Alright, I'm tired of watching the Big 10 finish up two weeks early every year and sit back while every other school has rivalry games and conference championships. While the Big 10 teams stay home and rest up, every other good team in the country is getting beat up and through attrition - helping those teams with a bye move up the rankings. As long as we're going to have a BCS system instead of a playoff I think that the BCS conferences need to have title games. The Pac-10 is an issue for another article, but largely it isn't worth having a title game out there right now because there's only one good team in the conference. That being the case, let's focus on the Big 10.
For this scenario to have even a shred of credibility, (not saying there's much of a chance of that, but let's pretend) I think it's important to maintain as many traditional rivalries as possible. That way when the conference is split up, there's not the concern that Michigan only plays Ohio State every three years. Additionally, which we'll get into, there will be the need to add another team so everything may be divided up evenly.
Big 10 Rivalries
- Illinois: Indiana, Northwestern
- Indiana: Illinois, Purdue
- Iowa: Minnesota, Wisconsin
- Michigan: Michigan State, Ohio State
- Michigan State: Michigan, Penn State
- Minnesota: Iowa, Wisconsin
- Northwestern: Illinois, Purdue
- Ohio State: Michigan, Penn State
- Penn State: Michigan State, Ohio State
- Purdue: Indiana, Northwestern
- Wisconsin: Iowa, Minnesota
Okay, so now what? How can we start breaking this down? Well based on rivalries the 11 teams fit into three main groups:
Group 1: Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State
Group 2: Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois
Group 3: Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Right off the bat there's a problem - there's no easy split to get six and six while still maintaining these traditional rivalries. I propose instead of the traditional approach that is done in the other BCS conferences that have championship games where the conference is divided into two groups of six that the Big 10 institute a pod system similar to how the CCHA balances out the hockey schedule.
Breaking down in pods, a team would be paired with a rival and this rival they would play automatically every year. Providing you add one more team, you would have six pods. Nine conference games would be easy enough to schedule in that you play your rival and then you play both teams in four of the five remaining pods that year. You still have room for three non-conference games and then the pod that you do not play one year you rotate through and play the next year. This means that teams in the Big 10 pod system would play every team aside from their rivals four out of every five years, which is pretty much how it all works out now. Additionally the championship game would be #1 playing #2 at the end of the year and the advantage of this system is that you don't have a top team sitting out just like you do in the Big XII this year with Missouri playing for a BCS automatic berth instead of Texas or Texas Tech.
There are a number of different scenarios for pod breakdowns, each has pros and cons.
Pod 1 - Penn State/ Michigan State
Pod 2 - Michigan/ Ohio State
Pod 3 - Indiana/ Purdue
Pod 4 - Illinois/ Northwestern
Pod 5 - Wisconsin/ Minnesota
Pod 6 - Iowa/TBD
Pod 1 - Penn State/ Michigan State
Pod 2 - Michigan/ Ohio State
Pod 3 - Indiana/ Purdue
Pod 4 - Illinois/ Northwestern
Pod 5 - Wisconsin/ Minnesota
Pod 6 - Iowa/TBD
I kept Minnesota and Wisconsi together becase I like the rivalry and playing for a Slab of Bacon is just cool. What to do about adding another team? I'm sure a lot of people will say that Notre Dame is the obvious answer. The Irish are independent in football and already play a strong Big 10 schedule every year. As a Domer, I think it would be cool to see in addition to Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue each year a more consistent showing of Penn State and Ohio State. The problem is, where do you put Notre Dame? You can't really slide them in with Iowa, that doesn't make much sense. If you put them in with Purdue or Penn State or Michigan or Michigan State, none of those teams have a strong rivalry with Iowa. So if Notre Dame doesn't work, what are other schools that have a strong enough rivalry with these schools for football and would actually add to the conference. Penn State has some of the better out of conference rivalries with Pittsburgh and West Virginia. In the immediate time frame a frequent matchup of Michigan/ West Virginia would be interesting, but that's a temporary storyline. Additionally you still have the problem that if you add in one of those teams, then you end up putting Michigan State with Iowa, which isn't a great scenario. Plus you'd have to find another team to fill in for the Big East (Marshall?).
