With the advent of the mega conferences,  not expect that the best 2 teams will always meet in the converence championship game.  AU contraire!  In the larger conferences, you avoid almost as many teams as you play.  Consider Ohio State.  In 2024,  the Buckeyes were not deemed good enough to play in the Big 10 championship game.  Not so coincidentally, Ohio State was the only team among the Big 10’s Top 4 to play each of the other 3 (Oregon, Penn State and Indiana).  The “other 3” only had to play 1 of the league’s Top 4 teams.

In the Big 12, 4 teams wound up with a 7-2 mark.  Complicated tie breakers focusing on the winning percentage of conference opponents helped determine that Arizona State would play Iowa State for the Big 12 title, while Colorado and BYU cooled their heels (Ironically, the 2 “left outs” did play each other in The People’s Championship at the Alamo Bowl).

The Odyssey cannot express how important the vagaries of the conference schedule are when it comes to the 2 teams playing for the crown.  As we did last year, we did a deep dive on the Big 10’s upcoming conference schedule but with one key change from last year’s analysis.  Last year, we ranked Big 10 squads #1-#18 based on their record in the previous 5 years.  Given that historical records no longer have the same measure of “predictability” in the NIL/transfer portal era (we are looking at you, Indiana!), we decided to rank teams #1-#18 strictly on their Big 10 conference record in 2024.  One can poke a couple holes at this approach.  Using this metric, Indiana is #3 and Michigan #7.  Hmmmm.  The lower the score in your conference opponents, the tougher your schedule.

Our conclusion is that the 2025 Big 10 schedule is  incredibly skewed!

Michigan, by far, has the easiest schedule!  The Wolverines play 7 of the 8 lowest ranked teams and do not play Oregon or Penn State.  Their season-ending momentum in 2024 just keeps building!

Contrast Michigan’s schedule to that of Wisconsin.  Using our algorithm, Michigan’s opponents total 115.   Those of Wisconsin total 62.  That quickly warming hot seat for Luke Fickell rates to be fanned by a brutal 2025 conference schedule.  Eight of the Badgers’ 9 games are against teams in the top 11.

Five other teams face tougher than average schedules:

2.Rutgers (72)

3. Iowa (73)

4. Northwestern (76)

5. Michigan State (78)

5. Oregon (78)

 

Among the easiest schedules:

17.  Illinois (101)

16. Minnesota (95)

14. Nebraska (94)

14. USC (94)

 

The Odyssey is unclear as to how the Big 10 determines schedules.  Regardless,  these schedules really tilt the odds as to who gets to Indy.