Not surprising given their losses over the weekend. I reran my “Monte Carlo analysis”:http://theludwigs.com/2011/11/a-monte-carlo-simulation-of-the-big10-race/ from last week and Michigan gets to the title game only 5 out of 10,000 runs now. Nebraska has only about a 6% chance. MSU is in clear control.
Nothing really changed in the Leaders Division. PSU didn’t play, Wisconsin and Ohio State beat teams they were expected to beat. PSU still has the inside track. Wisconsin and OSU still have excellent chances to get to the title game.
One could ask why I am dorking around with this? Well, the current computer rankings for NCAA football teams are largely theoretical garbage and lack transparency. I am curious if a more open, theoretically more sound ranking system could be developed. Modeling a full season of outcomes is one part of such a system. The other part has to be the feed-in probabilities for each of the games, which I haven’t attacked, but have some ideas about.