It is actually not as easy to compare courses as you might think. On the curves, how do you know where the cuts in the grass/bracken were made and how easily people to cut distances off in the curves. The S curves had more issues that way because there were so many turns.
And the weather makes a big difference, in 2018 with two inches of snow and 28 degrees that steep uphill that is at 1km on the first loop was probably getting slicker after two and a half times up by the women, and then all the climbs up it in the 10km. While the race is not hilly al la OSU, going up that long stretch of about a kilo repeatedly leaves runners a bit pushed when doing it from about 8.4 to 9.3km because you do not really get any downhills to recover.
And while the Indiana St course is very good and has a large number of seasoned people that help it is a lot more fun to travel to Madison for hotels and places to eat/drink.