East-West Divisions coming in 2014

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No doubt that this is a very big opportunity for the program. I'm sure each team in our division is quite happy, as all should be.

It's hard to believe that the Big Ten has agreed to this, but if so, love it!

Go Gophers!!
 






highwayman said:
Perceptions of competitiveness aside, it makes for a great road schedule each year as well. I think ol' Jer is licking his chops.
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But, but, but, where do we put North Carolina?
 




It looks like the Big 12 North division, especially if Wisconsin takes a step back
 

Man, is the Big 10 East loaded. I wish it had been split like this in the 1970s. Michigan or tOSU were almost always the champ and runner-up. At least someone other than one of those two would have had a sniff.
 




Remember those other 3 games against teams from the other division though. What happens when we get Michigan, MSU and OSU and wisky gets Indiana, Maryland and Rutgers...We are going to that 9 game schedule.

The odds are fairly good for either Michigan or the Ohio State to be the team that any program would have to go through to win the B1G championship regardless of the division a team plays in.

Maybe getting to the championship game might be a bit easier, depending on which 3 teams from the East Division you get in B1G Conference Play.
what will the tie-breakers be? Will there be a special "Rose Bowl Rule?" And woe be the team that goes 0-9 in Conference Play...

And, what will happen when and if they add any more teams to the super-conference?

; 0 )
 

GopherGod said:
It looks like the Big 12 North division, especially if Wisconsin takes a step back
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It is. People don't like the term, but I think there are 4 "helmet schools" in the conference (Michigan, OSU, NEB. and PSU) and three of them shift to the other side. If I'm a Nebraska fan, I'm absolutely thrilled about how things worked out for my team.
 

walrus and Breakin' the Plane both raise good points. If the winner from the East is in the National Championship hunt, it may open up the Rose Bowl for the 2nd place team from the B1G, but his basic point is valid. The East is chock full of helmet schools and the tOSU/Michigan competition in the next decade may rival that of the Hayes/Schembechler era. Whoever comes out of the East will likely be the favorite to win the B1G, but it's also important to remember anything can happen in one game. Wisconsin beating Nebraska last year was mildly surprising (if at all), but the way they absolutely thrashed them was eye-opening and didn't appear to be in the cards.

And if I'm a Nebraska fan, I'm really giddy over the new set-up.
 

Wow Great news. Hopefully the west can keep up with the east. Hopefully it doesnt turn into a situation like the Big 12 north and south when the south dominated. But great news for gopher fans.

Poor Indiana.
 

Is anybody curious about this statement:

"With the new division format, rivals Indiana and Purdue will be the only protected game between teams from the East and West divisions, ESPN.com reported last month"

I said all along that adding more teams would have the result of 1) losing at least a rivalry (if not more, or depending on what you count as a 'rivalry' - ex LBJ game between MN-MI) or 2) try to force in protected crossover games, which further limits how often each team plays all B1G members.

If it's true that they made a single exception for Indiana-Purdue, I've got a little bit of beef with that. One, that means Purdue will naturally play OSU, PSU, and Michigan less often. Even if you say "well, Indiana may have good years as well," the fact is that OSU, Mich, and even PSU will be far more likely to be fielding stronger teams on any given year. Same goes the other way for Indiana to Purdue - they skip Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska more often.

Don't get me wrong, I love that the alignment is purely east-west. And that even if the IN-Pur game was lost they managed to keep nearly all major and secondary rivalries (missing: MSU-Indiana, Mich-Minn, Neb-PSU.. not too bad). I also like that our division is chock full of long-time Big Ten teams with the only exception being Nebraska, who we have a history of playing. It's icing on the cake that our division is a bit more manageable (however, to me that also means "games fans will care less about attending/watching than more regular games against the likes of Michigan, OSU, PSU - there is definitely a tradeoff there).
 

One more thought..

Obviously this is temporary. They are moving to a 9-game schedule in 2016, and I guarantee you that will come with the announcement of 2 more teams sometime between 2014 and then. While many seem to think it will be 2 more teams from the east (UNC, UVA, GaTech sound most likely), I personally think it will be 1 from the east (penetrating further south than UVA - most likely UNC or GT) and one from TX. I think they are going to go relatively big to try to capture the Texas market. Like, Texas. They'll realize in a couple of years that the Big 12 has some huge limits on who their footprint gets (the teams that stretch geographically don't carry the weight that teams in other conferences do) and may be hurtin to join up with a conference that can really bring in the $$. A B1G with GT added to the east and Texas to the West becomes a bit more balanced and basically covers 2/3 of the population of the country, missing only Florida and California as MAJOR population centers.
 

RailBaronYarr said:
One more thought..

