Big Ten Discussing Removing Divisions

Dano564

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If the championship game were best two, would the rules force them to get rid of divisions? If not, then they're not necessarily talking about getting rid of divisions.

Doubt that Ohio St beating Michigan in a rematch in Indy gets them in over OU. That's not the problem. The problem is the perceived "lower" quality of teams in the Big Ten relative to the top shelf helmet schools in the SEC, ACC, and Big 12.

That problem will never be solved so long as there are only 4 spots in the playoff.
 

I'm certainly not in favor of eliminating divisions.

OTOH, it's probably inevitable. Only question I have is why did anyone who's not in the West consider this a good idea in the first place?

JTG
 

This discussion is clearly for Michigan's sake. I am not in favor of this.
 

Yes the West has not been as good as the East but some rivalries have developed and it sure is a lot easier for fans to travel to Big Ten West games.
Michigan and PSU can suck it.
 


I'm certainly not in favor of eliminating divisions.

OTOH, it's probably inevitable. Only question I have is why did anyone who's not in the West consider this a good idea in the first place?

JTG

They had Leaders and Legends before that, when Nebraska was added. I can't remember what the problem was, but they scrapped that for West and East. I know Wisconisn was having to play Ohio State, and Nebraska was playing Michigan. This was back when Nebraska first joined and was actually still pretty decent at football.
 

Yes the West has not been as good as the East but some rivalries have developed and it sure is a lot easier for fans to travel to Big Ten West games.
Michigan and PSU can suck it.

Speaking selfishly, I would like to avoid playing Penn St, Ohio St, and Michigan St as much as possible. Those teams are too good, not much of a geographic rivalry, so it really does nothing for our program to be playing them. I would say same for Michigan, but we do have the Jug.
 

This discussion is clearly for Michigan's sake. I am not in favor of this.

I'd like to see this happen. When you split into divisions, you have weird things like a 4-4 Wisconsin team getting into the title game and then having the game of their lives to win the conference. When we split into divisions, it was an NCAA requirement to do so in order to have a conference championship game. That requirement has been eliminated since then.
 

That requirement has been eliminated since then.

I think there's a caveat to that though, isn't there? I thought if you were going to do that, then you had to play a round-robin among all conference teams?


The idea was to prevent a conference like the ACC from "cherry picking" a weak schedule for a program like Clemson, every year, to ensure it always got into the playoff.
 



During the regular season, the crossover games have been fairly even, 48 wins for the East, 43 wins for the West. But the East has won all 5 championship games.
 

East:
Ohio State
Penn State
Michigan
Michigan State
Rutgers
Maryland
Indiana

West:
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
Illinois
Northwestern
Purdue

How could you possibly divide the conference any better. This cuts down on travel costs considerably and provides for the main rivalries as best able. The problem is that OSU, PSU and Michigan will never be as insignificant as the Gophers have been for the past 45+ years.

Don't tell me Michigan-Minnesota is a rivalry. We are a long way from getting that jug back.
 

I think there's a caveat to that though, isn't there? I thought if you were going to do that, then you had to play a round-robin among all conference teams?


The idea was to prevent a conference like the ACC from "cherry picking" a weak schedule for a program like Clemson, every year, to ensure it always got into the playoff.

Big XII.
 

I'd be fine as long as we have both Iowa and Wisconsin as guaranteed games.

I don't like how we almost never play certain teams in the opposite division. This year was the very first year that Indiana played a game at TCF when it opened in 2009. It took an original member of our own conference 8 years to play a game at our home stadium! That just shouldn't happen.
 



Speaking selfishly, I would like to avoid playing Penn St, Ohio St, and Michigan St as much as possible. Those teams are too good, not much of a geographic rivalry, so it really does nothing for our program to be playing them. I would say same for Michigan, but we do have the Jug.

How about Gophs just get better so those are more competitive games.
 

Speaking selfishly, I would like to avoid playing Penn St, Ohio St, and Michigan St as much as possible. Those teams are too good, not much of a geographic rivalry, so it really does nothing for our program to be playing them. I would say same for Michigan, but we do have the Jug.

We do not have the jug.
 

