Iowa AD says floating scrapping divisions

Donate To GopherHole
MNVCGUY said:
Taking a stab at the locked opponents for each team - used trophy games and regional matchups
Minnesota - Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska
Wisconsin - Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska
Iowa - Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska
Nebraska - Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska
Northwestern - Illinois, Michigan, Purdue
Illinois - Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue
Purdue - Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern
Indiana - Purdue, Michigan State, ?
Michigan - Michigan State, Ohio State, Northwestern
Michigan State - Michigan, Indiana, Penn State
Ohio State - Michigan, Illinois, ?
Penn State - Michigan State, Maryland, Rutgers
Maryland - Penn State, Rutgers, ?
Rutgers - Penn State, Maryland, ?
Click to expand...
Some guy said:
I think Illinois Purdue would be a thing
I think Ohio state Illinois would be a thing
I think Purdue gets Iowa instead of wisconsin (they split Iowa and wisconsin during legends/leaders) and northwestern
I think wisconsin gets northwestern
One Michigan gets Maryland/Rutgers the other gets the other

it would be interesting.

penn state would lobby to get Michigan state or Nebraska instead of Ohio state.
The conference would want to avoid 3 or 4 of Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, northwestern all together as a group because it would mean one of them is off to a 3-0 start in an 8 game schedule. And taking away divisions is to avoid having northwestern types in the game.
Click to expand...
These are really interesting scenarios.

Here is my permutation:

Minn - Wisc, Iowa, Mich
Wisc - Minn, Iowa, Neb
Iowa - Minn, Wisc, Neb
Neb - Iowa, Wisc, Ill
NW - Ill, Ind, Pur
Ill - NW, Pur, Neb
Pur - Ind, Ill, NW
Ind - Pur, NW, Mich St
Mich - Mich St, Ohio St, Minn
Mich St - Mich, Penn St, Ind
Ohio St - Mich, Mary, Rut
Penn St - Mich St, Mary, Rut
Mary - Rut, Penn St, Ohio St
Rut - Mary, Penn St, Ohio St

My main differences from MNVC and my reasoning:
- Minn gets Michigan instead of Neb, for obvious reasons (the Jug rivalry played yearly)
- note: for your Nebraska it shows them playing themself as the third game ....
- Neb I have them playing Illinois, just because that is the best I could do (fairly geographical)
- NW I have them against Indiana instead of Michigan, as Bloomington is very proximal to Chicago and a lot of IU grads head there for work after school (probably same as Mich and a lot of schools), and since I have Mich to Minn instead
- Illinois I have Neb instead of Ohio State, which again is a sacrifice for the sake of Nebraska to prevent them flying way over to a current East team for their third. It's a bummer because Ill-Ohio State is a trophy game, but it hasn't been played that much and I figure no one wants to play Ohio St so ILL fans probably fine with it
- Indiana I gave NW as the third (see above)
- Michigan I gave Gophers as the third (see above)
- as you have it, I too gave Penn St the "Landgrant trophy" vs Mich St, and let them avoid playing Michigan and Ohio St every year in the same year, which they would obviously prefer
- then on the far East side, basically Maryland and Rutgers get "jobbed" a bit, as they obviously would play each other, but then also both get Penn St and Ohio St. That's just how it shakes out with geography and being the "low men on the totem pole"
 

I just have yet to have anyone explain to me how you avoid a 3 unbeaten scenario without 2 groups playing round robins within the group.
And if you have 2 groups playing round robins, you have divisions
 

Ope3 said:
I feel like I have had this discussion about eliminating Big 10 Divisions in another thread within the past couple of weeks, but was summarily dismissed by someone or some guy...:unsure:

The answer to #1 is likely a more attractive match up in the Championship game, flexibility to schedule better games amongst teams currently restricted by East-West divisions and games outside the conference.

#2 & #3 aren't really able to be determined until the BCS Playoff format is decided. Will there be Auto Qualifiers for instance?
Click to expand...
There is no Championship Game without divisions, unless the NCAA rules got changed...
 

