Some teams pride themselves on playing clean football. Other programs know they need to clean up what they’re doing on the field. Either way, penalties can make a big difference in a game or over the course of a season.

It’s a stat that’s not often talked about, but proves to be important, especially in close football games. So, we decided to take a look into which B1G programs are doing the best job in the penalty department.

For this statistical study, we evaluated the last five seasons for each B1G football team, evaluating both the total number of penalties as well as total penalty yards. Here’s a spoiler alert — those two things are often correlated, though there are some outliers.

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You probably wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a team like Northwestern is at the top of the list in terms of least amount of penalties over the last five years. But would you be stunned if Ohio State was dead last, considering the incredible amount of success the Buckeyes have?

Obviously, these numbers will be slightly skewed. Not every team has played the same number of games over the last five seasons, but it still paints a pretty good picture.

Here’s which teams have struggled the most, and the least, with penalties over the last five years (2015-19):

 Total penalties (per season)

  1. Northwestern — 274 (54.8)
  2. Minnesota — 307 (61.4)
  3. Penn State — 307 (61.4)
  4. Iowa — 321 (64.2)
  5. Purdue — 328 (65.6)
  6. Wisconsin — 341 (68.2)
  7. Rutgers — 364 (72.8)
  8. Michigan State — 384 (77.8)
  9. Illinois — 390 (78)
  10. Nebraska — 397 (79.4)
  11. Indiana — 400 (80)
  12. Michigan — 404 (80.8)
  13. Maryland — 426 (85.2)
  14. Ohio State — 451 (90.2)

Penalty yardage (per season)

  1. Northwestern — 2,487 (497.4)
  2. Minnesota — 2,684 (536.8)
  3. Iowa — 2,714 (542.8)
  4. Penn State — 2,781 (556.2)
  5. Purdue — 3,041 (608.2)
  6. Wisconsin — 3,140 (628)
  7. Rutgers — 3,198 (639.6)
  8. Michigan State — 3,503 (700.6)
  9. Illinois — 3,566 (713.2)
  10. Michigan — 3,589 (717.8)
  11. Nebraska — 3,620 (724)
  12. Indiana — 3,730 (746)
  13. Maryland — 3,866 (773.2)
  14. Ohio State — 4,077 (815.4)