Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

If this were a normal year, this past weekend would have signaled the beginning of a new college football season. The month of August would have been filled with stories of position battles, scrimmage results, and the scouting of future opponents. But, at least in Big Ten country, we only have stories of COVID testing results, on-line classes, and proposed new schedules. The picture literally seems to change every 48 hours. Will the Big Ten season actually start in January? Will it get pulled ahead to November? Will the ACC, SEC, and Big 12 leadership wind up looking like genius, fools, or reckless criminals?  I have no idea, and neither do the smartest people on the planets. Sports and the world is still very much in limbo. To think, a lot of us actually thought back in March that maybe "May Madness" might be possible.  Sometimes being an optimist sucks. In a normal year, I would strive to provide two weekly articles where I break down the action of the week, give some "

Last week in this space, I presented the results of my annual football preview . I performed the complete analysis using the original, full schedule. But, as expected, the original schedule has now been wiped away. In perhaps a desperate, last ditch attempt to save college football, the Big Ten officially announced a new, 10-game schedule this week. The other conferences are making similar moves. The original schedule is no more... probably. Everything is now reset. Assuming, for now, that this new schedule will actually get played out... at some point, what does the Big Ten race look like now? What has changed? Are MSU's chances to finish over .500 or even win the East or Conference better or worse?  Fortunately, I can use the same analytic tools as before, summarized here, with the new schedule now in place. So, what's new? Revised Schedule Let's begin with a review of the changes to the schedule, which are summarized below in Table 1. Table 1:  Modifications to the 2020