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Regardless of how this plays out, the B1G West is finally wild and that’s worth celebrating
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I’m happy to report that it’s the last weekend of October and the B1G West is completely up for grabs.
Cheers to that.
It seems like we haven’t been able to cheers to that in awhile, if ever. But here we are, coming off the heels of Purdue’s thumping of Ohio State, with a B1G West that’s more interesting than ever. The division that I thought was decided a month ago in Iowa City is in fact, in for quite the finish.
In case you blocked out division standings and already punched Wisconsin’s ticket to Indianapolis, here’s a current look at the B1G West:
Sorry, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota. You picked the wrong year to not be very good.
This is the year where you can lose at home to BYU, Toledo or Eastern Michigan (!) and still have a legitimate shot at a B1G West title. What a time to be alive.
By the way, the West contenders (Iowa, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin) are a combined 5-2 against the East. Those only losses were against No. 5 Michigan. All the talk about how lopsided the divisions are is going to take a back seat in 2018. At least it looks like that.
It’s about freaking time.
Sorry, but besides being arguably one of the weakest Power 5 divisions of the Playoff era, the West has also been one of the most boring divisions. Iowa and Wisconsin are the only two West winners during the Playoff era. The Heartland Trophy winner has been the West representative in Indianapolis — and ultimately the B1G runner-up — every year during that stretch.
Obviously a lot of that is Wisconsin’s doing. The Badgers are riding a 16-game winning streak against the B1G West, dating all the way back to that bizarre game against Northwestern in November 2015. Perhaps it’ll be this year’s Northwestern squad that ends the Badgers’ West dominance this Saturday, especially considering how banged up Wisconsin is.
Certainly that would open the West up even more. That would mean Iowa and Northwestern would have control of their own destiny in the West and Wisconsin wouldn’t.
Because of that season-opening loss to Northwestern, Purdue wouldn’t have control of its own destiny either, even though it’s playing as well as anyone in the B1G right now with four straight wins, two of which were against ranked foes. The Boilers have the best conference scoring advantage of every B1G team not named Michigan.
If that’s not a sign of the wild West times, I don’t know what is.
The West really hasn’t had even a three-horse race this late since 2014. I suppose it was somewhat suspenseful between Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin in 2016. But after beating Iowa and Nebraska in consecutive weeks in late October, the Badgers ceased control of their own divisional destiny.
That 2014 season had Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin all alive for the West basically until the third week of November, though let’s be honest. The Melvin Gordon snow game on Nov. 15 all but eliminated any hope that Nebraska fans had. At least it should’ve.
This year has the makings of an even more entertaining race. It’s not simply that there’s parity. It’s that we’ve seen B1G West teams actually look like they could beat anyone in the conference.
All the talk is about Purdue thumping Ohio State, but let’s not forget that Northwestern beat Michigan State by double digits in East Lansing and nearly took down Michigan at home. The upside of the West is there. Maybe on Saturday we’re talking about an Iowa team coming off an impressive win at Penn State, or perhaps Purdue picks up another big crossover victory at Michigan State.
Shoot, it wouldn’t surprise me if in the first Playoff rankings next Tuesday night, the West actually has more ranked teams than the East.
Obviously every West contender but Iowa is already eliminated from Playoff contention, but who cares? This division finally has some depth, and West contenders are clearly capable of pulling off more B1G East shakeups.
By the way, for all the talk about how dominant the East has been compared to the West, we’ve seen three straight conference title games decided by a touchdown or less. In a year when it looks like these divisions are more even than they’ve been since they formed in 2014, it’s not crazy to think the nail-biter B1G Championship trend continues.
The best question is who will be there from the West to play the Michigan-Ohio State winner (at least that’s what I’m assuming).
It’s hard to say the Badgers are still the favorites given the injury issues, and considering they still have three road games against B1G teams with winning records. If they lose just one of them, their West chances take a significant hit. Iowa and Purdue also have three games against B1G teams with winning records while Northwestern only has two and is already sitting there with a 4-1 conference mark.
Look at all of these pivotal games left on the schedule for West contenders:
- Oct. 27 — No. 20 Wisconsin at Northwestern
- Oct. 27 — Purdue at Michigan State
- Oct. 27 — No. 18 Iowa at No. 17 Penn State
- Nov. 3 — No. 18 Iowa at Purdue
- Nov. 10 — Northwestern at No. 18 Iowa
- Nov. 10 — No. 20 Wisconsin at No. 17 Penn State
- Nov. 17 — No. 20 Wisconsin at Purdue
This thing is far from over. Maybe we’ll see a 2-loss West winner with a tiebreaker to decide who gets to go to Indianapolis to inevitably try and spoil the B1G’s Playoff bid.
I honestly have no idea how this thing shakes out, but you know what this year made me realize?
That’s not such a bad thing.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.