Agree 100%.

Again, if these talks truly are being driven by the hypothesis that Ohio St would've made it over Oklahoma with a rematch win over Michigan in Indy, that's just bunk. People hate immediate rematches. Besides from the fact that the rematch would've favored Michigan, if Ohio State wins again people would've dismissed it and Oklahoma would've still made it in.

Notre Dame took our spot this year, and that's just all that can be said, with the current 4 team format.
 


How about Gophs just get better so those are more competitive games.

Yep.

It would hurt the gophers chances but I think it makes more sense, at least if we could still get Iowa and Wisconsin guaranteed.
 


Just move Michigan to the West and problem solved. We all know that is what the end goal is, they want Michigan vs. Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game.
 

Just move Michigan to the West and problem solved. We all know that is what the end goal is, they want Michigan vs. Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game.

swap michigan with purdue?
 

Just move Michigan to the West and problem solved. We all know that is what the end goal is, they want Michigan vs. Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game.

Actually not. Michigan would have locked in games with OSU and Michigan State so their only saving grace would be avoiding Penn State.
 

Not sure how the process of changing works, but everyone in the west should vote against changing.
 

They had Leaders and Legends before that, when Nebraska was added. I can't remember what the problem was, but they scrapped that for West and East. I know Wisconisn was having to play Ohio State, and Nebraska was playing Michigan. This was back when Nebraska first joined and was actually still pretty decent at football.

Yep, I remember. I'm so old I remember when the Big 10 had 10 teams.

The Leaders and Legends thing was ridiculous.

JTG
 

In the big ten, any division with Ohio state is unbalanced towards that division

OSU division
Ohio state
Rutgers
Maryland
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Minnesota

Other division
Nebraska
Iowa
Wisconsin
Michigan
Michigan state
Penn State
Northwestern


The top division has the big ten champion most of the time.
Half the teams in the top and half the teams in the bottom division will have a .500 or worse conference record every year.


If you want divisional balance, the only hope is for Ohio state to come back down to earth.
 

Other solution is to go divisionless.

Currently NCAA rules say to play divisionless championship games you have to play round robin. Which makes sense. If you play a 9 game schedule in a 14 team league you could get 3-4 teams unbeaten in conference play. Then who do you pick? Highest in the polls? I’m not down creating a structure that gives Ohio State and Michigan bigger advantages than they already have.
 

Actually not. Michigan would have locked in games with OSU and Michigan State so their only saving grace would be avoiding Penn State.
I think he's saying keep the current rules and move Michigan. There are currently no locked in games.

But that brings us back to why the divisions are they way they are: fans wanted to play rivals. Michigan wants to play OSU and MSU. We want to play Wisconsin and Iowa, and now probably Nebraska.

The Leaders and Legends kept one rivalry game but lost others. And, competitively, that wasn't fair for all, either. And if you go back to no divisions you still lose rivalry games.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 

I'd like to see this happen. When you split into divisions, you have weird things like a 4-4 Wisconsin team getting into the title game and then having the game of their lives to win the conference. When we split into divisions, it was an NCAA requirement to do so in order to have a conference championship game. That requirement has been eliminated since then.

The week-long hype leading up to the Michigan-OSU game to end the regular season is bad enough. Chances are we would often get two straight weeks of it. Gross.
Plus one could surmise that Minnesota would never, ever have a shot at playing in the title game. Ever.
 

Michigan and Ohio State have soooo much pull and they can declare things that other schools cannot. For example, they HAVE to play their rivalry game on the same weekend every year. Not so with MN/WS/IA. They can say they don't want to host Friday night games. MN? Not so much.

So, it is almost as if they want to have MI and OSU playing in the B1G championship, but have them playing every year the weekend prior to that too, and make fans like it that way.
 

During the regular season, the crossover games have been fairly even, 48 wins for the East, 43 wins for the West. But the East has won all 5 championship games.

To be fair whichever division has Ohio State is going to dominate the B1G Championship.

This is an overreaction to the West not having a dominant team this season. If Wisconsin had met their preseason expectations and made the B1G Championship game a battle of two Top 6 teams, then this discussion would have not happened.
 




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