It's hard to game out every possible scenario, but it looks to me like we would win, or be heavily favored to win:
- A H2H tie with anyone but Purdue
- Any 3-team tiebreaker except Minnesota-Purdue
- Any 4+ team tiebreaker
This is a working post to figure out the scenarios. Will condense into a tighter summary later on.
1. The first tiebreaker is always head-to-head results. Here's a table for the teams in contention to tie at 3 or 4 losses:
| Illinois | Iowa | Minnesota | Purdue | Wisconsin |
Illinois | X | W (+1) | W (+1) | L (-1) | W (+1) |
Iowa | L (-1) | X | This week | W (+1) | W (+1) |
Minnesota | L (-1) | This week | X | L (+1) | Next week |
Purdue | W (+1) | L (-1) | W (+1) | X | L (-1) |
Wisconsin | L (-1) | L (-1) | Next week | W (+1) | X |
The possible 3-way ties with Illinois are:
- Purdue/Minnesota
--- We are 1-1 ->
Purdue wins at 0-2
- Purdue/Iowa
--- We are 1-1 ->
Both teams advance to next tiebreaker
- 2 non-Purdue teams
--- We are 2-0 ->
Illini win tiebreaker
Note - a 3-way tie with Purdue & Wisconsin is not possible
The possible 4-way ties with Illinois are:
- Iowa/Minnesota/Purdue - this can happen in 2 ways
--- Scenario 1 - MN lost to Iowa (beat Wisconsin)
----- MN eliminated at 0-3 ->
Illinois/Iowa/Purdue to next tiebreaker
--- Scenario 2 - MN beat Iowa (lost to Wisconsin)
----- MN & Iowa are 1-2->
Purdue wins tiebreaker by H2H over Iowa
- Iowa/Purdue/Wisconsin
--- Purdue & Wisconsin are 1-2 ->
Illini win tiebreaker by H2H over Iowa
- Minnesota/Purdue/Wisconsin
--- MN eliminated at 0-3 ->
Illinois/Purdue/Wisconsin to next tiebreaker
There is only one possible 5-way tie:
- We would be 4-1 ->
Illini win tiebreaker
2. Record vs. division
At this point, it is a 3-way tie with Purdue and either Iowa OR Wisconsin. At that point it comes down to the Northwestern game.
Beat Northwestern and we are 5-1. Only Iowa could also be at 5-1 ->
Illini win by H2H over Iowa
Lose to Northwestern and we are 4-2. This means the tie is at 5-4 overall, which means:
- Iowa is 4-2 in the West (if included)
- Wisconsin is 4-2 in the West (if included)
- Purdue is either 4-2 or 3-3.
If Purdue is 3-3 (beat IU, lost to Northwestern) ->
Illini win by H2H over Iowa or Wisconsin
If Purdue is 4-2 (much more likely) ->
No result, go to next tiebreaker
3. Comparison to next-highest ranked teams
At this point, it is still a 3-way tie with Purdue and either Iowa OR Wisconsin. We also know all teams tied are 5-4 (otherwise we would have won in the last step). There are a lot of scenarios after that.
- Purdue/Iowa, originally 3-way tie
--- Minnesota and Nebraska are both 4-5. Iowa out by loss to Nebraska. ->
Purdue win by H2H over Illini
- Purdue/Iowa, originally 4-way tie
--- Winner of Nebraska-Wisconsin is 4-5
----- If Nebraska, Iowa out by loss to Nebraska ->
Purdue win by H2H over Illini
----- If Wisconsin, Purdue out by loss to Wisconsin ->
Illini win by H2H over Iowa
- Purdue/Wisconsin, originally 4-way tie
--- Iowa is 4-5, Nebraska 3-6
----- Purdue out by loss to Iowa ->
Illini win by H2H over Wisconsin
I
think that covers everything... anyone have that meme of Charlie with the red string ready for me?