WARNING: THIS POST IS ALL DUMB SPECULATION AS TO WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE OHIO STATE / INDIANA GAME GETS CANCELLED. THE GAME IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO BE PLAYED AND THERE IS NO INDICATION THAT IT WON'T BE. BUT DUMB CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT INDIANA INTENTIONALLY DUCKING OHIO STATE ABOUND SO LET'S LOOK AT THE CONSEQUENCES.
Well, it finally happened. Some drag-along team got smacked with the virus and yanked a win away from Ohio State's already shortened season. This wouldn't normally be a problem (nobody's season was ever made or broken by a win over Maryland) except that each cancellation ticks down Ohio State's total games toward the dreaded six-game threshold for the Big Ten Championship. With only four games remaining, the Buckeyes need to play at least three of them to qualify for a trip to Indianapolis, and that's assuming they don't get to six wins but get jumped by another team in the division. The good news is we're already down to only one other realistic option to come from the East, the Indiana Hoosiers. Each other team already has a loss, and every team but Maryland already has two. The bad news is that the Hoosiers are already half a game up on Ohio State in the East standings, and they can afford two more COVID cancellations to Ohio State's one. Not only that, in the event next week's border war matchup between the Buckeyes and the Hoosiers falls by the wayside, Indiana has the edge in the tiebreakers as well. But how much would this matter in the hunt for the grand prize, a Playoff slot? Let's break it down.
BIG TEN TIEBREAKERS
You can read the Big Ten's weird 2020 tiebreakers yourself here but here's a short summary. In the event that the game between the Buckeyes and the Hoosiers is cancelled, but both play at least six games and finish undefeated, we go to the tiebreakers to determine the East's representative in the B1G Championship:
- Best winning percentage in conference games (same)
- Head-to-head winner (not applicable)
- Best winning percentage in division (same)
- Best results against 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th place East division members, in that order, moving on if both teams did not play the same team (same where applicable)
- Best winning percentage against all common conference opponents (same)
- Best
cumulative conference winning percentage of non-divisional opponents (see below)
- Best results against 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th place West division members, in that order, not moving on if both teams did not play the same team (see below)
- Best overall winning percentage (same)
- Random draw
The only tiebreakers (other than random draw) that could separate Indiana and Ohio State are determined by their respective opponents in the West division. Whoever plays the better teams wins the tiebreaker. This is bad news for Ohio State, as Indiana's opponents, Wisconsin and Purdue, currently combine for 4-1, while Ohio State's opponents, Illinois and Nebraska, are currently parked at a combined 2-5, with only four weeks to make up the difference. Illinois isn't likely to win another game this year, while Wisconsin might not lose (other than to Indiana in this scenario). If, somehow, the cumulative records are tied as well, then the tiebreaker goes to whichever team has the win over the team that finished higher in the West. I can't imagine it'll be anyone other than Wisconsin, so Indiana takes the prize again.
WHAT IF THE BUCKEYES DON'T GO TO INDIANAPOLIS?
Long story short, we don't want the Indiana game to be cancelled if the Hoosiers keep rolling. And we don't want Ohio State to miss out on two more games and be ineligible for the Big Ten Championship entirely. Both of those scenarios end up in the same place, with an undefeated Ohio State on the outside looking in on Championship Saturday.
But is all really lost under such a scenario? Yes, Ohio State's dreams of an unprecedented 4th straight outright Big Ten Championship would be dusted, but would the Buckeyes be out of the running for the big enchilada?
Keep in mind that even if the Buckeyes don't play in the B1G Championship, they still play a game on December 19th. In our scenario, as the second place (or first non-DQ'd) East team they would probably play the second place team from the West. The loser of this week's Wisconsin vs. Northwestern game would provide a good opportunity to pick up another quality win and boost Ohio State's playoff resume.
Would that boost be enough? Under our nightmare scenario of Indiana as Big Ten East Champion, how would Ohio State's resume stack up against Indiana's? The teams' respective unique wins would be as follows (unique opponents bolded):
For Indiana: Maryland, Wisconsin (unless they lose to Northwestern, in which case Ohio State probably plays them on December 19 and they become a common opponent), Purdue, and, likely, Wisconsin again
For Ohio State: Nebraska, Illinois, and, likely, Northwestern
You could see Nebraska somehow making a run to finish 4-3 or 5-2 (there are no great teams left on their schedule) but Illinois isn't turning the corner anytime soon, and the Buckeyes would get the Wisconsin/Northwestern loser in contrast to Indiana getting the winner. Indiana would have more wins against better opponents, and a conference championship to boot.
Nobody in their heart of hearts would really believe Indiana was better than Ohio State at that point (unless the Buckeyes really tail off and start winning ugly over the next month). And, unlike the Big Ten, the Playoff Committee has placed no restrictions on what a team must do to qualify for the Playoff. They're looking for the "four best teams," and while they'll consider factors like conference championships, we've already seen non-champions crash the party in 2016 and 2017 (even two from the same conference in 2017, hint, hint). The advanced statistics continue to love Ohio State (back to #1 in SP+ rankings after the idle week!) but are still pretty cool on Indiana, and the Buckeyes looked much better against the teams' common opponents so far (Penn State and Rutgers). Maybe the dreaded "eye test" would work in Ohio State's favor. Or maybe the Committee slots both in, if Florida, Texas A&M, Clemson, Oregon, and USC faceplant down the stretch (hahahaha go away Cincinnati).
POSSIBLE SAVING THROWS
There is a way that Ohio State could escape disqualification from the Big Ten Championship even if two more of their opponents get rona'd. As of November 5th, the Big Ten has approved a plan to allow two healthy teams with cancelled games to play each other in their suddenly open weekend. Despite Ohio State fans' whining about Kevin Warren being slow to put this plan into place, this couldn't have affected any of the Big Ten cancellations to date (notably, the only Big Ten team other than Ohio State who wasn't playing last Saturday was...Maryland), but this could mitigate future cancellations if half the conference outside Columbus gets down with the sickness. Hilariously, this rescheduling rule does not discriminate based on possible rematches; whoever's available and wants to play can suit up and go. Wouldn't it be fun to pulverize a disheartened Penn State again? Would you like two cracks at possibly the worst Michigan team in the past fifty years (ahahahaha like they would possibly agree to schedule such a game)? How about seeing another dozen zany plays from Rutgers? Maybe we could make up that Indiana game after all? The possibilities are...well, not endless, limited to twelver or so, but it's fun to imagine.
As for how Ohio State could salvage a cancellation of the Indiana game, you want to talk about hilarious scenarios? Suppose that Ohio State, though undefeated and otherwise eligible, gets locked out of the Big Ten Championship because the Indiana game gets cancelled. But suppose also that Wisconsin gets hit with the cancellation bug again, maybe against both Northwestern and Indiana, just so all four of those teams could stay undefeated, and can't make their way up to six games.
That would give us 6-0 Indiana vs 7-0 Northwestern in Indianapolis with a hell of an undercard: 4-0 Wisconsin vs. 6-0 Ohio State.
Would anyone honestly rank the winner of the former ahead of the winner of the latter, just because they get the shiny trophy?
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