It's harder to tell now with all of the split conferences via division, but for years, the Big Ten was always playing up.
Our 7th place team against the 5th from the SEC.
Our 6th place team against the 3rd ACC team, etc.
Now it doesn't seem to matchup that way, but according to Vegas odds, B1G was supposed to go 3-6 and they went 5-4.
So in general as a conference, probably a big underrated.
Purdue getting blown out like they did against Auburn didn't help us either.
The other game I thought we would show well in was Michigan vs Florida, but Michigan was overmatched.
That's the issue the Big Ten has when it comes to CFP. When Michigan St made it, they didn't even compete.
So if we were ever in that top 3-7 range, it would be hard for the committee to select Minnesota over a 2nd SEC team unless we made it obvious by playing a strong conference schedule with a lot of ranked teams.
That's where conference strength matters, and some of that can be a carryover from the previous year.