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[QUOTE="BigTenGuy, post: 5149055, member: 12979"]
The issue the last two years is that the league settled into a clear top 3, but the schedules were based on a predicted top 4, with each predicted top-4 team playing double plays against 2 of the other 3 predicted top 4 teams.  So last year the double plays among the predicted top 4 were:

OSU double plays: Iowa, MD (OSU 16-2)
Iowa double plays: OSU, IU (15-3)
IU double plays: Iowa, MD (15-3)
MD double plays: OSU, IU (9-9, lost at home to Iowa, OSU, IU).

But Maryland cratered, so Iowa among the top 3 ended up with the short straw.  The home team won every head-to-head game among the top 3, and OSU got to skip going to Bloomington, and OSU won the league by 1 game.  (Same thing happened the year before when the top 3 were IU, Iowa and MD, and Iowa played IU and MD twice, but IU only played MD once. Home team won all head to heads.).

Maryland cratering hurt Iowa last year, but the scheduling design wasn’t horribly unbalanced, from the get go. This year, the 5 teams that play UCLA, USC, OSU & Maryland, either all at home, or all on the road, have obviously unbalanced schedules.
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