In the previous installment of this series, the numbers established the shape of the 2026 Big Ten race. Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana sit at the top of the projected standings, but the path to Indianapolis is unlikely to be orderly. The next step is to move beyond the raw odds and examine the specific games, tiebreaker scenarios, and upset paths that could determine which two teams actually reach the Big Ten Championship Game. Big Ten Championship Scenarios In Part 3 of this series, I introduced a table summarizing my preseason simulation of the Big Ten race. It includes each team’s consensus preseason ranking, expected wins, two projected final records, strength of schedule, and odds to reach and win both the Big Ten Championship Game and the 12-team College Football Playoff. For reference, that table is duplicated below. Table 1: Summary of the preseason projections for the Big Ten conference, based on the consensus preseason rankings and a 100,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulatio...
So far in this year's math-driven college football preview, we have explored the historical accuracy of preseason rankings, looked back at last season, and mapped the potential paths for the 2026 Michigan State Spartans. Today, the focus shifts to the Big Ten race. Strength of Schedule The first piece of the puzzle is relative strength of schedule. Figure 1 summarizes my calculations for the overall schedules of all 18 Big Ten teams. Figure 1: Overall strengths of schedule for the 2026 Big Ten conference. The overall FBS rank is shown in each bar. There are several ways to calculate strength of schedule. My approach starts with preseason power ratings, which I use to generate projected point spreads for every potential college football matchup. I then calculate how many games a reference, borderline Top 25 team would be expected to win against each schedule. For example, against Michigan State's schedule, that reference team would have an expected win total of 7.65 games, or a ...