Michigan Football: 3 takeaways from top-15 win over Iowa Hawkeyes

1. Big Ten’s big problem

College football transformed dramatically with the creation of the College Football Playoff. While in the BCS era the ultimate goal of any team was to become “national champions”, there was a huge focus on winning your conference and whatever bowl game you were selected to. Now, bowl games mean much less if they’re not the ones that are included in the playoff.

Part of the selection consideration by the playoff committee is strength of schedule and conference championships. Because of this, the Big Ten has been left on the outskirts of the College Football Playoff in multiple years. On more than one occasion, the Big Ten champion was left out of the playoff despite a large consensus that they were one of the best four teams in the country.

Both Iowa and Michigan would dominate any Pac-12 tam. They would easily beat any ACC team not named Clemson. And, because of their great defenses, both teams would challenge for a Big 12 Championship. But, because they play in the Big Ten, they find themselves with multiple losses at the end of the year.

The Big Ten is the most competitive conference, year in and year out. But, because of the extreme difficultly to finish the year with an undefeated record, the conference as a whole will continue to lose out on the benefits and recognition of having a team play in the College Football Playoff.