The Stats Behind “Black Saturday” in the Big Ten 

It was a narrative that started very early Saturday…and kept right on running through the final minutes of prime time television. The Big Ten was suffering a DISASTER of epic proportions. That may seem odd when you’re talking about an 8-5 straight up record (yes, the mislabeled Big “10” now has 14 teams, Indiana was idle). But, when you look at expectations, the scoreboard results really were that bad. 

The Big Ten went 2-11 against market pointspreads, and did whatever the opposite of “accumulating style points” is. They didn’t have much style entering the day…and it only got worse. 

• Early, 40-point favorite Wisconsin played one of its worst first halves ever while sneaking to a 9-3 lead over Western Illinois. This was happening as 34-point favorite Nebraska was struggling with McNeese State…ultimately winning on a last-minute TD. 

• By midday, Purdue has lost by 21-points as a 3-point favorite over Western Michigan, while Iowa had barely survived a 17-13 nailbiter as 18-point favorites over Ball State. Later another “Big Ten vs. MAC” affair would go to the MAC when Northern Illinois beat Northwestern 23-15 as a touchdown underdog. 

• All that would be forgotten if league favorite Michigan State could upset Oregon in the biggest TV game of the day! That looked like it was going to happen for much of the afternoon. Then Oregon scored the last 28 points of the game, finishing off a 46-27 win as 13-point favorites.

• Unbelievably, IT GOT WORSE! Michigan (+3) lost at Notre Dame 31-0 in prime time on NBC. Ohio State (-10) lost to Virginia Tech on ESPN 35-21. That’s closing out the full-day debacle with market misses of 28 and 24 points.

Big Ten Eliminated From Playoffs

Initial pundit headline response was along the lines of “Big Ten Already Eliminated From Shot at College Football’s Final Four.” Frankly, the league was basically out of the picture when Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller was lost for the season to injury. The Big Ten had a chance to play its way into discussions if their eventual champ ran the table and other national powers suffered losses. Respected Power Ratings had top Big Ten teams well off the pace. 

Michigan State was +13 at Oregon, meaning 9-10 points worse on a neutral field

Wisconsin was +4 vs. LSU on a neutral field, and LSU isn’t Alabama or Florida State 

Few had been thinking of “the best in the Big Ten” registering in the top four nationally anyway. Florida State, Oregon, the SEC Champ, and the survivor of Oklahoma/Baylor in the Big 12 will likely have resume’s that would preclude the Big Ten from even sniffing a Final Four bid. And, there’s obviously a chance that another power team develops from off-the-radar in short order. This past Saturday just made the Big Ten an even bigger longshot. 

Do the game stats from last week confirm league-wide incompetence? Not as much as you might think. What was very clear in the numbers is that many Big Ten teams had turnover troubles. That’s at least something that can be fixed. If you’re getting outgained 500-250, lotsa luck. If you’re dead even in yardage but losing because of turnovers, there’s hope for improvement. 

I’m going to break the 13 results into mini-groups so it’s easier to absorb what happened. 

CLEAN WINS

We haven’t mentioned the good news yet. Penn State defied jet lag and beat Akron 21-3, winning total yardage 425-277. What’s notable here is that Penn State did that despite losing turnovers 3-0. So, there was evidence of jet lag in execution, but the Nittany Lions still outclassed a 14-point dog anyway.

Illinois (-4) beat Western Kentucky 42-34, with a yardage advantage of 520-400. Giveaways were also an issue for the Illini, but turnovers ended in a 3-3 dead heat. Penn State and Illinois were “the 2” in 2-11 ATS. 

RELAXED TOO SOON

Minnesota jumped out to a 28-0 halftime lead on Middle Tennessee as full-game favorites of 14-points. That’s impressive rather than being a debacle. But, they did slack off in the second half, blowing the cover by allowing a garbage-time TD in the final minute.

