ran the Terrapins off the field and needed a last second FG to beat NU by 2. 
• Both lost to Nebraska but the Cornhuskers ran the Terrapins off the field in a 54-7 slaughter while they needed a last second FG to beat NU by 3. 

I see this as a 4-2 (or arguably 3-2 if you treat the tOSU blowouts as equivalent) advantage for the Cats. 

I've covered their wins and their common opponents, here are each team's other two B1G games:

• Maryland got destroyed by PSU and M
• Northwestern lost 20-0 to Iowa and had a reasonably competitive game with Wisconsin. 

I see this as somewhat better by NU. 

OOC:
Maryland's OOC is probably a little better but this was also way back in August/September. 


I just don't see how this adds up to Maryland > Northwestern. 

Not trying to be disrespectful, but it took me until now to muster up the energy to read this, as I really have no interest in dissecting the bottom of the league.

By outrage, I simply mean "care enough to ask someone to justify their personal opinion on a highly subjective matter." That just seems odd to me. However, I know you love to dive into this stuff, so I'll give a very brief response:

You're judging them on MOV (MOL, really). Northwestern is a ball control team. MOV bias punishes winning ball control teams (like Iowa) and rewards losing ball control teams (like Nortwestern).

RE: OOC. By lumping all the games together, you've ignored Maryland's biggest win (Syracuse). By discounting those OOC games as being early in the season, and therefore less significant, you also ignore that Northwestern benefited from a cupcake in November.

I maintain my original stance. NU has a slightly better win, Maryland played a slightly harder schedule. I chose to move NU ahead of Maryland this week, but it wasn't a no-brainer; more of a "meh, throw 'em a bone for picking up a win."

except for #13