Can The Most Penalized Big 10 Teams Make The Playoff?

Year One of the rebuild on the gridiron in East Lansing has gotten off to a solid start. First-year head coach Jonathan Smith has led Michigan State to a 3-0 start with victories over Florida Atlantic, Maryland and Prairie View in successive weeks. See our Michigan State Spartans football betting guide for more info.

With a final non-conference game remaining against Boston College in Chestnut Hill on Saturday, it’s worth wondering whether MSU can get back to a bowl game for the first time since the Peach Bowl in 2021. A victory over the Eagles would go a long way towards achieving that benchmark.

But MSU is also the most penalized team in the Big Ten and second in the nation through three games. At BetMichigan.com, we give insight to Michigan sportsbooks customers by finding out how heavily penalized teams fare. Using Sports-Reference.com, we found how many penalties each current Big Ten team (including four newcomers for the 2024 season) incurred over the past three seasons. We then found the average winning percentage for those teams, and whether they made the College Football Playoff. The current count for 2024 teams is as of Sept. 19.

How Do Most Penalized Teams Do?

Average Win %	Average Penalty Count/Game	Made Playoff
.615	7.1	6.7%

This weekend, oddsmakers from DraftKings Sportsbook Michigan have the Spartans as a seven-point underdog against the Eagles in Week 4, with a +200 moneyline for MSU, compared with -245 for BC. Michigan State is averaging 11 penalties per game.

But as you can see from the chart above, drawing a lot of penalties does not necessarily end a team’s chances of winning.

Over the last three years, the most penalized teams in the Big Ten have gone on to finish with an average winning percentage of .615, with 6.7% of those schools reaching the four-team College Football Playoff. As folks using Michigan sports betting apps should already know, the CFP field is expanding to 12 teams this season.

2024 Most Penalized Big 10 Teams

Rank	Team	# of Penalties/Game
1	Michigan State Spartans	11
2	Washington Huskies	10
3	Purdue Boilermakers	9
4	Indiana Hoosiers	8.3
5	Penn State Nittany Lions	7.5

Right behind Michigan State is Washington, one of four programs that left the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten this season. The Huskies are averaging 10 penalties per game. Purdue is next at nine penalties per game, though it’s worth noting that the Boilermakers have only played two games. See our College Football Playoff odds page for the teams deemed most likely to make the field in 2024.

The Spartans led the Big Ten in penalties last season as well, at seven per game. But again, our data accounts for all 18 current members, even those who had been in the Pac-12 until this season. And in 2023, three of those teams – USC, Washington (7.5 penalties per game each) and UCLA (7.1) were penalized at a higher rate than MSU.

Ohio State is the favorite to win the conference at BetMGM Michigan Sportsbook with +105 odds. The defending national champion Michigan Wolverines are at +3000 and the Spartans have +20000 odds to win the league.

USA Today photo by Ken Ruinard

Author

Christopher Boan

@cgboan

Christopher Boan is a staff writer for BetMichigan.com. He has covered sports and sports betting for more than seven years and has worked for publications such as ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.