2025 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Big 10

Last week we looked at how Big 10 teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2025 Big 10 standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, Big 10 teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

I use a game and a half as a somewhat arbitrary standard to determine if a team significantly over or underachieved relative to their APR. Using that standard, Minnesota and Illinois overachieved while Penn State and Washington underachieved. Minnesota also overachieved relative to their YPP numbers and we went over some reasons for that last week. Illinois was 2-0 in one-score Big 10 games, but the culprit for the disconnect between their APR and their actual record was their blowout losses. The Illini lost four Big 10 games and each came by at least 17 points, muting their scoring margin and tamping down their APR. At the other end of the spectrum, its easy to determine the reason for Penn State's underachievement. The Nittany Lions finished 1-5 in one-score Big 10 games, losing twice by a single point, once in overtime, once on a last second touchdown by the eventual national champion, and once by five points on a cross-country road trip. As for Washington, the reasons for their underachievement are more difficult to determine. The Huskies can't blame close game performance as they were 1-1 in one-score Big 10 games. I think the biggest reason is their inconsistency on offense. The Huskies scored 37 total points (four offensive touchdowns) in their four Big 10 losses. Meanwhile, in four of their five Big 10 wins, they scored at least 38 points. 

The Wiscy Ain't Workin' Anymore 

In 2025, Wisconsin finished with a losing record for the second consecutive season. This marked the first time the Badgers have compiled back-to-back losing campaigns since 1991-1992. The primary reason for Wisconsin's losing record in 2025 was their inability to score. I have been tracking APR data since 2005, and in 2025, Wisconsin became just the eleventh power conference team to average one offensive touchdown or less in conference play. Wisconsin, along with the other ten, are listed below in chronological order along with the number of offensive touchdowns they scored and their conference record. 

Wisconsin fans can take solace that they posted by far the best record of any bungling offense. The Badgers won two conference games, doubling the previous record of league wins by these offensively challenged teams. If you're a real sicko, go back and look at the box score of their victory against Washington. The Badgers won despite completing just six of their eighteen pass attempts for a grand total of 48 yards. Single-wing high school offenses look upon those numbers in disgust. So the Badgers are by far the standouts of this less than stellar group. How much offensive and overall improvement can we expect going forward? Here's how the previous ten teams fared the next season. 

The teams universally improved. Nine of the ten improved by at least one win in conference play and their cumulative winning percentage increased from .048 to .289 (roughly two additional league wins). However, every team except Auburn still finished with a losing conference record the next season. Offensively, the teams improved from 71 offensive touchdowns in 83 league games (0.86 per game) to 173 offensive touchdowns in 83 league games (2.08 per game). 

You may have noticed there were asterisks in the previous table. Those indicated a coaching change. Five of the ten teams that were offensively inept changed head coaches. As you may know, Wisconsin retained Luke Fickell. Was there a significant difference in quality between the teams that changed head coaches and those that stayed the course? 

The teams that changed coaches had a much larger in increase in both cumulative winning percentage (almost double that of the teams that did not change coaches) and offensive touchdowns per game. However, that is almost entirely due to Auburn's hiring of Gus Malzahn. Take Malzahn out of the mix and the teams that changed coaches performed slightly better, but not nearly as dramatically. 

Would Wisconsin have been better off firing Luke Fickell? All else being equal (having the money to do so, being able to keep their current good players and attract others via the transfer portal and traditional high school recruiting, etc.), the Badgers probably would have been marginally better off had they fired Fickell. But they didn't. The Badgers schedule is easier in 2026 than the gauntlet they endured in 2025. An easier schedule and destined improvement on offense will probably lead to six wins and bowl eligibility. But is an annual struggle to attain a bowl bid what Wisconsin fans were dreaming of when Fickell was hired to replace Paul Chryst (67-26 record at Wisconsin)? Retaining Fickell may have merely postponed the inevitable by a couple of months.