Will have to have divisions in B10

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Great Plains Gopher

Great Plains Gopher

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A list of 18 teams doesn't make a conference - imagine the enthusiasm fans will have being 11th of 18 teams. Adding four genuine powers from the Pacific Coast will just push teams like Minnesota, Purdue, Northwestern probably Nebraska, into the also-rans. If the Gophers couldn't win the West when it had 7 teams, how will it ever climb over the likes of USC, Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa or some equivalent. It won't. A new East-West alignment will have to be established in the conference even if the location of some teams is vague, maybe even ridiculous. The PCC doesn't belong in the B10, but then neither did Maryland or Rutgers.
 

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The latest chatter is that there will be a ten-conference game schedule.
This will make for a better experience for season ticket holders and more TV interest for the carriers paying the bills.
It seems divisions are not going to happen.
 

Plato said:
The latest chatter is that there will be a ten-conference game schedule.
This will make for a better experience for season ticket holders and more TV interest for the carriers paying the bills.
It seems divisions are not going to happen.
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No I think that ship has sailed.
Love 10 game schedule. Would actually love a 12 game schedule.

As with a 9 game schedule it will bring a different standard for what success looks like.

I do think once expansion is done they will group teams for scheduling. Even if they don’t call them divisions.

5 team scheduling groups in a 10 game conference schedule in a 20 team conference allows you to play:
4 teams 6/6 years
6 teams 3/6 years
9 teams 2/6 years
 

I do hope some sort of divisions come back. It would be a natural to go that route the bigger the conference gets and the more coastal teams are added...like smaller conferences within a super conference. Otherwise, the larger the conference gets, the more it will resemble being an independent school with a varying schedule from year to year. I think that sucks from both a fan perspective and also as a student with all the extra travel, especially for the non-football sports.
 




Panthadad2 said:
I do hope some sort of divisions come back. It would be a natural to go that route the bigger the conference gets and the more coastal teams are added...like smaller conferences within a super conference. Otherwise, the larger the conference gets, the more it will resemble being an independent school with a varying schedule from year to year. I think that sucks from both a fan perspective and also as a student with all the extra travel, especially for the non-football sports.
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I agree. It would be very nice if they end up at 20 teams, to have two divisions.... Division 1... original B1G members and Division 2 all new members. This would maintain existing rivalries and on a rotating basis create new matchups and new rivalries. And a four team playoff for Conference championship (best 4 teams regardless of division)
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
Divisions for scheduling purposes.

Single table for standings.
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What would have been good was to bring back legends and leaders without telling anyone. And then say top 2 instead of division winners
Teams across from each other with locked games

Ohio State-Michigan
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Northwestern-Illinois
Penn State-Nebraska
Indiana - Michigan State
Northwestern - Purdue
Rutgers - Maryland
USC - UCLA
Washington - Oregon

Problem with this, is with static divisions you really never play the other division.
So really you need “groupings” that rotate.
Divisions that change every year and don’t appear in the standings.
 




If you add Notre Dame and Stanford, How would the three game rivalry schedule work?

Minnesota - Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska?
Wisconsin - Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern
Iowa - Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska

These are the teams Gopher fans care about. There has been talk of the West Coast Schools playing their pod yearly, but USC and Stanford have long histories with ND as does Michigan. So…

USC - UCLA, Notre Dame, Washington?
Norte Dame - Michigan, USC, Stanford
Michigan - OSU, MSU, Notre Dame
Stanford - Notre Dame, Washington, Oregon

Washington and Oregon don’t have historical rivalries outside their states. How would this get mixed in? Obviously they would want games in the same time zone but they have been in opposite divisions from the LA schools for awhile.

This will get more and more complicated and probably require a ten game conference slate.
 

WoodburyTim said:
You have 18 or 20 teams with no divisions and you would have teams with no common opponents of teams in their own conference. Hardly seems like a conference.
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It really is more a collective "Association" of similar universities, than a Conference as we have come to know it. It should have been realized when USC/UCLA joined, but now it's completely hammered home with Oregon/Washington expansion and likely more.

Some fortunate teams (more like franchises now) will get to hoist a Big 10 banner now and then, but it will mean something completely different than it has for the past 100+ years.

Good. Bad. Otherwise.
 

As others have posted, adding two more teams including one more West Coast team (Stanford?) to make 20 would make easy divisions and scheduling for all; including non-revenue sports. The divisions play each other every year (maybe twice for basketball) then rotate in other divisions. To me, the biggest problem with this is that pesky OSU/MI game. Those two have to play every year but probably wouldn't want to be in the same division.
 

