The Kings of Columbus podcast (Doug Lesmerises and Bill Landis) had an interesting episode tracking OSU's path to the playoffs this year. A few things stood out to me (beyond their continued reminder that OSU is going to make the playoffs even if goes 10-2 so people should avoid freaking out too much). 

- If the Buckeyes are in it, the Big Ten championship game will be a rematch game. OSU plays Oregon, Michigan, Penn State and Iowa in the regular season. Truly the only other team that might finish top 2 is USC which... won't. 

- Winning the championship game is really important because you get the top 4 seed and the first round bye. 

- Weirdly, though, you may be better off finishing 3rd in the conference rather than losing in the Big Ten championship game. Here's the game theory. The SEC and Big Ten championship game losers will almost certainly be the #5 and #6 seed. The committee historically has not dropped championship game losers behind teams that sat at home. The team that is the #5 seed will have a nice home game against the 12-seed group of 5 team. However, the team that is the 6 seed is going to play the 11 seed - and that team will most likely be a quality SEC or Big Ten team that just had a full rest week. You can imagine an Oklahoma or Ole Miss team with two losses that was strong at the end of the season. 

- Put another way - it's really important, if you make the conference championship, to win it. Because if you lose, you are playing a rested team that might be a really tough opponent. 

They didn't even game out the "what if OSU loses 3 games" because it just isn't going to happen and because if it does, the world will be on fire in Columbus. 

The whole episode made me excited about the new era. Lots of great games coming, and maybe the non-Michigan games will be more fun and less of an existential threat in the new era.