B1G West vs. B1G East in Bowl games....

ethomasp31

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Kind of interesting that the B1G West finished 4-1 in Bowl games with Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Northwestern playing well and at the same time the stronger half of our conference looking like they are close to dropping to 0-3 with only Ohio State left to play once the Penn State game is over. With Meyer retiring, maybe the strength of the conference could shift a little towards the West.
 

The gap is overblown.
Ohio state has two losses in the conference in two years, both to the west.
The gap in overall conference games isn’t that big.

Ohio state is better than everyone in the conference. Other than that the divisions are even. Should we move a “bad team” east? Trade Purdue for Michigan State? Would literally change nothing.
 

2019 in the West is going to be a lot of fun to watch.
 

I think there has been some discussion after Ohio State didn't get into the playoff that the B1G should have the two "best" teams in their championship game rather than the division winners. Hopefully that never happens, but I think they thought beating Michigan again would have helped Ohio State move past Oklahoma and into the playoffs. Nice to see the West perform well...and it looks like Penn State might be making a little comeback.
 

I think there has been some discussion after Ohio State didn't get into the playoff that the B1G should have the two "best" teams in their championship game rather than the division winners. Hopefully that never happens, but I think they thought beating Michigan again would have helped Ohio State move past Oklahoma and into the playoffs. Nice to see the West perform well...and it looks like Penn State might be making a little comeback.

Two best doesn’t work in a 14 team league. Unbalanced scheduling would allow for the possibility of 3-4 unbeaten teams with no divisions. How do you determine best two?
Nobody would agree to a system that could leave open the possibility of an unbeaten conference team being shutout of the conference title game
 


Big Ten West is 4-1! Big Ten East is 0-3! It is up to Ohio State now.

McSorley got hurt, but returned. He made one bad call in their last possession. Instead of running out of bounds, he threw an incomplete pass in the end zone. Second mistake - they went for a field goal instead of going for it. Had they not made first down, Kentucky would have been close to or inside their 20-yard line and would have preserved some clock.

Dec. 26 - Quick Lane - Minnesota 34 Georgia Tech 10 W B1G W
Dec 27 - Pinstripe - Wisconsin 35 Miami 3 W B1G W
Dec. 28 - Music City - Purdue 14 Auburn 63 L B1G W
Dec. 29 - Peach - Michigan 15 Florida 41 L B1G E
Dec 31 - RedBox - Michigan State U 6 Oregon 7 L B1G E
Dec 31 - Holiday - Northwestern 31 Utah 20 W B1G W
Jan 1 - Outback - Iowa 27 Mississippi State 22 W B1G W
Jan 1 - Citrus - Penn State 24 Kentucky 27L B1G E
Jan 1 - Rose - Ohio State vs Washington

I want Ohio State to win so the Big Ten will be 5-4 instead of 4-5 in the bowl games. Wow. What a disappointing performance by the Big Ten East.
 
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The West has been so maligned that I actually rooted for Wisconsin and Iowa this bowl season. Good to see the division looking strong.
 

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Thanks for the links. On the flip side of what everyone's thinking now with this scenario, what if the opposite happens and two West teams play for the finals! It's possible. What if Ohio State has a slight decline post Urban Meyer and the top 4 in the East all knock each other off in their round robin. That would be hilarious.
 



Thanks for the links. On the flip side of what everyone's thinking now with this scenario, what if the opposite happens and two West teams play for the finals! It's possible. What if Ohio State has a slight decline post Urban Meyer and the top 4 in the East all knock each other off in their round robin. That would be hilarious.

Yeah I agree, Meyer leaves and they could go on a decline. I still like it as the West Champ vs the East Champ. Hopefully this Bowl season will help keep it the same way.
 


I know what you were talking about. Isn’t going to happen in a 14 team league.
There will be some sort of divisional scheduling even if they didn’t call them divisions.
Can’t have an unbeaten team getting left out of the conference title game. Without divisional scheduling, in a 14 team league that possibility exists.
 

Yeah I agree, Meyer leaves and they could go on a decline. I still like it as the West Champ vs the East Champ. Hopefully this Bowl season will help keep it the same way.

I'm with you. I like the geographic divisions...almost like a conference in itself with rivalries intensifying.
 

I know what you were talking about. Isn’t going to happen in a 14 team league.
There will be some sort of divisional scheduling even if they didn’t call them divisions.
Can’t have an unbeaten team getting left out of the conference title game. Without divisional scheduling, in a 14 team league that possibility exists.

I think they would have the top two rated teams play, instead of the division champions. I agree with you, I want the West and East Champs playing. I kind of have a feeling that Michigan and Ohio State have a bigger say in who plays in the game than Minnesota and Indiana. If there are going to be discussions about it, I get kind of uncomfortable having the decision being against what I'm hoping for....no matter that Some guy on gopherhole tells me not to worry about it.
 
