On-field records are transitory, typically changeable with the change of the coach, and may be the worst possible metric for assessing a program’s strength. Markets, and a business’ (er, university’s) underlying ability to serve them, are what matter. So what if Rutgers or, to stretch it a bit, Temple do not now have dominant football teams? A revenue influx from joining a higher-grade conference, which would result from the conference’s entry into the NYC or Philly markets, would be enough foundation to build the teams to a competitive level. And let’s not kid ourselves about academics here; it’s all about big-time business strategy.
Leaving aside the fact that NU is a charter school (as mentioned before), what’s the rationale behind this? Fanbase/revenue? And where would you stick them?
The conference could hardly benefit from pulling out of the Chicago market.
I’d say Illinois actually covers the Chicago market pretty well. Northwestern is certainly covered, and now that they’ve shed their perpetual bottom-of-the-Big-10 image in both football and basketball, they’re definitely more visible, but they still don’t draw anywhere near the interest Illinois gets around here.
Historically, in football, an “east division” is so much more dominant in football, and upon setup, it would become a Big XII South vs Big XII North.
I don’t know why a default division setup has to be geographical. The ACC did a great job when they set up a Coastal and Atlantic Divisions. It did work out good for the SEC, but IMO, is failing in the Big XII.
Adam Rittenberg at ESPN.com just did a blog post about the academic rankings of the Big Ten schools and rumored 12th members. Kind of interesting, and helps to see which institutions don’t have a prayer of being voted for by the university presidents, no matter how good their athletics are.
Current Members:
No. 12: Northwestern
No. 27: Michigan
No. 39 (tie): Illinois
No. 39 (tie): Wisconsin
No. 47 (tie): Penn State
No. 53 (tie): Ohio State
No. 61 (tie): Purdue
No. 61 (tie): Minnesota
No. 71 (tie): Indiana
No. 71 (tie): Michigan State
No. 71 (tie): Iowa
Prospectives:
No. 20: Notre Dame
No. 34: Boston College
No. 47 (tie): Texas
No. 56 (tie): Pittsburgh
No. 58 (tie): Syracuse
No. 66 (tie): Rutgers
No. 88 (tie): Iowa State
No. 96 (tie): Kansas
No. 96 (tie): Nebraska
No. 102 (tie): Missouri
No. 126 (tie): Utah
No. 128: Kentucky
Tier 3: Cincinnati
Tier 3: West Virginia
My guess is it’s going to be tough sledding to convince the academics to bring in a school that is significantly below the Iowa/MSU/Indiana tier.
My split
Penn State Mich.
Pitt. MSU
Ohio State Illinois
Purdue Northwestern
Minnesota Wisconsin
Indiana Iowa
Preserves natural rivalries and splits stronger teams.
Well, let’s just say you’re admirably uncynical.
You’ve got Minnesota split from Iowa and Wisconsin, it’s two biggest rivals. I don’t think there’s any way that either Minn-Iowa or Minn-UW (most played rivalry in D1) stops being played every year.
It’s tough to come up with a split that preserves rivalries and splits the balance evenly. If one has to be sacrificed, I’d rather have an uneven balance. If I were going to do it, I’d do it like this:
Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Northwestern
Illinois
Penn State
Michigan
Ohio State
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana
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That way, almost everyone is in a division with their traditional rival. The two Johnny-come-latelys get split up. Downside is, Penn State’s travel budget is going to be enormous.
Looking a the regular season records in the last three seasons ('07-'09), Ohio State and Penn State come out 1-2. Teams 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 would all be in the West, by my proposed division. Surprised?
- Ohio State (31-5) (east)
- Penn State (29-7) (east)
- Wisconsin (25-11) (west)
- Iowa (24-12) (west)
- Northwestern (23-13) (west)
- Michigan State (22-14) (west)
- Illinois (17-19) (west)
- Michigan (16-20) (east)
- Purdue (16-20) (east)
- Indiana (14-22) (east)
- Minnesota (14-22) (west)
I don’t think this is true. Teams play their division opponents twice in the regular season versus only once for the other division.
My historical reference goes back a little more than 3 years. I expect Michigan to turn things around in the next couple of years. They have too much money behind them.
Again my divisions would be (assuming Pitt is added). A Missouri addition would change things.
Woody division: OSU-Pitt-Wisc-Pur-Iowa-Ind
Bo division: Mich-PSU-MSU-NU-Minn-Ill
OSU plays Mich every year
Pitt plays PSU every year
Wisc plays MSU every year
Pur plays NU every year
Iowa plays Minn every year
Ind plays Ill every year.
Im not a Big 10 historian, but I think the only lost big rivalry is Wisc-Minn. There is no perfect solution and something has to give. Big XII lost OU-NEB, the SEC lost Tenn/Ole Miss and Tenn/Aub, and Bama/Florida
Nobody wants OSU-Michigan twice a year, year after year. It waters down the excitement in their annual game.
Going back 15 years to the '94 season, Michigan and OSU were the top two teams twice. I don’t favor splitting them into different divisions, but they would hardly dominate the Big 10 championship game.
Right, but you also don’t want them to not play at all some years. So you need to put them in the same division. As we’ve seen recently, they’re not going to both be dominant every year.
I think that Rutgers is much, much more desirable for the Big 10 than folks here think. The NY market is really the tipping point.
If I accepted your divisions, I would swap the PU/NU and IL/IN games, and make those schools play their natural in-state rivals. So it would be NU-Illinois and Indy-Purdue. When I was at NU, there was a lot more excitement about the Illinois game (especially in Chicago) then there was about the Purdue game.
What’s the source for these rankings? Indana #71? Not bloody likely. And in whose universe is Notre Dame one of the top 20 academic institutions in the US?
US News- national university rankings. Rife with problems, of course, but no more than any other ranking system.
Here’s the blog post: Academic rankings of expansion candidates - ESPN - Big Ten Blog- ESPN
Those were the inter-division annual matchups, if teams are in the same division, they play each other by default in the round robin. And I put NU/Ill in the same division and Purdue/Indiana in the same division.