Michigan Football: Wolverines Not Dead in Big Ten East

After Michigan football took care of business against Rutgers, all eyes turned to the Michigan State-Nebraska and Ohio State-Minnesota games, as both the Buckeyes and Spartans need to lose sometime if the Wolverines want a shot at competing in the Big Ten Championship.

In what would end up being one of the craziest games of the the weekend, Nebraska did knock off Michigan State, handing the Spartans their first loss of the season.

It’s a great start, but only half of the barrier actually fell.

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Michigan State still holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Michigan, but if Ohio State beats the Spartans in two weeks, and Michigan then beats Ohio State, the Wolverines are in (assuming they win the rest of their games).

The good news is Michigan State hasn’t played well all season. These games have come to be expected, and it finally didn’t quite work out for the Spartans.

Ohio State beat Minnesota, but it was a close one—even closer than a 28-14 final suggests.

Michigan State and Ohio State are each other’s best opportunities to lose another one this season. Outside of that, the Buckeyes obviously have Michigan, and the Spartans host Penn State on the same day.

That’s building up to be a very exciting day for the Big Ten East.

Speaking of Penn State, the Nittany Lions were very much overlooked when talking about the race in the East, but they lost to Northwestern on Saturday, giving them two conferences losses.

The only thing Michigan can do is continue to win. The Wolverines finish their season with trips to Indiana and Penn State before hosting the finale against Ohio State.

According to the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI), Ohio State has a 31.3 percent chance of winning out; Michigan has a 14.6 percent chance of winning out; and Michigan State has a 9.2 percent chance of winning out.

Because it’s most certainly possible, here’s how tiebreakers are decided, according to BigTen.org:

"The following procedure will determine the representative from each division in the event of a tie:(a) If two teams are tied, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the representative.(b) If three or more teams are tied, steps 1 through 7 will be followed until a determination is made. If only two teams remain tied after any step, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the representative. 1. The records of the three tied teams will be compared against each other. 2. The records of the three tied teams will be compared within their division. 3. The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish (4, 5, 6, and 7). 4. The records of the three teams will be compared against all common conference opponents. 5. The highest ranked team in the first College Football Playoff poll following the completion of Big Ten regular season conference play shall be the representative in the Big Ten Championship Game, unless the two highest ranked tied teams are ranked within one spot of each other in the College Football Playoff poll. In this case, the head-to-head results of the top two ranked tied teams shall determine the representative in the Big Ten Championship Game. 6. The team with the best overall winning percentage [excluding exempted games] shall be the representative. 7. The representative will be chosen by random draw."

I have to look this thing once a day just to make sure I’ve got it straight.

Next: Wolverines back to their dominant ways vs. Rutgers

You know what would make it easier though? If Michigan could just win out and Ohio State and Michigan State could lose a few. If only.

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