Ope3 said:
It really is more a collective "Association" of similar universities, than a Conference as we have come to know it. It should have been realized when USC/UCLA joined, but now it's completely hammered home with Oregon/Washington expansion and likely more.

Some fortunate teams (more like franchises now) will get to hoist a Big 10 banner now and then, but it will mean something completely different than it has for the past 100+ years.

Good. Bad. Otherwise.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'd take it even further and say that the recent divisional championship competitions probably had more in common with the old Big 10 than the recent conference competitions with 14 teams and a championship game.
 


I don't have a subscription so can't read the article, but the headline blurb makes sense to me!

 

Some guy said:
What would have been good was to bring back legends and leaders without telling anyone. And then say top 2 instead of division winners
Teams across from each other with locked games

Ohio State-Michigan
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Northwestern-Illinois
Penn State-Nebraska
Indiana - Michigan State
Northwestern - Purdue
Rutgers - Maryland
USC - UCLA
Washington - Oregon

Problem with this, is with static divisions you really never play the other division.
So really you need “groupings” that rotate.
Divisions that change every year and don’t appear in the standings.
Click to expand...
Yeah, why I think the flex schedule works best. 10 conference games, 2/3 locked opponents. I would have no issues with 11 or all 12 games being in conference. G5 teams would probably struggle financially, but the payouts saved is not chump change for the conference.
 

Panthadad2 said:
I don't have a subscription so can't read the article, but the headline blurb makes sense to me!

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I can't read either but if adding them got B1G to the contract we have now, then it was a good move
 

mngolf said:
I can't read either but if adding them got B1G to the contract we have now, then it was a good move
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I read it. While Rutgers hasn't been impactful in football, their addition allowed the Big Ten to go from about $50 million a year to about $200 million a year annual average value.

Add to the fact that they're a large university with respectable academics, calling it the worst realignment move in history I think is quite a leap.....
 

If you get 20 teams, then 4 divisions of 5. Each year you play the other 4 in your division and then all 5 of a rotation of the other divisions. Then for the BT championship, best record from your division and the other division you played (since everyone within those 2 divisions will have played each other) and then do the same with the other 2 divisions.

So year 1:
Division A vs Division B
Division C vs Division D

BT championship is best record of Division A/B vs best record Division C/D

Year 2:
A vs C
B vs D

A/C vs B/D

and so on
 
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PMWinSTP said:
Hard to quantify if you only look at Rutgers sports accomplishments. It gave the B1G the NY market.
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Sure, but how many eyeballs in NY/NJ actually watch Rutgers that wouldn't already be watching the BIG? I'm skeptical that it's a big number.
 

without being a fly on the wall, it's hard to know how long some of these moves have been planned. The B1G may have had long-term aspirations on adding WA and OR, but the accelerated collapse of the Pac-12 quite likely moved up the timetable.

point being - the B1G was planning for '24 as a 16-team conf and now they have to re-plan for an 18-team conf. so we'll see if that impacts scheduling, including the issue of divisions or no divisions.
I don't think it is absolutely essential to have divisions as long as there is a workable scheduling system that preserves rivalries while getting to play all of the other teams through some kind of rotation.
 


Not sure how it's going to end up, but I'm becoming an old "Get off my grass" person with regard to this. I hate it and think I will lose some interest. We'll see.
 


If you have two nine team divisions:

You have eight games against the division and then 1 or 2 cross-over games. Let’s say two. It would then take five years to play every team in the conference. Unless you only do this for scheduling purposes and then simply pick the top teams for the championship game.

Align the divisions yearly by equally dividing the teams by expectational rankings so: (coaches poll rankings)

Division 1

Michigan 2
PSU 7
Washington 11
Iowa 26
Minnesota 40
Maryland 45
Purdue
Indiana
Northwestern

Division 2

OSU 4
USC 6
Oregon 15
Wisconsin 21
UCLA 31
Nebraska
Illinois 48
MSU
Rutgers

The problem with equally dividing the teams by expectations as above for the 2023 season is it pays no attention to travel or rivalries. You may also get stuck with a rematch game in the championship.

Nonetheless, you are going to garner enough interest to make plenty of cash in your TV rights that the B1G might not care about travel costs and rivalries.

Remember, the B1G TV deal is only 7 years long and then they can renegotiate for even more.
 
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