So where do we go now? Back to Iowa, and finding a team to plug in with Iowa. I propose move Iowa State out of the Big XII and into the Big 10. In order to fill the void in the Big XII add TCU which should be able to be competitive (probably more so than Iowa State or Baylor). There are a few extra moving parts here but it accomplishes four things: 1) traditional rivalries are maintained 2) the Big 10 will have a championship game which will be more equitable in selecting the Rose Bowl berth and the top teams won't have the chance to creep into the BCS by being idle 3) the Big 10 will finally be forced to find an accurate name for their conference and not try and hide an 11 (or in this case 12) in the design. The Big XII used to be the Big 8 and they managed to learn to count accurately, it's not that hard.
9 comments:
In your Big 12 scenario, you take out Iowa State, add TCU to the B12 South and then move Oklahoma up to the B12 North.
works for me, then there's more balance between the North and South. OU can still play Texas every year, but now they'll play Nebraska every year too.
Interesting idea Duve... not sure how I feel about it
I don't have a problem with Iowa State being replaced by TCU but OU-t.u. is a more important rivalry than OU-Nebraska. And you can't split up the OU-O$U game either. You just need to leave the divisions where they are.
As for the Big10(11), Notre Dame needs to go ahead and join along with Pitt. Then they can rename the conference the BigMAC
Math is not always my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure it's hard to create any sort of pairings/divisions that are equitable if you have a prime number for your total number of teams in conference. Pitt and ND added together would make 13.
I am surprised from an Aggie that you wouldn't want to get OU out of the division and only have to play them every other year. You can still have OU play UT and OSU, and then cycle through the rest of the south for your eighth and/ or ninth conference games.
That's right, I forgot y'all are at 11 now. And don't give me this counting nonsense, it's pretty clear nobody in the Big10(11) can count either. Anyway, add Notre Dame and be done with it.
And no, I don't want OU out. I want us to get back to where we were in the 90s kicking their asses.
Pods would never work for football.
Put Penn State, Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana, and Purdue in one division and Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and TBA (Iowa State) into another. Illinois-Indiana and Northwestern-Purdue aren't such great rivalries that they can't be split up.
As a Big XII alum I'd shed no tear if Iowa State were to leave. They have a rivalry with no one and they're horrendous every year. But I don't want another Texas team like TCU joining. How would you balance the divisions? You can't put Oklahoma in the North and split them from Oklahoma State and Texas. Plus if they were in the North that would mean that a bunch of Sooner fans would travel to Boulder every other year, and I frankly don't want that happening. They can stay in back in their illegally settled land.
TCU could only join if Baylor left. What about Colorado State joining? The little sister from Fort Collins would probably go four or five seasons without a conference win (unless Baylor stayed).
Perhaps the Big Ten could invite Pittsburgh, though I doubt any of these moves or changes will be taking place.
Talking about the Big 11 only legitimizes it. It's a joke conference that epitomizes "thick ankle football" and it shouldn't have an automatic BCS bid. The Big 11's and Big East's BCS bids should be at large spots each year, and there should be a rule that only one team from each of these coferences can make it to the BCS each year. Not only that, but there should be a rule that only 1 Big 11 game can be on TV at a time, and not during any game that means anything.
You can't put OU in a division in the Big XII and then stipulate that they play certain teams from the other division every year. The reason a 2 division/12-team conference works so well is because each year you play all 5 teams in your division and 3 of 6 teams in the other division. Every other year you play every team and every four years (academic cycle) you visit every opponent. So I'm against moving OU for all of the above reasons; I'd rather see (despite geographical inconsistencies) Baylor or TCU move to the north.
Also, I don't like your Big X(I) scenario because you're breaking up the Little Brown Jug game. The Big X should just kick someone out and go to a Pac10 9-game conference schedule. Other than historically and geographically, Northwestern doesn't fit in that conference anyway (private school, less than 40,000 students, etc.).
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