ABC does.
IMO, that game means nothing more to ABC/ESPN than:
- the UT/OU game,
- the ND @ USC game,
- the FSU/Miami game
I live in Missouri and have lived all over the South and East Coast. There is no special interest in the OSU/Mich game in these regions. I can’t speak for the West Coast, but I suspect it is similar. Unless they have a specific rooting interest, people want to see two highly ranked teams play each other, not two specific teams that my have a long history against each other.
Me? I live for the UGA/Ga Tech game. I am Tech alumnus and that is the game of the year for me. But I am not presumptuous to think that people with no specific rooting interest want to see that game.
Missourians live for the Illinois/Missouri basketball game, “bragging rights.” I’ve even been to the game a few times. But it means nothing to me. I don’t care who wins. I just want to see a good competitive basketball game.
The passion for anyone’s favorite game is nice to have, and that is best part of college football. I really enjoy ESPN gameday every Saturday morning just to see the passion the kids and alumni have for their team. But the passion exists all over the country, not just Ann Arbor and Columbus.
I am a Wisconsin Fan (class of '89) and i like the division setup. I really don’t understand the moaning of my fellow Badgers. Maybe it has changed but when I went Madison (late 80s) the rivalry game was Wisconsin-Minnesota, not Iowa. The two division look fairly even to me. In fact looking at the SI rankings:
6. OSU
10. Penn State
16. Nebraska
18. Iowa
29. Wisconsin
46. Michigan State
52. Michigan
58. Purdue
60. Northwestern
67. Minnesota
77. Illinois
94. indiana
The average ranking of the two division 43 and 45, pretty close. I wanted to be in the OSU division, so I am cool with it.
As one of the rare Gopher fans, my initial reaction is to be very pleased. I don’t worry about competitiveness, because the Gophers won’t be competing for a BCS bid no matter which division they’re in, at least over the next couple years. (Brewster must go!)
In terms of rivalries, Minnesota gets nearly the best of all possible worlds: Little Brown Jug is annual again, Floyd of Rosedale and Paul Bunyan’s Ax stay annual. The only trophy game that isn’t going to be annual is the Governor’s Bell with Penn State, and that’s hardly a real rivalry, trophy or not. Additionally, the Gophers get to renew the traditional rivalry with Nebraska - as best as I can tell, only Oklahoma has beaten Nebraska more times than Minnesota, and they’ve had more than 30 more meetings 
Missouri has beat Nebraska 36 times, Minnesota 29 times, Oklahoma 44 times
What rankings are those? (I mean, I know they’re from SI, but I couldn’t find them and can’t believe anyone would have the Badgers outside the top 25 this year.)
I don’t know why he said SI rankings.
Because I am an idiot. Yes Sagarin Rankings, I was going to do SI but went Sagarin instead.
So it looks like the cross divisional rivalry games are going to be the last weekend. The Big 10 is going to look really dumb when they have two teams playing each other back to back. Even more so if the last game of the regular season is meaningless in terms of the rankings.
Oh, I wouldn’t expect to see Michigan in the title game for at least a few more years …
You can’t have back to back game with the first one meaningless. First of all they hate each other. Those games mean everything even if they are both 0 -11 coming in. Second if they are teams in place to win the division then the difference between 0 and one loss or 1 and 2 losses is millions of dollars. I wouldn’t mind at all seeing Mich OSU redux one a neutral field is the home teams wins a close one.
Third I would love it even more if we beat Ohio state three games in a row(Which is like a one in a ten billion chance because for the suckeyes to get into the champ game with after 2 losses, everybody else would need to have at least 3 :))
It doesn’t have to be OSU-Mich, it could be any of the rivalry games.
Oops. Missed Mizzou. In about 50 years, maybe the Gophers can catch them…
[QUOTE=treis]
So it looks like the cross divisional rivalry games are going to be the last weekend.
[/QUOTE]
Not in the next two years. Gophers-Badgers will be played in weeks 7 and 4 of the Big 10 schedule.
Illinois vs Northwestern. Bring it!
As an Illini I’m liking the divisions. We get OSU in our division, I hate Michigan way more and that’s a more intense rivalry on our side, but the Trophy game is always a fun one and historically we’ve been a much better thorn in the side of OSU than Michigan. We always lost Michigan games by some crazy fluke of fate or referee lunacy, at least OSU always seemed fair when we were getting beat.
We move out of the same division with Northwestern, making us the only 2 teams in the same state not in the same division. Kinda wonky, especially considering the travel times involved, but it’s never really need a heated rivalry. It was a great game to commute to road games for. They preserved it for the rivalry game which is fine, but most Illinois alums felt stronger about playing Iowa. At least the two teams will be front page news in Chicago in the final week of the season which could give the game extra buzz in the future.
Competitively, we’re in the toughest of the two divisions it seems. While Illinois, Indiana and Purdue aren’t exactly powerhouses they are comparable to Minnesota and Northwestern and the difference between MSU and whoever the best of that trio is doesn’t offset the difference between OSU/PSU/UW and the Iowa/Nebraska/Michigan pu-pu platter. All in all, I’m ok with that. I like that Illinois gets to play IU and Purdue and build that cross-sport rivalry and logistically it’s great for the students to travel. A little tougher for Chicago based alums like me though. Wisconsin is a great rival with the Bears-Packers overlap with Illinois and it’s easy to travel to. Ohio State and Penn State are the geographic outliers but the national attention they have is worthwhile.
This Wisconsin fan is wondering if Alvarez fell asleep during the final meeting or this is payback for his leaking of the Wisconsin/Iowa split a week ago or so. Damn…at least when we win the Big Ten Hayes Division it’ll mean something.
By the way, now that we have the divisions, I’m liking Gary DiNardo’s suggestion (during the initial Big Ten Network coverage of Nebraska joining) that the divisions be named for Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler if they didn’t split geographically…
Fuck that sideways. Fuck Hayes and Schembechler. How about Smart and Stagg if you need to name it after historic guys.
I’ll go along with your suggestion. The “Fuck Hayes” vs the “Schembechler” division sounds about right.
Please fight my ignorance. I know who Stagg was (Amos Alonzo Stagg, head coach at the U of Chicago for umpteen years in football’s primordial ooze period), but who is Smart?
I’m against naming divisions after people though, personally. Remember how stupid sounding the NHL’s “Norris Division” was?
I loved the Norris division. And one of Chris Bermans not annoying gimmicks was calling the NFC North/Central the Norris.
Smart was the Purdue administrator who basically invented the Big Ten and college athletic conferences in general. Drawing a blank on his first name at the moment.
Thanks! Here’s some info Google-Fu yields on Purdue President James H. Smart.
Like all of Berman’s shtick, it becomes really annoying after hearing Berman say it a couple thousand times, and he’s up to saying “NFC Norris” a couple million times by now.