The Northwestern game: How important?

[howeda7]

With Tanner Morgan in concussion protocol, and with the West championship now almost certainly coming down to our head-to-head matchup the following week vs. Wisconsin...

... how much importance does the Northwestern game really carry?

Obviously, our CFP hopes (whatever they are at this point) can't afford to take another hit. But, beyond that...?

If we lose to NW, the Rose Bowl is out the window unless we beat OSU in the B1G title game. And if we lost to NW and WI, goodbye to any New Year's day bowl at all, IMO.

 

[Veritas]

You only get a banner if you win the conference, not the division. A first place division finish only matters in that it is one more step for winning the conference. Otherwise it has little importance and total wins is a better measure of a successful season.

Your original thesis made no sense. We can not end up at 8-4 and win the West. To get to the championship game we must be 10-2 or better. We could end the season then at 10-4 or better.

 

[WriterGoph]

I definitely don't want to lose 2 in a row going into Sconny.

 

[OldBob53]

I know people recoil at this. But I think there is value in being tied as Division Champion even if we were to be the loser of the head-to-head and not play in Indy. Our 1967 Big Ten Championship season is no lesser the accomplishment even though we tied and lost a game to another co-champion (Purdue) in the season. A Co-Division Champion would be tangible evidence that there are measurable improvements. I, for one, would love to see a Division Champion banner in TCF Bank Stadium regardless of whether we play in Indy this year.

I agree, but I think there already is tangible evidence of improvements from last year--big improvements.

 

[Go Gophers Rah]

You only get a banner if you win the conference, not the division. A first place division finish only matters in that it is one more step for winning the conference

Where do you get this information???

Both Wikipedia and the individual programs websites show the 2011 Penn State team, the 2015 Ohio State team and the 2016 Ohio State team as Co-Division Champions (and I would wager they have similar banners in their stadiums) even though all those teams lost the head-to-head games and did not play in the official Big Ten Championship game.

 

[U2Gopher]

Getting to 10 and hopefully 11 or 12 wins is a huge step for the program. The more wins we compile, the more exposure the program gets and the better the bowl invite will be.

Beating Northwestern, be it inconsequential to who wins the west, has massive importance otherwise. I view it as must win.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[die hard gopher]

Your original thesis made no sense. We can not end up at 8-4 and win the West. To get to the championship game we must be 10-2 or better. We could end the season then at 10-4 or better.

I'm not talking about this year specifically, I'm talking hypothetically. Northwestern finished 8-4 and won the West last year. Michigan and PSU lost their division but most would agree they had a much better season than Northwestern last year.

Before the season started and you asked me if I'd rather go 10-2 and finish second in the West or finish 8-4, win the west and get killed in the Big Ten championship game, I would take the 10-2 regular season. We'd be ranked higher and would get more exposure nationally which would help recruiting more.

I'd rather have the season Bama and Penn State are having than the season Virginia is having. Virginia will win their division and play in their conference championship game but nobody cares. Penn State and Bama won't but will still have far more succesful seasons and will be more relevant nationally by seasons end.

So my grand point is that this Northwestern game is still very important, even if it has little significance to winning the west.

 

[MplsGopher]

Correct.

Losing the conf champ game gets you nothing, other than an extra L on your record.

 

[Section2]

NW is a terrible terrible football team. We will probably have more fans than they will at the game. They couldn't score a point in the first quarter and were losing to an absolutely awful garbage UMass team whose season included these scores:
44-0 vs FIU
63-21 vs Liberty (who a terrible Rutgers team beat)
69-21 La Tech

They have massive injuries to almost all their DEs, top QBs, top 2 RBs, and more.

The NW game should be a win if we played our second team. We would beat them by 7 by sitting all our starters. I really believe that.

So, if we were to lose to NW, it destroys our season. But we won't lose to NW. Questions include: how much we win by and if we emerge healthy.

 

[die hard gopher]

Where do you get this information???

Both Wikipedia and the individual programs websites show the 2011 Penn State team, the 2015 Ohio State team and the 2016 Ohio State team as Co-Division Champions (and I would wager they have similar banners in their stadiums) even though all those teams lost the head-to-head games and did not play in the official Big Ten Championship game.

I guess I stand corrected.

I'd still argue that winning your division has little intrinsic value and only really matters in that it is one step further to winning the conference. If you don't accomplish your ultimate goal in winning the conference than total wins is a better measure of a successful season.

 

[PMWinSTP]

I'll be attending, so VERY important.