Big 12's split into divisions on hold as NCAA proposal aims to remove conference title game restrictions

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There has already been great discussion on this in other threads.

@Some guy has been the biggest champion (in my opinion) on keeping divisions, and has put up some very good arguments for it.


Even if the NCAA allows it, that doesn't necessarily guarantee that the Big Ten will get rid of divisions. Will be interesting to see it progress, with the different conferences deciding what they want to do.
 

Couple interesting bits from the OP article:

"The oversight proposal -- authored by the Pac-12, according to NCAA documents -- is considered noncontroversial with widespread support among the 10 FBS conferences."

"Two sources told CBS Sports the SEC may have slow-played the proposal perhaps out of retribution for the ACC not supporting expansion; however, the SEC is now on board."


I could be reading too much into it, but it sure seems like this would indicate that every P5 other than the Big Ten is planning to end divisions.
 

Not a fan of divisions if Big Ten keeps title game. I am sure certain coaches that get to duck Ohio St and Michigan don't agree with me.
 

HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving said:
Not a fan of divisions if Big Ten keeps title game. I am sure certain coaches that get to duck Ohio St and Michigan don't agree with me.
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On the other hand, coaches at Indiana, Rutgers, and Maryland agree with you!

Also, Ohio St would love to restart the Illibuck Trophy, I imagine.
 


Let's say the B1G got rid of divisions. Now you need a schedule that rotates among opponents on some type of system while maintaining traditional rivalries.

If you have 1 traditional rivalry, OK. but what about the Gophers, who have IA and WI as traditional rivals, plus "trophy" games with Mich and PSU, and a regional rivalry with Neb.

Imagine a schedule where the Gophers play Rutgers and Maryland, but they don't play IA and Neb. that would be possible under a "no-division" setup.

Personally, I say keep the divisions.

Now, at the end of the year, if you want the Conference Championship game to match the two highest-rated teams in the B1G, regardless of divisions, then that's a different discussion.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Let's say the B1G got rid of divisions. Now you need a schedule that rotates among opponents on some type of system while maintaining traditional rivalries.

If you have 1 traditional rivalry, OK. but what about the Gophers, who have IA and WI as traditional rivals, plus "trophy" games with Mich and PSU, and a regional rivalry with Neb.

Imagine a schedule where the Gophers play Rutgers and Maryland, but they don't play IA and Neb. that would be possible under a "no-division" setup.

Personally, I say keep the divisions.

Now, at the end of the year, if you want the Conference Championship game to match the two highest-rated teams in the B1G, regardless of divisions, then that's a different discussion.
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I want a 13 game conference schedule with one non conference game. You can say it's not going to happen but I did not think people would want out of $400,000 NIL deals either.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Let's say the B1G got rid of divisions. Now you need a schedule that rotates among opponents on some type of system while maintaining traditional rivalries.

If you have 1 traditional rivalry, OK. but what about the Gophers, who have IA and WI as traditional rivals, plus "trophy" games with Mich and PSU, and a regional rivalry with Neb.

Imagine a schedule where the Gophers play Rutgers and Maryland, but they don't play IA and Neb. that would be possible under a "no-division" setup.

Personally, I say keep the divisions.

Now, at the end of the year, if you want the Conference Championship game to match the two highest-rated teams in the B1G, regardless of divisions, then that's a different discussion.
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Could maintain 2 trophy games easily enough, and ideally have them all be rotating home/away such that each school gets 1 home 1 away per year. Maryland/Rutgers get a "new" rivalry since they don't matter, would be 4 games left to schedule of the remaining ones. Minnesota/Michigan and Illinois/Purdue would be biggest ones lost

Minnesota - Wisconsin, Iowa
Wisconsin - Minnesota,
Iowa - Minnesota, Nebraska
Purdue - Indiana
Illinois - Northwestern, Ohio St
Nebraska - Iowa
Northwestern - Illinois

Michigan - Ohio St, Michigan St
Ohio State - Michigan, Illinois
Michigan St - Michigan
Pedo St - Maryland
Maryland - Pedo St, Rutgers
Rutgers - Maryland
Indiana - Purdue
 

HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving said:
Not a fan of divisions if Big Ten keeps title game. I am sure certain coaches that get to duck Ohio St and Michigan don't agree with me.
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Depending on playoff structure it is disadvantageous to not have divisions.

Even if there is no divisions there will likely be closed loop scheduling with two round robins within the schedule. which is what divisions are just without the names.
I’m okay ending divisions if they preserve rivalry games and build a schedule where no more than two teams can mathematically go unbeaten in conference.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
Let's say the B1G got rid of divisions. Now you need a schedule that rotates among opponents on some type of system while maintaining traditional rivalries.

If you have 1 traditional rivalry, OK. but what about the Gophers, who have IA and WI as traditional rivals, plus "trophy" games with Mich and PSU, and a regional rivalry with Neb.

Imagine a schedule where the Gophers play Rutgers and Maryland, but they don't play IA and Neb. that would be possible under a "no-division" setup.

Personally, I say keep the divisions.

Now, at the end of the year, if you want the Conference Championship game to match the two highest-rated teams in the B1G, regardless of divisions, then that's a different discussion.
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Yeah. Even if they drop divisions, I don’t think they drop dicisuonal scheduling. You need two closed loop round robins to eliminate the possibility of unbeatens. Maybe that means they can rotate divisions year yo year though
 

Some guy said:
Depending on playoff structure it is disadvantageous to not have divisions.

Even if there is no divisions there will likely be closed loop scheduling with two round robins within the schedule. which is what divisions are just without the names.
I’m okay ending divisions if they preserve rivalry games and build a schedule where no more than two teams can mathematically go unbeaten in conference.
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Part of the reason (really the main reason) I don't like divisions is Gophers are in the junior league.
 