Obviously this is temporary. They are moving to a 9-game schedule in 2016, and I guarantee you that will come with the announcement of 2 more teams sometime between 2014 and then. While many seem to think it will be 2 more teams from the east (UNC, UVA, GaTech sound most likely), I personally think it will be 1 from the east (penetrating further south than UVA - most likely UNC or GT) and one from TX. I think they are going to go relatively big to try to capture the Texas market. Like, Texas. They'll realize in a couple of years that the Big 12 has some huge limits on who their footprint gets (the teams that stretch geographically don't carry the weight that teams in other conferences do) and may be hurtin to join up with a conference that can really bring in the $$. A B1G with GT added to the east and Texas to the West becomes a bit more balanced and basically covers 2/3 of the population of the country, missing only Florida and California as MAJOR population centers.
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I'd agree with your assessment. Texas had some problems establishing their own "network" system. Ga. Tech also makes sense. The New England Market and Boston College could add another Hockey School. Virginia would be good in many ways as well.

It would never happen, but, a Stanford connection could be interesting if the B1G ended up with a Ga. Tech, Boston College, Northwestern component.... Maybe disco Darrin Nelson could be the broker of a deal to get Stanford into the B1G... (wink, wink, wink...joke, joke, joke...)

; 0 )
 

The best part about this for Minnesota is that while Wisconsin and Iowa are heavily dependent upon Ohio and the East Coast for recruiting, we totally aren't.

Our recruiting model will basically remain the same. Take what you can from Minnesota/Wisconsin/Chicago metro and fill in the blanks from Florida, Texas, and the JUCOs (with some variables on a yearly basis)
 

If I recall correctly, a certain big meanie over at the Red Star predicted that Country Jer would take the Gophers to the Rose Bowl in 2014. "Startin' to come together Pepper, startin' to come together."
 

I like the idea of Indy/Purdue as the only protected game. You have to draw the split line somewhere and those two are instate rivalries. Unless you have a full round-robin schedule you will always have some inequities.

As far as a second place Rose Bowl bid, who is to say the Big Ten would not declare the division runner-up as Conference second place over the opposing division champ that lost the champ game. So long as they had a better record.
 

GopherGod said:
It looks like the Big 12 North division, especially if Wisconsin takes a step back
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Hope so. After the first 8 seasons, it was North 4, South 4. Although the South won the next seven, it was Oklahoma and Texas only. I'd say it's a misperception that the South was "dominant". The same may apply to the B1G.
 

highwayman said:
Hope so. After the first 8 seasons, it was North 4, South 4. Although the South won the next seven, it was Oklahoma and Texas only. I'd say it's a misperception that the South was "dominant". The same may apply to the B1G.
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But what were the combined records of all the north teams and the south teams in those stretches? What were the inter-division records? Obviously the South's dominance in the title games had a lot to do with Nebraska being terrible for a while, and OK/TX being very good with no one from the north picking up NE's slack. Who's to say that wouldn't happen again in our situation?
 

Enjoy it now, when Georgia Tech and North Carolina or Virginia join the B1G and Michigan/Michigan State are moved to the west it won't be so easy.
 

Traditional East/west was the way to go. No doubt about it.

For those wondering about competitive balance, just remember that the 3rd place team in the Leaders hung 70 points on the champ from the Legends in the B1G Title game. Regardless of the Michigan, MSU, PSU, and OSU in he same division, there will be plenty of balance. Nebraska and Wisconsin are the winners here. It will basically be those 2 fighting it out each year with Iowa and NU making a run every once in awhile. That leaves Purdue, Illinois, and the Gophers beating each other up to stay out of hte cellar.
 

B1GSportsGuy said:
Regardless of the Michigan, MSU, PSU, and OSU in he same division, there will be plenty of balance. Nebraska and Wisconsin are the winners here. It will basically be those 2 fighting it out each year with Iowa and NU making a run every once in awhile. That leaves Purdue, Illinois, and the Gophers beating each other up to stay out of hte cellar.
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Despite the fact that you then go on to compare Nebraska and Wisconsin to Michigan, OSU, PSU. Wisconsin is much more akin to Iowa and Michigan State. The West has 1 premier (helmet school) while the East has 3. The West has 2 second-tier teams (Wisconsin and Iowa) while the East has 1 (MSU) and possibly a wild card in Rutgers. I like what Pat Fitzgerald has done at NU and Purdue has certainly shown in the past that they are capable of competing, but I would not put either on the same level as Wisconsin or MN. Indiana and Maryland compare well to Minnesota and Purdue, honestly. So to me, the West has a stronger middle section (WI, IA, and a half-step below NU vs MSU, maybe Rutgers) while the East has a much stronger upper tier. The bottom rungs are comparable.
 


That's good news, the crossover was making the schedule unbalanced. If there is further expansion, I would guess that Indiana would be moved to the West, and then protected crossover games would end entirely.
 

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