i like the article, i am a die hard ohio state fan, that said, i think travel and climate difference is a big factor. but, not when we get blown out. I do not think that a 2+ td loss would be a win if played in closer proximity to big ten schools. but, games that are 10 points or closer could have, COULD have different results.
i have researched this a lot, and climate difference is a lot more of a factor than distance. teams that have a home climate similar to the climate played in win 60% of the bowl games vs a team with a drastically different climate. travel is not so big, because these kids are used to traveling all over the country anyways. But, you cannot discount the climate. When you leave your home that has been anywhere from 0 -30 degrees on an every day basis, and show up in a 70-80 degree environment, your body cannot adjust in less than a week to be 100% ready to play. there are physiological changes that occur in the human body when exposed to cold weather for a long time. A few days in a warm climate does not allow your body to adjust to the different temperature, and probably more importantly, the humidity difference. If all of our losses were close, this could be used as an excuse by every big ten fan, but they all are not, so hats off to the sec, and their winning traditions.
Just my opinion, but you would never hear a big ten team use this, or any other thing, as an excuse, except maybe the team up north, according to them every loss they have is because they didn't play as well as they could have, not because the other team was better. haha