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I think they would have the top two rated teams play, instead of the division champions. I agree with you, I want the West and East Champs playing. I kind of have a feeling that Michigan and Ohio State have a bigger say in who plays in the game than Minnesota and Indiana. If there are going to be discussions about it, I get kind of uncomfortable having the decision being against what I'm hoping for....no matter that someone on gopherhole tells me not to worry about it.

Don’t know how the voting works for the conference athletics directors to make a structural change like that. But if you’re creating a system where 3+ team ties are likely and college football playoff rankings are one of the early tiebreakers every team outside of Ohio State and Michigan should vote against it. I’d assume these decisions aren’t just made by Delaney. I’d assume major changes require some sort of vote. If it requires a vote, anyone in the west would be dumb to vote against ending divisions. Anyone except Ohio state and Michigan would be dumb to vote for a system where imbalanced divisions create ties and then rankings break ties.

These four teams are tied and tiebreaker goes to rankings. Which two teams are rated higher?
Michigan
Minnesota
Ohio state
Purdue
 

Don’t know how the voting works for the conference athletics directors to make a structural change like that. But if you’re creating a system where 3+ team ties are likely and college football playoff rankings are one of the early tiebreakers every team outside of Ohio State and Michigan should vote against it. I’d assume these decisions aren’t just made by Delaney. I’d assume major changes require some sort of vote. If it requires a vote, anyone in the west would be dumb to vote against ending divisions. Anyone except Ohio state and Michigan would be dumb to vote for a system where imbalanced divisions create ties and then rankings break ties.

These four teams are tied and tiebreaker goes to rankings. Which two teams are rated higher?
Michigan
Minnesota
Ohio state
Purdue

Well it sounds like they have already had discussions on it before, and I agree that every athletic director from the West should vote against it. I don't know how much the B1G losses by not having a team in the National Championship Playoff, but I can see how some teams may vote for a change if they feel it improves the chances of having a B1G school in the playoff and it makes more money for their school. Honestly, the teams who would be most against the change would probably be Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern and Nebraska. Most teams in the East would probably be for it. I'm not arguing for the change, I don't like it. I'm just saying it has been discussed and sounds like more discussions on this are going to happen in the future.
 

Not sure I would say Iowa played well. They got ridiculously lucky to win that game over and over again culminating in a Mississippi State Wide Receiver dropping a touchdown that hit him in the numbers...and compounded the problem by then tipping it in the air a second time allowing it to be picked off. It will be Minnesota's turn to have the horseshoe at some point...right?
 

Well it sounds like they have already had discussions on it before, and I agree that every athletic director from the West should vote against it. I don't know how much the B1G losses by not having a team in the National Championship Playoff, but I can see how some teams may vote for a change if they feel it improves the chances of having a B1G school in the playoff and it makes more money for their school. Honestly, the teams who would be most against the change would probably be Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern and Nebraska. Most teams in the East would probably be for it. I'm not arguing for the change, I don't like it. I'm just saying it has been discussed and sounds like more discussions on this are going to happen in the future.

I’m sure they will. Don’t think it’ll happen though. Even if they ended divisions they’d still essentially have divisions via scheduling.
 

Not sure I would say Iowa played well. They got ridiculously lucky to win that game over and over again culminating in a Mississippi State Wide Receiver dropping a touchdown that hit him in the numbers...and compounded the problem by then tipping it in the air a second time allowing it to be picked off. It will be Minnesota's turn to have the horseshoe at some point...right?

It happens. Here's Gopher horseshoe.

 

East also played better teams than the west hence the discrepancy in the bowl records.

Washington is better than Utah
Florida is better than Mississippi State
Kentucky is better than Auburn
Oregon is better than Miami or Georgia Tech
 

I don't put too much into the results east vs west, but after the Purdue loss, SEC country would have you believe the whole SEC is far and away better than the Big Ten.
Then Michigan lost to Florida bad.
But after that PSU and Kentucky were similarly ranked and it was close with Kentucky winning.
Iowa beat a rated Miss St team.


It probably shows well for the west to win these so it helps with earlier season rankings which are subjective.
This year the ACC was overrated heavily by the committee. In the end it didn't matter for Clemson, but it does move down a lot of other teams who maybe should have been ranked from the Big Ten. (Iowa, Wisconsin)

Big Ten West needs to win their non-conference games next year. That would help a quite a bit for any of us to get more love from the committee.

In the end, if you are a one-loss team, and you want to make the CFP, you'll get screwed over if they think your half of a conference is week. Big Ten West I would argue has been underrated because of WI's issues this year, which are in part due to the rest of the division getting better.
 

I don't put too much into the results east vs west, but after the Purdue loss, SEC country would have you believe the whole SEC is far and away better than the Big Ten.
Then Michigan lost to Florida bad.
But after that PSU and Kentucky were similarly ranked and it was close with Kentucky winning.
Iowa beat a rated Miss St team.


It probably shows well for the west to win these so it helps with earlier season rankings which are subjective.
This year the ACC was overrated heavily by the committee. In the end it didn't matter for Clemson, but it does move down a lot of other teams who maybe should have been ranked from the Big Ten. (Iowa, Wisconsin)

Big Ten West needs to win their non-conference games next year. That would help a quite a bit for any of us to get more love from the committee.