Some guy said:
I just have yet to have anyone explain to me how you avoid a 3 unbeaten scenario without 2 groups playing round robins within the group.
And if you have 2 groups playing round robins, you have divisions
Click to expand...
It's a valid concern. Like I mentioned before, it would have to be brute force run through every possible scenario of scheduling and wins-losses to see if it were possible.

But also again, why is 3 unbeatens "worse" than having a group of tied teams in a division?
 



highwayman said:
There is no Championship Game without divisions, unless the NCAA rules got changed...
Click to expand...
They could make an exception and did (big 12) for a league

but the exception they made was from a division playing a round robin to a league playing a round robin


I don’t know if the ncaa makes an exception that allows an unbeaten to be left out of a championship game.
 

upnorthkid said:
Except your argument for scrapping divisions isn't about where the best team comes from, it's where the 2nd best team comes from because the best team will always be there.
2021: Michigan over Iowa (OSU was arguably the best team, but didn't even win their division. they get in and they get to play Michigan the week after they lose to them? Perhaps that's what people want to see?)
2020: OSU NW; Indiana 2nd best in east and lost their bowl game. NW won theirs. balance worked.
2019: OSU over WI; PSU is East runner up. Prior to B10 title game prevailing thought was WI was better than PSU.
2018: OSU over NW; this is really the biggest outlier year the B10 has where NW who finished 9-5 got in. Keep in mind NW did go on and win their bowl game and both Mich and PSU (2nd and 3rd in East) lost theirs
2017: OSU over WI; WI was undefeated so it's a pretty tough sell to say this wasn't the 2 best teams
2016: PSU over WI; PSU won by a score. OSU had had their crack and lost.
2015: Mich St over Iowa (who was undefeated); hard time holding an undefeated team out
2014: OSU over WI; perhaps another one you could argue for a Mich St rematch, though they had lost by 2 scores (almost 3 if not for a late score)

If you're arguing for realignment, that's a different story. But scrapping divisions is with the goal you get the "2 best" teams in it at the end. Your best team will always be there divisions or not. The title game results more speak to who the dominant team is (OSU with 5 titles) rather than that the East is so much better than the West. OSU also has demolished all of the east consistently. Aside from the Iowa team who shouldn't have gotten there (that one still stings for us), the two other conf champ games not featuring OSU were 3 pt (same as OSU lost to Mich St earlier that year) and 7 pt (OSU lost by 3 to PSU earlier) games. In reality by scrapping divisions you're going to hurt your fan base pending how you divvy it up, and decreasing interest in your title game if it ends up being a repeat, the same as how we all groan when there's an SEC rematch right after they play.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the deep dive, thanks. Just a few points:

- You mention decreasing interest if the game ends up being a repeat, that can happen already with the crossover games. For example, Minnesota could have played Ohio St for a 2nd time last year had they beat Michigan and Nebraska hung on against Iowa.
- Most of the time a team from the Current West would still get in as the 2nd best team, though that could change if the method of scheduling gets scrambled.
- I go back to without knowing the future BCS format, it's difficult to hammer out the best plan for Divisions/Realignment/No Divisions. Let's just say for the sake of argument, it's 12 teams, 6 auto-bids from Conference Winners and 6 At-Large. It that situation, I would think the Big 10 would want to avoid a scenario in 2018 if Northwestern had upset Ohio St and thus get the only bid, or 2012 Wisconsin who were barely over .500 (granted that was even more unique Legends/Leaders with Ohio St and Penn St on probation). If it was a Divisionless format, no matter what, 1 of the 2 Best Teams (in theory most deserving) would get the Auto-Bid. In a Division format, it could wind up being the 3rd, 4th, or even 5th best team going to the Playoff based on overall merit. The loser (Regular Season #1) may still get in as an At Large but if they had a couple of losses going into it, a 3rd loss would probably get them pushed out.
 

