So far in this year's math-driven college football preview, we have explored the historical accuracy of preseason rankings, looked back at last season, and mapped the potential paths for the 2026 Michigan State Spartans. Today, the focus shifts to the Big Ten race.

Strength of Schedule

The first piece of the puzzle is relative strength of schedule. Figure 1 summarizes my calculations for the overall schedules of all 18 Big Ten teams.

Figure 1: Overall strengths of schedule for the 2026 Big Ten conference. The overall FBS rank is shown in each bar.

There are several ways to calculate strength of schedule. My approach starts with preseason power ratings, which I use to generate projected point spreads for every potential college football matchup. I then calculate how many games a reference, borderline Top 25 team would be expected to win against each schedule.

For example, against Michigan State's schedule, that reference team would have an expected win total of 7.65 games, or a .637 winning percentage. That ranks No. 12 among Big Ten teams and No. 22 nationally in difficulty, as indicated by the label in Figure 1. It is nearly identical to the Spartans' 2025 schedule, which finished at 7.62 expected wins and also No. 22 nationally.

Penn State, at No. 61 nationally, has by far the easiest overall schedule in the conference. A group of eight Big Ten teams fall between No. 31 and No. 40 nationally: Rutgers, Indiana, Wisconsin, Maryland, UCLA, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota.

There is then a small jump in difficulty to Washington at No. 27, followed by another cluster between No. 16 and No. 23 nationally: Oregon, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern, USC, and Purdue.

The two Big Ten teams with the most challenging overall schedules are Michigan at No. 12 and Ohio State at No. 5.

The gap between Penn State's relatively soft schedule and Ohio State's much tougher slate is nearly two full games, or 1.95 expected wins across a 12-game schedule.

Figure 2 shows the same calculation using only the nine Big Ten conference games.

Figure 2: 2026 Big Ten football conference strengths of schedule. The horizontal line represents the conference's average difficulty.

Penn State (6.07 expected conference wins) and Wisconsin (6.06) drew the two easiest conference schedules. Both project to be roughly three-quarters of a win easier than the conference average of 5.29. The Nittany Lions are a dark-horse conference contender, and their favorable schedule could become a major factor.

Six other teams, including Michigan State (5.55), have schedules that are slightly easier than average. That group also includes UCLA (5.68), Maryland (5.64), Rutgers (5.50), Illinois (5.42), and Indiana (5.40). Within that cluster, Indiana is the only clear Big Ten contender.

Minnesota (5.31), Oregon (5.30), Iowa (5.30), and Purdue (5.27) all have conference schedules that project almost exactly at the Big Ten average.

The remaining six Big Ten teams have tougher-than-average conference schedules. Three of them—Washington (5.01), Michigan (4.89), and USC (4.57)—are potential dark-horse contenders. Ohio State (4.81) is a primary contender. Nebraska (4.71) and Northwestern (4.66), meanwhile, may struggle to reach bowl eligibility in part because of difficult conference slates.

Overall, USC drew the most difficult schedule in the conference by a notable amount. Penn State's advantage over the Trojans is worth a full 1.5 games out of just a nine-game schedule.

Win Distributions

In the first two installments of this series, I introduced my methodology for simulating the full college football season. Those results allow me to estimate the probability that each team will finish with any specific win total.

Table 1 shows the full regular-season win-probability matrix for all 18 Big Ten teams.

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The full article includes the complete Big Ten win-probability matrix, projected bowl-eligibility odds for every team, conference-only win distributions, Big Ten Championship Game probabilities, College Football Playoff odds, and a deeper look at what the simulations say about Michigan State’s most likely 2026 outcomes.