I don’t agree. Games played in the beginning of the year simply matter less in the scope of the BCS and national rankings. Certainly moving the game to October won’t kill it, but it will lessen its importance.
Yes, that certainly would be exiciting, but not much more so than an end of the season game which determines who goes to the Big 10 title game. Under your scheme, you have a big OSU-Michigan game every 4-5 years. Under the current scheme its a big game every year.
Meh. Who needs it? There are, what, 14 games in the college football season? Everyone plays everyone, then schedule some out of conference games for the others.
Pssst, They don’t have to play the game on the last weekend of the season.
The game is bigger than the date. Let them play in Mid-October.
Not if you listen to the fans. There’s been plenty of blathering by fans and alum about the date and the game.
Ah, true I suppose. Indiana still stands, though. They’re so hard up they’re playing their home game against Penn State in Washington, DC this year to try to attract more fans…not even their own fans, just more fans.
[From Charley the Unicorn/] Shun the unbeliever. Shunnnnnnnnn. [/From Charley the Unicorn]
No, this has to be the last regular season game. I am open to having some conference games earlier. There is a definite strategic advantage to having a tough game early, it gives you time to recover in the polls. There are some conferences that I think do this for that very reason, sure you drop a few places in October by losing to Enormous U, but then you pick them right back up in November by playing Whackahatchee State and Drano Tech.
According to Jim Delany at the season kickoff press conference a few weeks back, the Big Ten is using records since 1993 (when Penn State joined) as the basis for splitting the division, presumably putting the odds in one pile and the evens in the other.
So you start by deciding how to distribute the “Big 4” in OSU, Mich, PSU, and Nebraska into pods of 2.
Iowa and Wisconsin are the “Next 2” and have to be split (and apparently are).
Then the rest of the rabble.
Right from the start I figured that having Mich/OSU in the same division would be bad because it prevents them for ever playing for the title between each other. Sounds like the ADs are coming to the same conclusion.
Now the decision to go to with a 9 game schedule you can either have 1 protected interdivision matchup per year or 2 at most. But even if you have 2, then the cycle between a home/home matchup between the other 4 teams gets long, so I’m guessing teams will only get to declare 1 favored cross-division rivalry. So unless both Minnesota and Nebraska (who Bielema has already declared to be Wisconsin’s newest rival) end up in Wisconsin’s division, I’m guessing Iowa won’t be an every year thing anymore for the Badgers, which will be a shame.
Ok, who wants to go back and look at all the team records since 1993?
ETA: If, for example, Penn State and Nebraska end up in the same division, that would suck for every team that isn’t football.
http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2010/0/ohio_state_has_been_clear_big.html
This doesn’t include Nebraska though.
I would do:
East: OSU (1) Mich (2) Purdue (6) MSU (7) NW (8) Ill (9)
West: PSU (3) Neb Wisc (4) Iowa (5) Minn (10) Ind (11)
Preserves all of the rivalries that matter (except perhaps Mich-Minn) and keeps the divisions pretty balanced.
Divisions are just for football as far as I know. Most other sports play enough games to make divisions unnecessary.
I think you’ve got the right idea, treis, but it isn’t going to happen, unfortunately.
I think too much emphasis is being put on the past glories of certain programs (looking your way, Ann Arbor) and not enough on the current states of the programs when they talk about competitive balance.
For example, in the next 10 years, which pair of teams is going to have a better record, Michigan and Penn State, or Iowa and Wisconsin? I’d put my money on the latter two, although nothing is certain.
You’d put Penn State in the West? :dubious: Hey, we made fun of PSU’s academics as much as anyone, but never accused them of not being able to read a map. 
Yeah, unfortunately PSU gets screwed. Either you have to have a OSU-Mich-PSU division or send PSU out west.
Realistically, there’s just no way to do it geographically and have Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State not be in the same division, leading to imbalance. Only Nebraska has the traditional power of those 3, and they’re down lately.
I still think having OSU, Mich and PSU together is not a big deal. But that’s easy for me to say, since my team would be in the other division.
Is there a compelling reason to try for “parity” between the divisions?
Why not have an “upper” and “lower” division that are reevaluated regularly. Have teams play mostly teams from the other division (plus two rivals) and then have the best team play the next best team they haven’t yet beat for the championship.
I’ve got it:
Big 10 North: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State
Big 10 South: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State
Annual Rivalries:
Wisconsin/Iowa, Northwestern/Illinois, Michigan/OSU, MSU/Purdue, Penn State/Nebraska, Minnesota/Indiana – or something like that.
Once you reconcile yourself to the Big 10 having eleven or twelve teams, geography is no biggie.
Here’s how I would like it:
Division A:
Michigan State
Illinois
Northwestern
Indiana
Minnesota
Purdue
Division B:
Penn State
Ohio State
Michigan
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
This should put my Spartans in the title game every year.