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“The parity when you look at like the fifth team in the Big Ten down to maybe the 14th team, they’re all within one or two wins and losses from each other,” Fleck said. “It’s all really close. This is what we talked about what the new Big Ten is going to look like.”
He’s correct. College football in general is experiencing a sea change. The confluence of name, image and likeness; the transfer portal; and conference expansion has delivered the kind of parity the sport has so desperately sought.
Look at the Big Ten standings. Ten teams are within three games of each other. The difference between 8-3 and 5-6 is not as dramatic as one might assume because so many programs are relatively similar.
This is how it will be in this new world order. A few elite teams in the top tier, a few bad teams in the bottom tier, and then everyone else in the messy middle.
The divider in the middle — the difference between an average season and a good one — comes down to coin-flip games and whether a team takes advantage of those opportunities. The margin is so slim for most of the league.
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