This is distressing news to me. If Wisconsin and Iowa aren’t in the same division, then it’s a pretty strong indication that Ohio State and Michigan are not going to be in the same division. There just doesn’t appear to be a way to make a East/West balanced divisions without both Iowa and Wisconsin being in the West.
Can’t say I like this at all as an Ohio State fan. It endangers the importance of the OSU-Michigan rivalry, and I think it means the end of OSU-Michigan as the last game of the regular season. Don’t like it. Furthermore, if we are in separate divisions and play a protected rivalry game, then we are on average going to play a much tougher schedule than other teams in the Big 10 (assuming Michigan pulls their heads out of their asses soon).
I hate splitting OSU-Michigan, and I hate splitting Iowa-Wisconsin. What are you doing, Jim Delany?
Speculation I’ve seen after Barry’s comments is that the divisions will be:
OSU
PSU
Wisconsin
Purdue
Indiana
Minnesota
and
Michigan
MSU
Nebraska
Iowa
Illinois
Northwestern
If this is true, I’m not sure how they will protect the Iowa-Minnesota-Wisconsin triangular rivalry. Is every team going to have two protected rivals in the opposite division? I guess that’s also the only way Wisconsin is going to get Nebraska as their year-end rivalry game, as they’ve requested.
This would be nuts. Gotta have the end of season rivals in the same division, else you run the risk of having the conference championship game being a repeat of the last regular season game.
Ideally from a geographic and rivalry perspective, Wisconsin/Iowa/Illinois/Northwestern/Minnesota/Nebraska would be in the West division. The only downside is it puts all the traditional powerhouses (except NE) in the East. But those things fluctuate.
I guess they’re going a different way though, which is unfortunate. Unless Alvarez is just trying to put public pressure on them by releasing this leak.
Losing long time rivals is part of the expansion problem. When the SEC expanded, Auburn lost long time rivalries with Tennessee and Florida. Ole Miss lost a rivalry with Tenn and Georgia.
The ACC did not keep the 4 North Carolina schools in the same division. 2 a piece.
If the Big 10 goes with a nine game intra-conference schedule, that mean four games against the other division. They can keep two protected cross division rivals, meaning they schedule play cross division non-rivals 2 out of 6 years.
Agreed. You could have the regular season game “meaningless” if both teams have clinched their division and are going to play for the championship a week or two later.
One thing I like about the SEC conference is that they seem to have a blockbuster and must see game almost every weekend. They start the conference schedule early.
I think the Big 10 would be wise to start their conference games earlier and schedule some rivalry games and potential blockbusters early in the season.
Actually if there are four games against the other division and two of those are against rivals, then you have 2 games each year against 4 non-rivals in the opposite division. So you’d play those 4 teams 50% of the time and the other 7 teams 100% of the time.
I would hate to see the conference schedule started early like the SEC does. I really like the traditional opening non-conference/preseason schedule followed by the transition into the real games. They’ve already partly screwed it up by sneaking in a non-conference game here and there at the end of the season, but it would be made much worse to start conference games right off the bat. There’s a rhythm to the Big Ten season that some other conferences lack–non-conference games and then the meat of the schedule.
I guess that is why there is chocolate and vanilla ice cream.
Isn’t the reason for the smattering of non-conference games during the meat of the season is because there are 11 teams? One team has to have an off week or a non-conference game.
One thing the early non-conference games do for the Big 10 is get a lot of teams in the Top 25 early in the season. They are not hit with forced losses early in the season when they pick on the MAC cupcakes.
Well, Iowa seems fairly strong this year so I suppose you’re right. I don’t think there’s any perfect way to realign the conference, obviously. Somebody’s going to be stuck with the powerhouses, and, vice versa, somebody’s going to be stuck with Northwestern or Indiana dragging down their computer rankings.
But I agree with Stewart Mandel said about this in SI: to separate Michigan and Ohio State would be a terrible decision. It’s born of overthinking things, the New Coke mentality–“if we change things it will be an improvement!” Let Michigan and Ohio State play at the end of the year…it’s easy and it works, so make sure it keeps happening. Really, breaking up the biggest and most traditional rivalry in your conference is a mistake. The SEC didn’t make that mistake, and I hear things didn’t turn out half bad for them.
Forgive my lack of SEC knowledge, but has the SEC title game ever been a rematch of a season-ending game? And if so, does that take the luster off the title game?
I’d like to see all conferences upgrade their OOC schedule. Unfortunately, all the big boys want to play all their OOC games at home, so you don’t get much of a chance to do it. I’d like to see each team from a major conference have to play at least one team from another major conference each year. With Michigan State, looks like our future is 9 Big Ten games plus one MAC game plus Notre Dame plus a cupcake.
Hey! You need to take another look at Northwestern’s record and standings in the last 15 years. They have a few conference championships in that time and usually finish in the top half of the conference. [/nu alum]
There are rivals and then there are rivals. The ones you mentioned belong to the first group, and OSU-Michigan belongs to the latter. I think people would be disappointed about lessening the importance of Iowa-Wisconsin, but doing anything to harm the OSU-Michigan rivalry is a crime.
The SEC does play some late cross rival games, but none of them as the last game.
SEC has three cross state rivalries that are not conference games. UGA/GT, UF/FSU, USC/Clem. These games have traditionally been the last game of the season for the UGA/UF/USC.
IIRC, the UGA/Auburn matchup has the best chance to be a SEC Championship game that is traditionally played late in the season.
I still think the Big 10 would be wise to schedule potential blockbuster games earlier in the year. It can only increase their exposure. They should not save their biggest rivalry games for the last two weeks of the season.
When Nebraska joins the conference, they should play one of the powers as their conference games. OSU, PSU, Mich or Iowa, in Lincoln.
I’m not suggesting that they lose the rivalry. SEC keeps cross division rivals, so can the Big 10.
I don’t think the significance of the game will be lost if it is played in October rather than mid-late November. The game is bigger than the date.
And if the game is played earlier in the season, can you imagine the developing passion and hype if those two teams win their division and have a re-match?
The problem is that if they both return to the top like they did for decades, they would play each other twice in a week. The Big !0,11,12, thinks that is a bad idea.