Can we change it? Joel Klatt sounds off on B1G’s ‘arbitrary’ six-game threshold

Playing college football during the pandemic was always going to present certain challenges, but the B1G ultimately compounded some of those challenges with head-scratching decisions.

After initially canceling the fall football season, the conference later reversed course and reinstated an 8-game plus one regular-season schedule. Unfortunately, that schedule does not have bye weeks built-in, meaning any canceled game cannot be made up.

If that tight schedule was not tough enough, the conference then went on to establish a six-game threshold, meaning that a team must play at least six of the eight games scheduled in order to participate in the conference championship game. Right now, that puts a lot of pressure on Wisconsin.

During his latest breakdown of his personal Top-10, FOX analyst Joel Klatt explained how the scenario could play out that the Badgers finish undefeated but unable to play for the conference title.

Not only would that not make sense for the B1G, but it would also provide a major issue for the CFP Committee:

“There’s a scenario out there where Wisconsin can be undefeated and not qualify for the B1G Championship Game,” said Klatt. “Which means that they could be undefeated at the end of the year, along with an undefeated Ohio State team, what does the Committee do with that?

“Like, there’s a scenario where Wisconsin doesn’t get the sixth game mark before the conference championship game. If they miss one more game, due to their COVID issues or someone else’s COVID issues, and they only play five regular-season games. Right now, the B1G says if you don’t play six regular-season games you can’t play in the conference championship game. Well, (Wisconsin) would still play in one of those round-robin style games in that last week, which means they could be 6-0 and ‘Oh hey, don’t worry about us. We’re just 6-0 over here and being considered for the Playoff but our own league won’t let us go play the conference championship game.'”

Klatt went on to hammer the B1G for that rule, calling on the conference to change what he labeled as an arbitrary rule for this season only:

“Can we change that rule? Big Ten, like honestly, it’s an arbitrary rule. You just made it for this year, un-make it. I think it’s a bad rule. There’s no reason that there should just be some arbitrary six-game rule to qualify in the Big Ten.”

For now, it’s up to the Badgers to put pressure on everyone else by continuing to win – and win big. The next test comes on the road against an undefeated Northwestern squad with the lead in the B1G West on the line.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.