Okay, But What If They Won? An Idiot's Guide To The Big Ten Championship

Here are some facts about the upcoming Big Ten Championship, which pits the Ohio State Buckeyes against the Northwestern Wildcats. 

Ohio State is 4th in the College Football Playoff’s rankings. Ohio State is 3rd in SP+ rankings. Ohio State is 3rd in the 5-year rolling recruiting ranking average. They have more five-star recruits on its roster this season than Northwestern has had in its history. It has a presumptive top-five pick at quarterback, lottery talent littering its wide receiver corps, NFL talent up and down its offensive and defensive lines, and, because perfection cannot exist in the natural world, Tuf Borland. 

Right now, Ohio State is favored by almost three touchdowns against the Northwestern Wildcats this weekend, which is a bummer. 

All of this obviously points towards a predetermined outcome, and, indeed, I would not dare to talk down to you and say that actually, Northwestern can win. For they will not, as Ohio State is a comprehensively better football team.
What this preview theorizes as a counter-argument to the overwhelming combination of hard numerical fact and obvious eye test supremacy is the following: what if Northwestern won?

The College Football Playoff Committee and its army of Conference And Bowl Executives have made it clear what they view the right outcome of the regular season should be. Even as a hopeless cynic like myself, the utter hatred for usurpers and any semblance of intrigue has been shocking. 

The Committee’s rankings were all for ratings and not actually real, have been radicalized by the progressively more deranged arguments that are being made to organize College Football’s best teams. The undefeated Cincinnati Bearcats and Coastal Carolina Chanticleers have been deemed unworthy, and the twisted pretzel logic the Conference And Bowl Executives try to deploy to explain why that’s Cool has grown to the point where it’d be easier to explain by saying that Gary Barta is Doing Irony. 

But what if Northwestern won?

What sicko levels will the College Football Playoff Committee reach in a world where the undefeated fourth ranked team in the country loses to fourteenth ranked Northwestern Wildcats? Would they be forced to carry forward the ruse that Iowa State is a Playoff Contender? Would they leave Ohio State fourth then sweatily explain to Rece Davis that, actually, Ohio State was first last last week, don’t you remember, they were always here and we’re so impressed with them and we think their resume really lines up well and we’re excited to see what they do against Alabama, Rece? A Northwestern win opens up a door to the hell dimension. The deviants of The Committee deserve as much. 2020 is practically begging for it. 

Every rational bit of analysis points to a very different outcome though. Northwestern lacks the horses to really expose Ohio State’s weaknesses, tiny though they may be. They lack the quarterback and wide receiver combination it takes to expose Ohio State’s secondary. Chiakhao-Bowman/Ramsey is not exactly a Fryfogle/Penix combination in its ability to take the top off the defense. On the other side of the ball, Northwestern is a bit soft up the middle. Ohio State should have a decisive edge in the center of the line, which should lead to a successful ground attack.

But what if Northwestern wins?

Justin Fields looked human against Indiana, which feels like it happened 4 months ago. Indiana’s reckless blitzing strategy and their group of extremely fun and athletic defensive backs were able to flip off neurons in Justin Fields’ head, turning him from an unstoppable monster to Aidan Smith Sometimes.

What if that happened again, but a little bit more? I mean it isn’t impossible, I guess, right? Isn’t Northwestern’s secondary just as good as Indiana’s? What if Mike Hankwitz’s parting gift to Northwestern is a steady diet of A Gap Blitzes and a highlight reel of Justin Fields running for his life in the pocket? Alternatively, what if Hankwitz stacks the box with his endless reserve of quality linebackers and tries to shut down the run game entirely, something Northwestern did against Wisconsin? I mean, Northwestern is the No. 1 defense in the country largely thanks to their fourth-best “stuff rate” on Football Outsiders. Ohio State’s offense could very well end up stuck in neutral.

Well, of course, that’s only 50% of the problem. On the offensive side, Northwestern is projected to have even more trouble. But what if Mike Bajakian was saving his best for the last game of the season? What if those downfield passes against Maryland where guys were schemed open by handfuls of yards show up again? Can we get some more magic from RCB? It feels like we’re still waiting for a big Riley Lees game, aren’t we? Maybe Cam Porter is what the running game has been missing these past few weeks? 

The sane way to watch sports, to me, is to maintain some degree of objectivity. The people who like to yell about how their team is Clearly The Best despite being given a gazillion tools to figure out who actually has the best team are insane to me. I’ve tried to watch sports that way (namely by trying to convince myself that Pierre Gasly Has It and that he will take a rightful place at the front of an F1 grid), and I just can’t get there. It requires shutting off too much of my brain and substituting too much pathos for logos for it to really be any fun for me.

But with a sample size of one, anything can happen, as the cliche goes. No one should be able to say that Northwestern is better than Ohio State with a straight face. But worse teams beat better teams every single week. It happened to Northwestern just a few weeks ago when Michigan State somehow won a game Northwestern should have won easily. It happened to the New Orleans Saints last Sunday afternoon. 

Northwestern has done everything you can ask of it this year. In a world where it doesn’t have the horses to line up with the best in college football, it has at least given itself a chance where the RNG can tilt in its favor. And if it does, they will emerge as undisputed Big Ten Champions.

Well, until the College Football Playoff Committee and its Bowl And Conference Executives decide Ohio State actually won the conference and gives them the fourth playoff slot. In college football, all of your Dreampolitik fantasies become real. 

Northwestern will need bounces. It will need a minimum of three Ohio State turnovers. It will need several of its players to play the best games of their careers. But all of those things are possible. While I am more than prepared for Ohio State to put up 28 points in the second quarter and cruise to the finish line...the question remains:

What if they don’t?