Arkansas' Bret Bielema proposes Big Ten/SEC football challenge

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ntereing proposal from our friend Bret Belema

I like it too. I'd like it more if the SEC went to a 9 game conference schedule along with us, but I like it nonetheless.
 


STPGopher said:
Can we play them at home in November?
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hahaha yea right, they would never agree to that.
The logistics of this would be a nightmare. Ranking teams and then figuring out who plays where. I definitely would not be in favor of neutral site games. I don't want to have to travel outside of a bowl game or conference game. Thats asking too much for most fans in terms of the pocketbook.

Alas, an interesting idea. And i am all for it, just no neutral site (SEC HOME GAME) bull.
 

t-docious said:
hahaha yea right, they would never agree to that.
The logistics of this would be a nightmare. Ranking teams and then figuring out who plays where. I definitely would not be in favor of neutral site games. I don't want to have to travel outside of a bowl game or conference game. Thats asking too much for most fans in terms of the pocketbook.

Alas, an interesting idea. And i am all for it, just no neutral site (SEC HOME GAME) bull.
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I don't think it would be that crazy to schedule. Just do it like the ACC-B1G challenge in basketball. Pick a week, week 2 for example, and force all teams to leave it open. The biggest issue is that you'd have to schedule the first challenge to be 3-5 or so years out so teams could fulfill prior commitments.
 


I would love this. I view non-conference games nearly the same way I view the NFL preseason. The more meaningful games, the better.
 

We've beat Alabama every time we've played them (once, 2004!).

Why not us!

Go Gophers!!
 


I'd like it. In a sense, since espn loves the sec, any win you get over anyone other than Vandy or Kentucky puts you in the top 25 and any loss is due to the extremely good conference so it can't hurt you on selection day. Right?
 



The CFP (like the polls) has quickly resorted to rewarding teams that play lesser competition.
 

Replace FCS games with them. It would mean coming to North early in the season and going South later. I'd like to see them sprinkled throughout the season.


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Goldmember said:
The CFP (like the polls) has quickly resorted to rewarding teams that play lesser competition.
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I don't know, I thought Baylor got properly punished for their crap out of conference schedule last year.

As much as I don't like agreeing with anything Big Butthead at Arkansas says, this is a neat idea. Nice if they would go to a 9 game conference schedule like a real conference though.
 

F bret bulimia, anything he suggests I'm against. Just keep beating them in bowl games.


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I like it. In general I would like to see all teams play more regular season games against the other power 5 conference teams.
 


I proposed this last year. They should do it just like the basketball teams do it with the ACC or whatever conference. 1 plays 1 etc. Could put to rest who is the better conference each year.
 

I like Butthead Bielema's idea, but it would be tough to pull off. You'd almost have to make it a home-and-home like in basketball. Scheduling one year at a time (to get fair matchups) would be difficult in terms of alternately scheduling home/road games every year. Would have to be a way to guarantee each team gets a home game every other season.

So who'd be an appropriate SEC opponent for the Gophers at this stage of their programs and the pecking order in their respective conferences? South Carolina or Tennessee?
 

SelectionSunday said:
I like Butthead Bielema's idea, but it would be tough to pull off. You'd almost have to make it a home-and-home like in basketball. Scheduling one year at a time (to get fair matchups) would be difficult in terms of alternately scheduling home/road games every year. Would have to be a way to guarantee each team gets a home game every other season.

So who'd be an appropriate SEC opponent for the Gophers at this stage of their programs and the pecking order in their respective conferences? South Carolina or Tennessee?
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Yes. Please make this happen.
 

Do you guys like the idea of the best always playing the best and the bottom teams playing other bottom teams? This makes sense for basketball when there are 30 games to build a resume off of, but if a surprise team (Iowa this year) gets matched up with Kentucky right off the bat and doesn't have a decent non conference win out of this challenge they could get passed over by a 1 loss Ohio St because they got to play Alabama.

