I has posted somewhere around the Washington loss that the "middle class" of the B1G to which Michigan belongs would be greatly affected by their home /away schedule.
First and foremost I would like to define this "middle class" as the 11 B1G teams floating around a .500 record; The top 4, of course are Oregon, IU, OSU, and PSU.
According to the B1G Rankings, in order: Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisky, Washington, Michigan, UCLA, Nebraska, MSU, Northwestern, and USC make up teams within 2 games of .500, with at least 2 B1G wins.
These teams are a combined 13-28 on the road.
Not one of these teams has a winning road record in the B1G- Washington and USC are 0-4. Michigan is 0-3. MSU, Rutgers, Nebraska, and Illinois and Iowa all have just 1 B1G road win, vs 2 or 3 losses. The best of this group are 2-2 UCLA (their 3rd road win was @ Hawaii), Minny, Wisky, and NWestern.
In an otherwise even season amongst the also rans, the road was the biggest difference maker- Michigan for the most relevant example is 5-2 at home, with losses to Texas and Oregon, and 0-3 on the road, with losses to Illinois, IU, and Washington. In other words, Michigan is 4-1 at home in the conference.
IMO all three of those games would've been winnable at home. Conversely, USC and Minnesota could very well have been road losses, and Oregon may have been a worse loss.
Saying all that to say this: Michigan will beat Northwestern next weekend at home, no doubt.
This will be Donovan Edwards', Colton Loveland's, Mason Graham's, and Kenny Grant's last game in the Big House. The idea that we showed well @ IU should lead to the thought that this game should be more like the MSU game...
The imbalance of the schedule (of course this would be the season we don't play Maryland or Purdue) also feeds into the record.
Looking at the top teams (PSU, Oregon, I'm talking about YOU!) some of them face only one of the top 3 teams in the B1G- PSU played OSU at home. Oregon has Purdue, Maryland, and Minnesota remaining of their last three games, and won't have to face another one of the top 3 teams in the B1G.
Oregon beat OSU @ OSU though (the best win in the B1G this season, IMO), but after that their second toughest game was ...@ Michigan?
PSU toughest game outside of OSU was...@ USC?
Oddly enough, OSU was given the hardest schedule of the 4 top teams, playing all of the other three contenders, but don't expect me to feel sorry for them.
OSU has a better schedule, but they played nobody in the out of conference schedule- They played Oregon (lost) and PSU (win) and will play IU. IU only plays OSU of the top 4. Oregon only played OSU as well.
If IU can beat OSU @ home next week (not a pipe dream), then Oregon and IU would be playing for the #1 playoff seed overall, as an undefeated B1G champ.