In the end, if you are a one-loss team, and you want to make the CFP, you'll get screwed over if they think your half of a conference is week. Big Ten West I would argue has been underrated because of WI's issues this year, which are in part due to the rest of the division getting better.

Yup. Losses to Akron, Eastern Michigan, BYU, Duke, didn’t help the west’s perception at the beginning of the year. Especially when the biggest wins were Fresno and Boston college.
 

B1G West 4-1
B1G East 1-3


Dec. 26 - Quick Lane - Minnesota 34 Georgia Tech 10 W B1G W
Dec 27 - Pinstripe - Wisconsin 35 Miami 3 W B1G W
Dec. 28 - Music City - Purdue 14 Auburn 63 L B1G W
Dec. 29 - Peach - Michigan 15 Florida 41 L B1G E
Dec 31 - RedBox - Michigan State U 6 Oregon 7 L B1G E
Dec 31 - Holiday - Northwestern 31 Utah 20 W B1G W
Jan 1 - Outback - Iowa 27 Mississippi State 22 W B1G W
Jan 1 - Citrus - Penn State 24 Kentucky 27 L B1G E
Jan 1 - Rose - Ohio State 28 Washington 23 W B1G E

Irrespective of strength of opponents, it is still commendable that the Big Ten West teams won 4 of 5 bowl games.
 
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Didn't Michigan have a handful of players who sat out the bowl game? How about Penn State?

The 7-6 MSU loss to Oregon is a heart breaker.

Luckily, the Gophers are able to make changes to cover the loss of Greene and Cashman.
 

Didn't Michigan have a handful of players who sat out the bowl game? How about Penn State?

The 7-6 MSU loss to Oregon is a heart breaker.

Luckily, the Gophers are able to make changes to cover the loss of Greene and Cashman.

Using these bowls as measuring sticks for conferences is ridiculous. If Michigan state and penn State gave better field goal units so they win their games...does it really mean the big ten is a clear number 1-2 conference?


To me, the reality is that all of the 5 biggest conferences are fairly close. SEC probably a little better in the top 5 of the conference. Pac 12 probably a bit worse. But not really huge differences. A lot depends on team vs team matchups.
 

East also played better teams than the west hence the discrepancy in the bowl records.

Washington is better than Utah
Florida is better than Mississippi State
Kentucky is better than Auburn
Oregon is better than Miami or Georgia Tech

What? I don’t get that comparison. The B1G opponents of the teams you mentioned were also generally ranked higher.

Mich ranked higher than Florida - Loss
PSU ranked higher than UK - Loss

Northwestern ranked lower than Utah - Win
Iowa ranked lower than Miss St - Win
 

It's harder to tell now with all of the split conferences via division, but for years, the Big Ten was always playing up.

Our 7th place team against the 5th from the SEC.
Our 6th place team against the 3rd ACC team, etc.

Now it doesn't seem to matchup that way, but according to Vegas odds, B1G was supposed to go 3-6 and they went 5-4.
So in general as a conference, probably a big underrated.

Purdue getting blown out like they did against Auburn didn't help us either.
The other game I thought we would show well in was Michigan vs Florida, but Michigan was overmatched.

That's the issue the Big Ten has when it comes to CFP. When Michigan St made it, they didn't even compete.
So if we were ever in that top 3-7 range, it would be hard for the committee to select Minnesota over a 2nd SEC team unless we made it obvious by playing a strong conference schedule with a lot of ranked teams.

That's where conference strength matters, and some of that can be a carryover from the previous year.
 

It's harder to tell now with all of the split conferences via division, but for years, the Big Ten was always playing up.

Our 7th place team against the 5th from the SEC.
Our 6th place team against the 3rd ACC team, etc.

Now it doesn't seem to matchup that way, but according to Vegas odds, B1G was supposed to go 3-6 and they went 5-4.
So in general as a conference, probably a big underrated.

Purdue getting blown out like they did against Auburn didn't help us either.
The other game I thought we would show well in was Michigan vs Florida, but Michigan was overmatched.

That's the issue the Big Ten has when it comes to CFP. When Michigan St made it, they didn't even compete.
So if we were ever in that top 3-7 range, it would be hard for the committee to select Minnesota over a 2nd SEC team unless we made it obvious by playing a strong conference schedule with a lot of ranked teams.

That's where conference strength matters, and some of that can be a carryover from the previous year.

While I agree with you, if the committee in 2022 is looking at a result of a Michigan state game from 2016 then every single member of the committee should be fired
 

While I agree with you, if the committee in 2022 is looking at a result of a Michigan state game from 2016 then every single member of the committee should be fired

I don't think they are looking at specific games, but I'll say this.

If in a given year these are the six one-loss teams looking for a CFP invite

Alabama
Clemson
Texas
Notre Dame
Washington
Minnesota

I don't like our chances unless Wisconsin, NW, and Nebraska / Purdue are all top 25 teams end of season.
 




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