I know everyone would want to watch those big time matchups but it just seems like those teams would just have another leg up on everyone with the committee.
 

This would be fun and is an interesting (albeit not new) idea, but won't happen. The B1G and PAC-10 agreed to a similar scheduling model a few years ago, but both parties backed away due to logistical concerns.
 

Love the idea.

As someone suggested, the schools can reserve a specific week in the schedule and work around it until the commitments have played out in 2 - 3 years. Then play the cross-over game in sync with prior year's conference finish.

And yes, when you draw Arkansas, you have to go for 2 regardless of situation!
 

tmvander said:
Do you guys like the idea of the best always playing the best and the bottom teams playing other bottom teams? This makes sense for basketball when there are 30 games to build a resume off of, but if a surprise team (Iowa this year) gets matched up with Kentucky right off the bat and doesn't have a decent non conference win out of this challenge they could get passed over by a 1 loss Ohio St because they got to play Alabama.

I know everyone would want to watch those big time matchups but it just seems like those teams would just have another leg up on everyone with the committee.
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A loss to albama>than a loss to kentucky.
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
This would be fun and is an interesting (albeit not new) idea, but won't happen. The B1G and PAC-10 agreed to a similar scheduling model a few years ago, but both parties backed away due to logistical concerns.
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Exactly. Great idea in theory, but incredibly difficult to implement with only 12 games per year.

The point about surprise teams like Iowa is a valid one, but there isn't a viable other way to do it. The Big Ten and ACC schedule according to the previous season's results, and that would have to be the way to go here, too. You can't wait to rank teams in the preseason like Bert suggests -- those polls don't come out until August (unless he is suggesting an informal poll conducted around Signing Day?).

Here is how a 2015 Big Ten-SEC Challenge could have played out, based on 2014 results:

Ohio State vs. Alabama
Michigan State vs. Missouri
Wisconsin vs. Mississippi State
Nebraska vs. Georgia
Minnesota vs. Ole Miss
Maryland vs. Auburn
Iowa vs. LSU
Rutgers vs. Florida
Illinois vs. Texas A&M
Penn State vs. Tennessee
Michigan vs. South Carolina
Northwestern vs. Arkansas
Indiana vs. Kentucky
Purdue vs. Vanderbilt
 

tmvander said:
Do you guys like the idea of the best always playing the best and the bottom teams playing other bottom teams? This makes sense for basketball when there are 30 games to build a resume off of, but if a surprise team (Iowa this year) gets matched up with Kentucky right off the bat and doesn't have a decent non conference win out of this challenge they could get passed over by a 1 loss Ohio St because they got to play Alabama.

I know everyone would want to watch those big time matchups but it just seems like those teams would just have another leg up on everyone with the committee.
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According to ESPN...there are no bottom teams in the SEC.
 

I think you could pull it off. Probably would have to designate which teams are the home teams before hand, and then fill in the teams based on that (probably easy with the Big Ten, just have those that have 5 conference home games as ones that would probably be on the road for the challenge that season). Pretty much, you know if you have a home or road game going into the offseason, and then come up with the matchups around February or sometime. Would be too difficult to base it off of preseason, you'd have to base it off of the previous season.

Also, I know everyone would love to see Ohio State & Alabama go at it, I don't know how much I'd like to see it 1v1, 2v2, etc. I think you'd run into the same problem the basketball challenge has, at least in my opinion, which is you usually see most of the same teams. Even if it means Minnesota has to see an Alabama or LSU. I think the Alabama's & OSU's would be ok with that too, not always having to see each other.

Would everyone go along with it though? All non-conference schedules aren't the same. Some make fun of Florida for hardly ever leaving the state, but they also play Florida State every season too. Adding a Big Ten team to that suddenly makes their schedule pretty filthy.
 

