Big Ten Football: What Projected Betting Lines Reveal About Legends and Leaders

The website Beyond The Bets revealed projected betting lines for the Big Ten on Wednesday, and if  anything plays out like what these projections hold, we're going to have an interesting season in the Big Ten. Yes, this is college football, so preseason predictability gets set on fire by mid-October every year, and yes, lines designed to draw equal betting on both sides more than accurately predict a final margin, but work with us here.

First off, assuming all the favorites win, here's a look at the projected final standings with projected losses in parentheses:

LEGENDS
Michigan 6-2 (@Nebraska, @Ohio State)
Nebraska 6-2 (@Ohio State, @Michigan State)
Michigan State 6-2 (@Michigan, @Wisconsin)
Iowa 5-3 (@Michigan State, @Michigan, Nebraska)
Northwestern 2-6 (everyone except Illinois, Indiana)
Minnesota 1-7 (everyone except Northwestern)

LEADERS
Wisconsin 7-1 (@Nebraska)
Ohio State 6-2 (@Michigan State, @Wisconsin)
Illinois 4-4 (@Wisconsin, @Michigan, @Ohio State, @Northwestern)
Purdue 3-5 (everyone except @Minnesota, Penn State, Indiana)
Penn State 2-6 (everyone except Northwestern, @Indiana)
Indiana 0-8 (everyone)

Couple things here: first, woof, Penn State. Bill O'Brien's going to be a good coach, but prepare for pain. Second, none of the contenders get to complain about their road schedules to anyone else, because everyone has a difficult slate this year.

Looking at the actual lines, though, there's a pretty clear delineation between the haves and have-nots in the conference. Only 15 of the 48 games are projected to have a line lower than six points, and while an upset in a game with a 6.0 or 6.5-point spread isn't exactly unheard of, it's unlikely enough that a lot of these games look pretty predictable.

Also, you can probably ignore Iowa being one win away from the division title, because there's basically two tiers of competition here: Michigan, Nebraska, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State on one, and everybody else on the rest. Those five teams, all projected to be favored in at least six games, are only likely to be underdogs against someone else in that top tier. So if someone outside that tier goes over .500, it's probably going to be more a function of an easy schedule than team quality, and schedules don't win conference championships.

As for the division races, in case it wasn't outrageously obvious already, this just makes it clear: Barring injury catastrophe, Wisconsin is winning the Leaders Division this year.

The Legends Division, however, is a touch more complicated. All three 6-2 teams would have one division loss, and those single division losses would all come against each other, so there's no tiebreaker there. It would likely come down to overall record, at which point Michigan would be eliminated for its projected loss to Alabama.

Then among the 10-2 teams, assuming Michigan State beats Nebraska as projected, the Spartans would go back to Indianapolis to face the Badgers. I am perfectly okay with those two teams playing each other as many times as possible and you should be too.