Rutgers led Howard 31-7 at the half and 38-13 entering the fourth quarter as 38-point full game favorites. The Scarlet Knights were grinding out an easy win over an outmanned opponent, then allowed garbage time points in a 38-25 decision. 

YARDAGE STALEMATES

There are actually FIVE of these, so it’s easier to just list them in a stack. 

Michigan outgained Notre Dame 289-280, but lost turnovers 4-0

Ohio State outgained Virginia Tech 327-324, and tied turnovers 3-3

Northwestern was outgained 394-401 by N. Illinois, losing turnovers 1-0

Purdue was outgained 323-333 by C. Michigan, losing turnovers 3-1

Michigan State was outgained 466-491 by Oregon, losing turnovers 2-0 

In context, only getting outgained by 25 yards at superpower Oregon is actually pretty fantastic. But, Sparty had no margin for error while making a few too many miscues. That five-team composite only lost by six yards per game on average, but lost the turnover category 13-4. 

Many who were just scoreboard watching or occasionally checking in on Michigan/Notre Dame might be shocked to learn that the Wolverines won yardage, holding the Irish to under 300 total yards. 

I don’t mean to minimize the damage here. It wasn’t “just” turnovers causing an issue. Favorites like Purdue and Northwestern weren’t supposed to be outgained in their games against the MAC, and a 10-point home favorite like OSU isn’t supposed to be in a yardage toss-up. I think those numbers at least partially lessen the essence of collapse. 

WON THEIR GAMES, WON YARDAGE

The remaining four teams are Wisconsin and Nebraska…who we already referenced at the top for underachieving against very weak opponents…and these last two. 

Iowa outgained Ball State 455-219 in a 17-13 win (losing turnovers 2-1)

Maryland outgained S. Florida 317-257 in a 24-17 win (losing turnovers 6-1) 

Maryland only missed the market by four points even with that 6-1 turnover disaster! Iowa actually crushed Ball State at the point of attack, but failed to make the most of their yardage advantage (similar to Stanford/USC if you watched that game).  

It was bad overall…but such high profile badness may pollute the market too far in the wrong direction. The unlucky 13 lost the turnover category 31-16. As a composite, improving execution and more aggressively trying to force turnovers could lead to a quick bounce back toward respectability. If you’re in the handicapping sector that believes turnovers are mostly random, then pure regression could send many of these teams surging forward to better results soon. 

Let’s end the Big Ten discussion with quick nutshell assessments… 

BIG TEN EAST

Michigan State: still probably the class of the league

Ohio State: loss of Miller a killer, as OSU was 9-29-3-219 passing vs. Hokies

Penn State: trending nicely, needs to get more out of its yardage

Michigan: not as bad as score made it look at ND, work to do

Maryland: we need to see more

Rutgers: lacking depth, and road win at Wazzou lost some luster by way of Nevada

Indiana: untested 

BIG TEN WEST

Wisconsin: major QB woes amongst other issues

Iowa: may not be as bad as you were thinking

Nebraska: inconsistent, with wild extremes (par for recent course)

Minnesota: same old Minnesota

Northwestern: trending badly, losing as fave’s to Cal and N. Illinois

Illinois: ???…better than expected vs. WKU, but lousy opener vs. Youngstown State

Purdue: still awful 

Decided to emphasize the main news story of the week instead of looking at misleading final scores this time around. For those of you who tuned in expecting last week’s theme to continue: Washington State outgained Nevada 427-324 in its loss (losing turnovers 3-1), North Texas only outgained SMU 353-274 in its 43-6 rout but won turnovers 0-5, Stanford outgained USC 413-291 but blew repeated opportunities to score, San Diego State outgained North Carolina 509-394 but lost turnovers 3-1. If you believe others deserve to be on the list, please feel free to post those in the comment section below. 

See you again next Wednesday.

---

Jeff Fogle is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. He writes about college and pro football, college and pro basketball, and MLB on his blog StatIntelligence. You can follow Jeff on Twitter @JeffFogle.

---