FireDaveLee said:
All non-conference schedules aren't the same. Some make fun of Florida for hardly ever leaving the state, but they also play Florida State every season too. Adding a Big Ten team to that suddenly makes their schedule pretty filthy.
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Good point, although in Florida's case, "hardly ever" is 1991(!), the last time they left the state for a non-conference game. And, as others mentioned, the SEC is sticking with 8 conference games and continuing to schedule FCS teams, so that would offset the difficulty compared to Big Ten teams.

These teams have annual non-conference rivalry games to work around:

Iowa (Iowa State)
Florida (Florida State)
Kentucky (Louisville)
South Carolina (Clemson)
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Good point, although in Florida's case, "hardly ever" is 1991(!), the last time they left the state for a non-conference game. And, as others mentioned, the SEC is sticking with 8 conference games and continuing to schedule FCS teams, so that would offset the difficulty compared to Big Ten teams.

These teams have annual non-conference rivalry games to work around:

Iowa (Iowa State)
Florida (Florida State)
Kentucky (Louisville)
South Carolina (Clemson)
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Add Georgia-Georgia Tech to the annual non-conference rivalry list.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Exactly. Great idea in theory, but incredibly difficult to implement with only 12 games per year.

The point about surprise teams like Iowa is a valid one, but there isn't a viable other way to do it. The Big Ten and ACC schedule according to the previous season's results, and that would have to be the way to go here, too. You can't wait to rank teams in the preseason like Bert suggests -- those polls don't come out until August (unless he is suggesting an informal poll conducted around Signing Day?).

Here is how a 2015 Big Ten-SEC Challenge could have played out, based on 2014 results:

Ohio State vs. Alabama
Michigan State vs. Missouri
Wisconsin vs. Mississippi State
Nebraska vs. Georgia
Minnesota vs. Ole Miss
Maryland vs. Auburn
Iowa vs. LSU
Rutgers vs. Florida
Illinois vs. Texas A&M
Penn State vs. Tennessee
Michigan vs. South Carolina
Northwestern vs. Arkansas
Indiana vs. Kentucky
Purdue vs. Vanderbilt
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You go off conference results from last year. You don't go off preseason rankings. Follow basketball as an example. There is no reason the B1G and the SEC couldn't leave the 3-4th week of their schedule open each year and officially schedule those games in December after the season is complete and the conference championship has been hashed out.
 

Goldmember said:
The CFP (like the polls) has quickly resorted to rewarding teams that play lesser competition.
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How do you figure? They have 1-loss Alabama and Notre Dame ahead of undefeated Iowa and Ok St. as well as several other one loss teams because they both play tougher schedules. The only anomaly is Ohio St., who has had a pretty easy schedule, but the CFP would be crucified if they left out an undefeated defending national champion. Plus, Ohio St.'s strength of schedule will look much better after they finish the season with three top-15 opponents.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Exactly. Great idea in theory, but incredibly difficult to implement with only 12 games per year.

The point about surprise teams like Iowa is a valid one, but there isn't a viable other way to do it. The Big Ten and ACC schedule according to the previous season's results, and that would have to be the way to go here, too. You can't wait to rank teams in the preseason like Bert suggests -- those polls don't come out until August (unless he is suggesting an informal poll conducted around Signing Day?).

Here is how a 2015 Big Ten-SEC Challenge could have played out, based on 2014 results:

Ohio State vs. Alabama
Michigan State vs. Missouri
Wisconsin vs. Mississippi State
Nebraska vs. Georgia
Minnesota vs. Ole Miss
Maryland vs. Auburn
Iowa vs. LSU
Rutgers vs. Florida
Illinois vs. Texas A&M
Penn State vs. Tennessee
Michigan vs. South Carolina
Northwestern vs. Arkansas
Indiana vs. Kentucky
Purdue vs. Vanderbilt
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We'd lucky to win more than 5 of those. Unless everyone else goes to 9 conference games, or the B1G goes back to 8, I don't see this happening.
 

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