B1G Media Deal: 7 Years, $1.2 Billion

[Gophers_4life]

It makes the 5 team pods work great for the west coast, but I agree with others about Cal over Oregon. I’m sure the temptation would be to put Notre Dame in the Mid East division below, but I think that would make that pod way too strong and the East too weak.
West:
USC
UCLA
Stanford
Cal
Washington
Mid West:
Minnesota
Iowa
Wisconsin
Nebraska
Purdue
Mid East:
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Illinois
Northwestern
East:
Penn State
Notre Dame
Maryland
Indiana
Rutgers

So this could be done with 10 conf games per year having 4 "locked-in" annual games per year as your pods.

With 20 teams, that allows you to rotate among the remaining 15 teams twice every five years with the remaining 6 games per year.


In that case though, Notre Dame and USC have to play every year. So though it might seem odd, this is how I would "fix" that:

A - California 4 + Notre Dame
B - Washington + Quadrangle
C - as you have
D - switch Purdue for ND

Could also flip-flop ILL/NW and IU/PU, not sure if that is better. IU and MSU technically have a trophy game, but technically so do OSU and ILL. Purdue and ILL also have a strong rivalry. Not sure how you save it though and also maintain both ILL/NW and IU/PU. I suppose you could stick them all in the same pod with someone (Penn St?), and then OSU, Michigans, Rutgers, Maryland.


This is really just for football "scheduling" purposes, anyway. It's not like the 4 "winners" of the pods mean anything. The top 2 (in whatever sense) go to the championship game. And doesn't mean anything for other sports.