Gophers_4life said:
It's a valid concern. Like I mentioned before, it would have to be brute force run through every possible scenario of scheduling and wins-losses to see if it were possible.

But also again, why is 3 unbeatens "worse" than having a group of tied teams in a division?
Click to expand...
Because group of teams can’t tie as unbeatens in a division.
Ties happen. And tiebreaks happen. But you really want a scenario where an unbeaten gopher team is left out because unbeaten Penn state and unbeaten Ohio state are ranked higher by an ESPN committee.

One loss tie breakers you can do common opponents. You can do strength of schedule. Strength of wins. All those for tiebreakers.

unbeaten the only tiebreaker is eye test.

A bunch of teams tied with one loss or two losses is totally different than a bunch of teams tied with 0 losses.



if they do what they’re suggesting… they should scrap the championship game and go back to having split titles. That way if three teams are Tied one isn’t arbitrarily left out of title contention.


It isn’t hard to see how many unbeatens you can have.

Any teams closed loop circles of round robin means that only one team from that group can be unbeaten.
if you have more than 3 teams in schedules that aren’t in closed loop round robin schedules you can have more than 3 unbeatens.

MN-NE-WI-IA
PU-NU-IL-IU
MI-MSU-OSU
PSU-MD-RU

they all play closed loop and randomly assign the other games…you could have 4 unbeatens. One from each group. And unless the right teams play the right teams because of random assignment..that’s a problem when picking a 2 team chanpionship game.

Is it likely? No
But it’s math
 
Last edited:




Some guy said:
Because group of teams can’t tie as unbeatens in a division.
Ties happen. And tiebreaks happen. But you really want a scenario where an unbeaten gopher team is left out because unbeaten Penn state and unbeaten Ohio state are ranked higher by an ESPN committee.

One loss tie breakers you can do common opponents. You can do strength of schedule. Strength of wins. All those for tiebreakers.

unbeaten the only tiebreaker is eye test.
Click to expand...
Why is the bolded scenario worse for Gopher fans than: 12-0 Ohio St in the East, and in the west Gophers, Wisc, and Iowa are all at 11-1 with a circular set of losses to each other, and in which Gophers lose out on tiebreakers?

I suppose you'll come back to: in that scenario, we lost a game, so that's our fault, while in the three unbeatens we won every game and did everything we could right.


You're right. That is worse.
 


Some guy said:
Because group of teams can’t tie as unbeatens in a division.
Ties happen. And tiebreaks happen. But you really want a scenario where an unbeaten gopher team is left out because unbeaten Penn state and unbeaten Ohio state are ranked higher by an ESPN committee.

One loss tie breakers you can do common opponents. You can do strength of schedule. Strength of wins. All those for tiebreakers.

unbeaten the only tiebreaker is eye test.
Click to expand...
Could also do strength of schedule. Which teams beat the 4th best team, 5th best team and so on.

I get that it is a possibility to have 3 unbeaten teams, but what is the statistical probability it could happen in a 14 team league having to play at least 8 games? 1 in 10,000? Any math wiz out there?
 

Gophers_4life said:
Why is the bolded scenario worse for Gopher fans than: 12-0 Ohio St in the East, and in the west Gophers, Wisc, and Iowa are all at 11-1 with a circular set of losses to each other, and in which Gophers lose out on tiebreakers?

I suppose you'll come back to: in that scenario, we lost a game, so that's our fault, while in the three unbeatens we won every game and did everything we could right.


You're right. That is worse.
Click to expand...
Because the gophers lost
I don’t really care honestly.


the easiest solution to the whole quandry is to keep everything as is but add the following.

“In the event that one of the division winners is 2 games behind the second place team in the other division….the second place team from the same goes in place of the division winner with 2 more losses”

“in the event where the division winner has the same amount or one more loss than the second place team from the other division AND lost head to head to that second place team…the second place team goes in place of the division”


I just saved the rivalries and I saved the ADs a lot of time.
 




