Iowa football: A look at preseason predictions that aged quite poorly

The Big Ten needs to get rid of divisions to get the two best teams in the championship game

The Big Ten West is terrible and should be replaced by a round-robin system similar to the Big 12.

Northwestern winning the West in 2018 pushed many to believe that the divisions in the Big Ten created imbalance.

Obviously, the Big Ten could not completely mimic the Big 12, as our conference has 14 teams. However, multiple stories explored the possibility of getting rid of the divisions to promote better competition.

This prediction always bothered me, as it neglects to recognize how good Wisconsin has been for the last decade.

Sure enough, Wisconsin continued their dominance this season, earning themselves another trip to Indianapolis.

But who would have been playing in Indianapolis if the Big Ten had eliminated divisions? Ohio State and Wisconsin.

For second place, it would have come down to a tie-breaker between three 7-2 teams – Wisconsin, Penn State, and Minnesota. Wisconsin went 1-0 against the other two teams, while Minnesota went 1-1 and Penn State went 0-1.

What makes this take even worse was how well Wisconsin played in the Big Ten Championship game. To this point, no other team has led Ohio State by more than a touchdown.

That didn’t age well.