A look at Sagarin rankings.

[RodentRampage]

There's been a lot of talk about the Big Ten being down. Some teams are down, and some are up.

Here's how teams are currently compared with their final Sagarin rating from 2011

Team, 2012, 2011, Change
Michigan, 15, 11, +4
Ohio State, 17, 49, -32
Nebraska, 23, 25, -2
Wisconsin, 28, 8, +20
Penn State, 29, 28, +1
Michigan State, 35, 18, +17
Northwestern, 45, 58, -13
Iowa, 47, 45, +2
Purdue, 64, 65, -1
Minnesota, 71, 88, -17
Indiana 84, 139, -55
Illinois 95, 55, +40

Some teams' Sagarin rankings are significantly improved from 2012: Indiana improved 55 spots, Ohio State improved 32 spots, Minnesota improved 17 spots and Northwestern improved 13 spots. Other teams rankings are significantly worse: Michigan State 17 spots worse, Wisconsin 20 spots worse, and Illinois 40 spots worse. The remainder of the teams a have only a small change.

Looking at the remainder of the schedule at this point, Sagarin would have us favored by about 1 over Purdue at home, and by 3 over Illinois on the road.

Sagarin does have the Gophers as pretty big underdogs in the other games this year, but not as big as last year. According to Sagarin, Wisconsin would be favored by 14, but if last year's teams were playing at Madison, Sagarin would have had Wisconsin favored by 33. Michigan would be favored by 14 at Minnesota, but with last year's teams, it would have been 21.

It's still early in the season, and the Sagarin ratings will change, but that's where things sit now.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Am I just an idiot or are the years and change reversed on your chart? In your description I think you have it right but it seems like the 2011 and 2012 are reversed above and the +/- should also be switched.

 

[RodentRampage]

Good point, I wasn't sure how to represent it. By a negative number, I don't mean that the team got worse, but that their Sagarin ranking decreased, which represents an improvement. You're right about the years, I'll fix that.

 

[RailBaronYarr]

I think Michigan being above OSU is a joke. It's based simply on their strength of schedule having played Notre Dame and Alabama. But they looked completely hopeless in both of those games. I'd say OSU is the much stronger team..

As for us, I'd say after watching Indiana play MSU and OSU so well, without their starting QB, I'd put them ahead of us, with Purdue behind us. But that's the human evaluation... Hard to argue with Sagarin's ratings for the most part.