Ope3 said:
Could also do strength of schedule. Which teams beat the 4th best team, 5th best team and so on.

I get that it is a possibility to have 3 unbeaten teams, but what is the statistical probability it could happen in a 14 team league having to play at least 8 games? 1 in 10,000? Any math wiz out there?
Click to expand...
Not likely, but absolutely stupid to leave as a possibility. You can’t run the numbers until you see the schedule built. And the odds would be different depending on the crossovers between any closed loop round robin groups.

If the “3 protected rivalries” aren’t any closed loop groups of at least 3 teams…the odds are probably a lot higher than people would guess assuming all games are 50/50 probabilities. The fact that the games aren’t 50/50 probabilities make it even more unlikely. Still stupid IMO.

A much easier solution is to create a couple of exceptions to the two division winners play in the championship. Such as I stated in post 73
 

Some guy said:
Because the gophers lost
I don’t really care honestly.


the easiest solution to the whole quandry is to keep everything as is but add the following.

“In the event that one of the division winners is 2 games behind the second place team in the other division….the second place team from the same goes in place of the division winner with 2 more losses”

“in the event where the division winner has the same amount or one more loss than the second place team from the other division AND lost head to head to that second place team…the second place team goes in place of the division”


I just saved the rivalries and I saved the ADs a lot of time.
Click to expand...
I think the presidents, executive leadership of the conf, and the ADs care more about dollars than anything.

So I don't think what you propose is necessarily the motivation.


At a minimum, I think they want to go back down to 8 conf games and add 2 Alliance games (with possible exception for Iowa-Iowa State).

The other part of it, though, maybe they're open to scrapping it.

But there are some interesting trophy games that the current divisions cut out. Minn-Mich and Ill-Ohio St being two off the top of my head.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I think the presidents, executive leadership of the conf, and the ADs care more about dollars than anything.

So I don't think what you propose is necessarily the motivation.


At a minimum, I think they want to go back down to 8 conf games and add 2 Alliance games (with possible exception for Iowa-Iowa State).

The other part of it, though, maybe they're open to scrapping it.

But there are some interesting trophy games that the current divisions cut out. Minn-Mich and Ill-Ohio St being two off the top of my head.
Click to expand...

Completely agree with your comment on dollars being the motivation.

As for Minn-Mich, it stopped being annual back in 1999 long before Divisions were a thing, so there is precedent.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I think the presidents, executive leadership of the conf, and the ADs care more about dollars than anything.

So I don't think what you propose is necessarily the motivation.


At a minimum, I think they want to go back down to 8 conf games and add 2 Alliance games (with possible exception for Iowa-Iowa State).

The other part of it, though, maybe they're open to scrapping it.

But there are some interesting trophy games that the current divisions cut out. Minn-Mich and Ill-Ohio St being two off the top of my head.
Click to expand...
I also have yet to see anyone explain to me how a Michigan Ohio state rematch makes the conference more money when it means the following close games in Oct/Nov games have less meaning:

MN IA
MN WI
IA NE
WI NE
MI OSU
MI PSU
PU OSU
PU MSU
IA NU


do the viewers gained in the Ohio state Michigan rematch mean more than the viewers lost in those 9 games?
I’m not sure I know the answer but I’m hard pressed to see how making fewer games meaningful the last month of the season enhances the big ten brand. It might make more money idk…but I don’t think it’s as clear cut as some people think.
 




Some guy said:
Are they? Why would they be?
Click to expand...
Only thing I can think is more rivalry games to market/sell. With each team having three per year. And maybe more value in every team in the conf seeing every other team every two years?

I'm just spitballin'. I think you bring up a valid point.


The big part of the increase in revenue, to me, is from going down to 8 conf and then adding the 2 Alliance games into it.

