A team’s win-loss record can’t change at all during the bye week. However, there’s still a way for a team to be considered winners despite not playing. Penn State football should be regarded as winners from last week considering what happened around the conference.
As two big-time Big Ten foes met, one of them had to lose. The loser happened to be Michigan, who was ranked ahead of both, Wisconsin and Penn State on the AP Top-25 poll. Wisconsin was tied with Penn State at No. 13 heading into the matchup, but their big-time victory gave them a nice improvement on their spot within the ranks.