I just want to for sure play Iowa and Wisconsin every year and then have a reasonable amount of time to play every other team home and away. With 2 protected rivalries you can do that with either 8 or 9 conference games in 4 years. Now I know this doesn't take anything else into account as far as tie breaker situations, but I'm sure you could make it work.
 

HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving said:
Part of the reason (really the main reason) I don't like divisions is Gophers are in the junior league.
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The “junior” league is within a couple of games of .500 against the senior league

If you put Ohio State, Michigan, Rutgers, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and northwestern in a division

Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan state, Penn state, Minnesota, Purdue


Which division is the better division? Because the top division there will win 90% of titles.
 



swelna said:
, but I'm sure you could make it work.
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I’m not sure you could make it work to play all 14 consistently because 14 is a bad number to have constantly rotating schedules while also preserving rivalries without divisions.

If the league added two teams it would be really easy to put teams in groups of 4. Pair groups of 4 with each other. Then a different two sets of 4 the next year. 16 is an easier number to do it with.
If you expand the conference to 16 you can really easily play 3 schools every year. Then play each of the other home and home at least twice every 6 years on an 8 game schedule.
 

Some guy said:
I’m not sure you could make it work to play all 14 consistently because 14 is a bad number to have constantly rotating schedules while also preserving rivalries without divisions.

If the league added two teams it would be really easy to put teams in groups of 4. Pair groups of 4 with each other. Then a different two sets of 4 the next year. 16 is an easier number to do it with.
If you expand the conference to 16 you can really easily play 3 schools every year. Then play each of the other home and home at least twice every 6 years on an 8 game schedule.
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They do that, it's called the NFL.
 


Some guy said:
Depending on playoff structure it is disadvantageous to not have divisions.

Even if there is no divisions there will likely be closed loop scheduling with two round robins within the schedule. which is what divisions are just without the names.
I’m okay ending divisions if they preserve rivalry games and build a schedule where no more than two teams can mathematically go unbeaten in conference.
Click to expand...
It only takes six conference games to chop the membership in half, any way you like, and create a two separate cycles of round-robin, which as you've preached would eliminate the possibility of three unbeaten teams.

With nine conf games, that gives three locked in rivalries.

Would be interesting then to see what even are the possibilities to accomplish both, for some given set of the fixed rivalries that they want played every year. Obviously, they need to avoid duplicate conference games within the regular season (ie, one is a fixed rivalry, and then one is within one of the round-robins).
 

I'd venture a guess that it is very difficult to satisfy all of the following criteria, with 14 members and 9 conf games each:

- no more than two unbeatens possible - ie, need six conf games to be two separate round-robins
- remaining conf games (3) are a set of fixed rivalry games, played every year, including as many of the historical trophy games as possible
- every team plays every other team in the conference every X years (say, 4 to 6)
- no duplicate conference games in the regular season (champ game can be a rematch)

Something has to give. The second and third criteria are where the conflicts come in, given the constraints of the first and fourth criteria.

For me personally, the third one is the least important. If we never or very rarely play, say Rutgers, Penn St, Maryland ... I really will not care much at all.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I'd venture a guess that it is very difficult to satisfy all of the following criteria, with 14 members and 9 conf games each:

- no more than two unbeatens possible - ie, need six conf games to be two separate round-robins
- remaining conf games (3) are a set of fixed rivalry games, played every year, including as many of the historical trophy games as possible
- every team plays every other team in the conference every X years (say, 4 to 6)
- no duplicate conference games in the regular season (champ game can be a rematch)

Something has to give. The second and third criteria are where the conflicts come in, given the constraints of the first and fourth criteria.

For me personally, the third one is the least important. If we never or very rarely play, say Rutgers, Penn St, Maryland ... I really will not care much at all.
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I would agree with that
 

rowdaboat said:
Could maintain 2 trophy games easily enough, and ideally have them all be rotating home/away such that each school gets 1 home 1 away per year. Maryland/Rutgers get a "new" rivalry since they don't matter, would be 4 games left to schedule of the remaining ones. Minnesota/Michigan and Illinois/Purdue would be biggest ones lost

Minnesota - Wisconsin, Iowa
Wisconsin - Minnesota,
Iowa - Minnesota, Nebraska
Purdue - Indiana
Illinois - Northwestern, Ohio St
Nebraska - Iowa
Northwestern - Illinois

Michigan - Ohio St, Michigan St
Ohio State - Michigan, Illinois
Michigan St - Michigan
Pedo St - Maryland
Maryland - Pedo St, Rutgers
Rutgers - Maryland
Indiana - Purdue
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Iowa has a bigger rivalry with Wisconsin than Nebraska.
 

there are no perfect solutions. no matter what system you come up with, at least one and probably more than one of the schools in the B1G will complain that it's not fair.

In general, I like the divisional setup because I know the Gophers are going to play IA, WI and Neb every year, and those are the games that I think most fans want to see.

so, given a choice between playing those schools every year, vs a system where the Gophers play Indiana or Michigan State more often, give me the current system.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
there are no perfect solutions. no matter what system you come up with, at least one and probably more than one of the schools in the B1G will complain that it's not fair.

In general, I like the divisional setup because I know the Gophers are going to play IA, WI and Neb every year, and those are the games that I think most fans want to see.

so, given a choice between playing those schools every year, vs a system where the Gophers play Indiana or Michigan State more often, give me the current system.
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I would tend to agree, I would hate any schedule where we didn't play at least Iowa and Wis yearly.
 

There are two divisions in the BIG-tOSU in one and the rest of the teams in the other division.
 


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