But that could also be done while keeping the current divisions. You'd have your current six division games, then work through the other division two at a time. Or you could keep the thing where one game is locked in against your "pair" from the other division, and just one game that switches per year.

I think I'd prefer to have the two switching and get rid of the locked in game, making that like the extra "ninth" game that they chop.
 

Another permutation for the new proposal, by Rutger's beat writer: https://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/...s-and-it-would-it-actually-boost-rutgers.html

Naturally, they don't give Rutgers both Ohio St and Penn St yearly. ;)

WVtjIq1.png


Also very favorable to Maryland.

Penn St vs Purdue? That makes no sense. Maryland should be playing Penn St, instead.
 

Some guy said:
Are they? Why would they be?
Click to expand...
More attractive Championship game and more flexible scheduling.

If the TV/Broadcast partners don't pony up, then it's a non-starter. From the article quoting the Iowa AD, I am under the impression they are willing.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Another permutation for the new proposal, by Rutger's beat writer: https://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/...s-and-it-would-it-actually-boost-rutgers.html

Naturally, they don't give Rutgers both Ohio St and Penn St yearly. ;)

WVtjIq1.png


Also very favorable to Maryland.

Penn St vs Purdue? That makes no sense. Maryland should be playing Penn St, instead.
Click to expand...
Just personally, I don't see the need for a 2nd protected opponent. Rivalry game and 1 "protected opponent" seems fine.

2 overall is plenty.
 

Do the SEC and PAC 12 screw around with their divisional formats as much as the Big Ten does?

Legends/leaders, 8 games, 9 games, east/west, divisions, no divisions...feels like they are always considering a change of some kind to the conference layout. Maybe this is common with other conferences as well as I don't really pay that much attention to how they handle things.
 

Ope3 said:
Just personally, I don't see the need for a 2nd protected opponent. Rivalry game 1 and 1 "protected opponent" seems fine.

2 overall is plenty.
Click to expand...
Sure, but with 14 teams, the numbers don't work out as cleanly at 1 or 2.

With 3 - you have 10 remaining teams and 5 games per year, works clean.

With 2 - you have 11 remaining teams and 6 games per year.
With 1 - you have 12 remaining teams and 7 games per year.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Do the SEC and PAC 12 screw around with their divisional formats as much as the Big Ten does?

Legends/leaders, 8 games, 9 games, east/west, divisions, no divisions...feels like they are always considering a change of some kind to the conference layout. Maybe this is common with other conferences as well as I don't really pay that much attention to how they handle things.
Click to expand...
No.

But I believe the ACC wants to go to no divisions, as well?
 

MNVCGUY said:
Do the SEC and PAC 12 screw around with their divisional formats as much as the Big Ten does?

Legends/leaders, 8 games, 9 games, east/west, divisions, no divisions...feels like they are always considering a change of some kind to the conference layout. Maybe this is common with other conferences as well as I don't really pay that much attention to how they handle things.
Click to expand...
This entire conversation is because Penn state can’t beat Ohio state IMO
 

Ope3 said:
More attractive Championship game and more flexible scheduling.

If the TV/Broadcast partners don't pony up, then it's a non-starter. From the article quoting the Iowa AD, I am under the impression they are willing.
Click to expand...
How does it make the championship game more appealing?
In the playoff rematch games have gotten lower ratings compared to non rematch games.

the Iowa AD said they’re looking into it and talking about it. He said nothing about how the conversation has been.


People love to say:
No divisions makes more money
Conference expansion makes more money

There is actually no one who has shown any numbers to prove this.


If the point of no divisions is so Penn state and Michigan can go to the championship game more it implies at least Penn State will play Ohio state less. Making the regular season less attractive for TV networks. I’ll wait to see what they can do. Is a 2-5 million bump in a conference title game in some years worth taking more teams out of contention in October instead of November? Is having Penn state play northwestern and Illinois more instead of Ohio state more profitable because they might end up in a conference title game? Maybe. Idk

I don’t think the Iowa AD knows either
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom