Big Ten alignments

Donate To GopherHole
gophersfan

gophersfan

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 12, 2008
Messages
4,887
Reaction score
493
Points
83
Now that Nebraska has join the conference. let say there is no more members joining. how would you do the division alignments.


here what i would do.

Big Ten East
Michigan
Ohio State
Purdue
Indiana
Michigan State
Penn State

Big Ten West
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Northwestern
Illinois


How would you do it.
 

I don't see them aligning this by geography at all. Especially since Delaney mentioned the conference would look at a competitive balance.

Division 1
Penn St
Michigan
Michigan St
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Morthwestern

Division 2
Nebraska
Ohio St
Indiana
Purdue
Iowa
Illinois

play everyone in your division once and then one team from the other division every year such as
Mich / OSU
Neb / PSU
Minn / Iowa
NW / Ill
Wis / In or Purdue
Mich St / In or Purde

and rotate the 2 out of the other 5 from the respective divisions every year.
 



East-West makes sense.

It works competitively, it works with rivalries, and it works geographically. Since we're now 12 schools with PSU, it's the best way to go.
 


gopheraschells said:
all of this is irrelevant because the big ten isnt done adding
Click to expand...

According to Delany they're not going to add anyone for the next 12-18 months and the only reason they adding Nebraska now is because they didn't think they'd hang around that long unclaimed.
 

gophersfan said:
Now that Nebraska has join the conference. let say there is no more members joining. how would you do the division alignments.


here what i would do.

Big Ten East
Michigan
Ohio State
Purdue
Indiana
Michigan State
Penn State

Big Ten West
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Northwestern
Illinois


How would you do it.
Click to expand...


This is the only way to do it. Jostling such an obvious arrangement for "competitive balance" would be insulting.

"We know you guys are near each other and have long standing rivalries, but you suck to much to form a division."
 

North: Minn, wisc, Northwestern, Purdue, Mich, MSU
South: Neb, Iowa, ILL, Indiana, OSU, PSU

Each team plays 5 games in the division. (5 games)

Each team team always plays the three other teams in it's quad. (2 games) The quads are:

1. Minn, wisc, Iowa, Neb
2. Ill, NU, Pur, Ind
3. Mich, MSU, OSU, PSU

Then there are two games against two of the four teams not included in all that. (2 games)

That adds up to a nine game conference schedule.
For example, the permanent opponents of Minnesota would be: wisc, Iowa, Neb, Mich, MSU, NU, Pur.
and the rotating schools would be Ill, Ind, OSU, and PSU.

Run all of that for any team. Tell me who would be too disappointed with that.

I realize that some rivalries are split up in terms of divisions, but its only for standings reasons. Rivals should always play each other, and it wouldn't diminish the rivalry. Ask the ACC, the rivalries are just as intense (see FSU and Miami or GTech and Clemson).
 

I like the East-West lineup

While Michigan, Ohio State & Penn State have panache, but I would match up Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin to those three any day.
 



Has anyone put together or seen linked anywhere a calculation of average big ten record of the teams in the proposed east west lineup? I'd like to understand just how unbalanced it is.
 

Here are my thoughts.

- There is no way they will put 3 of Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska in one division. I would be shocked. With that in mind, they'll split them up 2-2. The Big Ten will not want another Big 12 south vs north situation.

- Geographically, the only scenario that will support the 2-2 scenario is north south (N=MN, WI, MI, MSU, NW, PSU, S=NE, IA, IL, PUR, IN, OSU). This doesn't make sense to me though, because what is the point of geographic divisions if Minnesota is going to be grouped with Penn State (opposite ends) and not Iowa (close rival)? I don't see this happening either.

- Any other geogrphic scenario puts Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State in the same division so I don't think those will happen either. Of these, the next closest balance for football would be Northwest/Southeast, but in that lineup the SE division would have Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan State. That equals a loaded basketball division so it will not happen.

So what I think they'll do is just some kind of balanced mix. I went through and did my own rankings of football and basketball programs and here is what I came up with.

A.
Penn State
Michigan
Indiana
Purdue
Michigan State
Iowa

B.
Ohio State
Nebraska
Illinois
Minnesota
Northwestern
Wisconsin

- Each division has 2 football powers
- The basketball balance is decent.
- In-state rivalries are maintained
- Theoretically, the conference 'sbiggest football rivalry with Michigan and Ohio State is setup for a potential conference title game. Not a bad thought at all from the Big Ten's perspective.

- The big downside is that Iowa would be in the opposite divison from what would figure to be their 4 biggest rivals: MN, WI, NE and IL.
- You could fix that and actually improve the basketball balance by swapping Minnesota and Purdue, but then the instate rivalry between IU and PU is lost. That would look like:

A.
Penn State
Michigan
Indiana
Michigan State
Minnesota
Iowa

B.
Ohio State
Nebraska
Illinois
Northwestern
Purdue
Wisconsin

My $.02.
 

East/West is the only way that makes sense. Delany did say he wants to preserve rivalries. Look at the horrible mistake the ACC made with their divisional alignments. Most college football rubes can't even recite which schools are in which divisions. Geographic alignment is the only alignment that makes sense. Lake MIchigan and the Illinois/Indiana state lines are a PERFECT border.

Comparisons to a competitive imbalance that arose between Big12 North/South are irrelevant in my mind because much of that imbalance had to do with the disproportionate revenue sharing.
 

gopher7 said:
Here are my thoughts.

- There is no way they will put 3 of Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska in one division. I would be shocked. With that in mind, they'll split them up 2-2. The Big Ten will not want another Big 12 south vs north situation.

- Geographically, the only scenario that will support the 2-2 scenario is north south (N=MN, WI, MI, MSU, NW, PSU, S=NE, IA, IL, PUR, IN, OSU). This doesn't make sense to me though, because what is the point of geographic divisions if Minnesota is going to be grouped with Penn State (opposite ends) and not Iowa (close rival)? I don't see this happening either.

- Any other geogrphic scenario puts Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State in the same division so I don't think those will happen either. Of these, the next closest balance for football would be Northwest/Southeast, but in that lineup the SE division would have Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan State. That equals a loaded basketball division so it will not happen.

So what I think they'll do is just some kind of balanced mix. I went through and did my own rankings of football and basketball programs and here is what I came up with.

A.
Penn State
Michigan
Indiana
Purdue
Michigan State
Iowa

B.
Ohio State
Nebraska
Illinois
Minnesota
Northwestern
Wisconsin

- Each division has 2 football powers
- The basketball balance is decent.
- In-state rivalries are maintained
- Theoretically, the conference 'sbiggest football rivalry with Michigan and Ohio State is setup for a potential conference title game. Not a bad thought at all from the Big Ten's perspective.

- The big downside is that Iowa would be in the opposite divison from what would figure to be their 4 biggest rivals: MN, WI, NE and IL.
- You could fix that and actually improve the basketball balance by swapping Minnesota and Purdue, but then the instate rivalry between IU and PU is lost. That would look like:

A.
Penn State
Michigan
Indiana
Michigan State
Minnesota
Iowa

B.
Ohio State
Nebraska
Illinois
Northwestern
Purdue
Wisconsin

My $.02.
Click to expand...

Fact: Since PSU joined the Big Ten both Wisconsin and Northwestern have won or shared as many Big Ten Titles as Penn State. East/West is a lot more balanced than people might believe if they just look at the names on the helmet and don't look at actual results.
 



gophmeister said:
According to Delany they're not going to add anyone for the next 12-18 months and the only reason they adding Nebraska now is because they didn't think they'd hang around that long unclaimed.
Click to expand...

just like how delaney said the big ten wouldnt be expanding for a few months about three weeks ago? If dominoes start falling like they did with the pac ten i imagine things are going to be accelerate again. If the sec snipes acc teams then the big ten might be battling the acc over the best big east teams.
 

13 Lined Ground Squirrel said:
This is the only way to do it. Jostling such an obvious arrangement for "competitive balance" would be insulting.

"We know you guys are near each other and have long standing rivalries, but you suck to much to form a division."
Click to expand...

even though you find it insulting there is no way IMO the 4 brand names in football Ohio St, Michigan, Nebraska and Penn St are not split 2 & 2 within divisions.

from a national point of view amd the money involved the prospect of having any combination of 2 out of the 4 in a conference championship game on an annual basis is too big to pass up.
 

I pulled some stats together on results since '93 to understand the E/W balance question.

Based on this analysis, the east would have won 6 titles, the west would have won 6 titles, and 5 times there would have been a tie.

However when looking at average winning percentage the east would have had a higher average winning percentage 12 times, the west 3 times, and there woudl have been 2 ties.

I think those that indicate that East West can't work because of lack of balance are probably correct. This is true especially if you consider that for OSU, Michigan and PSU never rotate off thier schedule, and for Michigan and PSU, OSU never rotates off their schedule.

Here is how I did the analysis:
- Gathered conference records for each team, including Nebraska Big 8 / Big 12 records
- Calculated conference winning percentages
- Calculated standard conf. wins (NU played seven games in old Big 8) by multiplying conf winning percentage by 8. I used this stat to determine who would have won the regular season conf. championship.
- Calculated average division winning percentage. (I know you can't take an average of an average, but in this case it is probably good enough becasue each team played roughly the same number of games each season). I used this stat to compare the strengths of the divisions.
- I did this in Excel pivot tables, so I can try some different alignments, time permitting.

Note: The 'ties' were good years for the new Big Ten. 1994 and 1997 included undefeated seasons for NU twice, PSU, and Michigan.
 

a 9th conference game needs to be added

play 5 teams in your division and 4 out of the six in the other division
 


gopheraschells said:
i would support another conference game.
Click to expand...

I like the concept of 9 conference games. But in practice, I can't figure out how you can make 9 conference games work in a conference where 11 of the 12 schools are budgeting to host 7 football games.

With 9 conference games you would presumably play 5 conference games at home in (for instance) even numbered years and only 4 at home in odd numbered years. In the odd numbered years you would have to play all 3 of your OOC games at hometo get to 7. Assuming you want to play one quality OOC opponent (a BCS conference opponent that requires a home-and-home like Texas, USC, and North Carolina) every year, you would need to host that opponent in odd numbered years and travel to that opponent in even numbered years.

The problem, of course, is that the only way you can secure a compelling OOC home game every year is to also play a OOC road game every year (since interesting OOC opponents require a home-and-home). As a result, you're simply trading a game against Colorado State for another game against Indiana, or a game against North Carolina for another game against Michigan State. I can't see how that really improves anything.
 

Goldmember said:
I like the concept of 9 conference games. But in practice, I can't figure out how you can make 9 conference games work in a conference where 11 of the 12 schools are budgeting to host 7 football games.

With 9 conference games you would presumably play 5 conference games at home in (for instance) even numbered years and only 4 at home in odd numbered years. In the odd numbered years you would have to play all 3 of your OOC games at hometo get to 7. Assuming you want to play one quality OOC opponent (a BCS conference opponent that requires a home-and-home like Texas, USC, and North Carolina) every year, you would need to host that opponent in odd numbered years and travel to that opponent in even numbered years.

The problem, of course, is that the only way you can secure a compelling OOC home game every year is to also play a OOC road game every year (since interesting OOC opponents require a home-and-home). As a result, you're simply trading a game against Colorado State for another game against Indiana, or a game against North Carolina for another game against Michigan State. I can't see how that really improves anything.
Click to expand...

Great analysis.
 


An east-west split IS competitively balanced. If someone wants to align the conference so that the biggest brands aren't in one division, that's one thing, I just wish people wouldn't then pretend it's about competitive balance.

But since the east-west is competitively balanced, an east-west split would help build up the brand of the west teams.
 

RodentRampage said:
An east-west split IS competitively balanced. If someone wants to align the conference so that the biggest brands aren't in one division, that's one thing, I just wish people wouldn't then pretend it's about competitive balance.

But since the east-west is competitively balanced, an east-west split would help build up the brand of the west teams.
Click to expand...

I agree. And I'm not even sure I buy the 'brand-name' argument. The true 'Brand Names' in college football are Ohio State, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, USC, and maybe still Notre Dame. Michigan was once in that realm, but they are not anymore. Penn State also was, but they really haven't been during their time in the Big 10. Sure, they're great programs, but thier 'brand name' is not currently that much stronger then Wisconsin or Iowa.

IMO, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and PSU are all on about the same rung of the ladder. They're solid programs, either of recent vintage or based on thier tradional power status, but they're not on the top rung of the ladder. The East/West split will distribute them just fine. Bottom-line, I don't think a Penn State-OSU Big 10 Championship will get the average ACC/SEC fan that much more excited then a Wisconsin-OSU Big 10 Championship, nor will the regular season match-up between PSU and Nebraska be significantly more compelling then Iowa-Nebraska.
 

howeda7 said:
I agree. And I'm not even sure I buy the 'brand-name' argument. The true 'Brand Names' in college football are Ohio State, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, USC, and maybe still Notre Dame. Michigan was once in that realm, but they are not anymore. Penn State also was, but they really haven't been during their time in the Big 10. Sure, they're great programs, but thier 'brand name' is not currently that much stronger then Wisconsin or Iowa.

IMO, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and PSU are all on about the same rung of the ladder. They're solid programs, either of recent vintage or based on thier tradional power status, but they're not on the top rung of the ladder. The East/West split will distribute them just fine. Bottom-line, I don't think a Penn State-OSU Big 10 Championship will get the average ACC/SEC fan that much more excited then a Wisconsin-OSU Big 10 Championship, nor will the regular season match-up between PSU and Nebraska be significantly more compelling then Iowa-Nebraska.
Click to expand...

As I define a "brand name" team, it's one whose reputation remains high for extended periods of time regardless of what they do on the field. Notre Dame is a classic brand name team, they are still coasting off of Knute Rockne. Michigan and Penn State might not be any better than Wisconsin and Iowa, but they are much more brand names.

I look at it like RCA. One upon a time, RCA was top of the line. Towards the end, it was a low-end brand. Now, RCA doesn't even exist as a company, all that is left is the name. The company that holds the rights to the name "RCA" license it out to cheap electronics manufacturers. I had an RCA MP3 player, it died due to a firmware error - when I looked up that firmware error, I got over 10,000 hits. I don't know it is still the case, but the cheapest DVD player was an RCA player.

Yet the RCA name is still worth something, because it still carries connotations of quality. The actual quality is long since gone, but the reputation remains. Something similar is true with some of the brand name teams. I'm not comparing Michigan to a POS MP3 player, but Michigan's brand value is still high, even after a few poor years. It could take a very long time for all the shine to wear off one of the brand name teams.
 

Look at it this way: Forbes ranks OSU, Mich, PSU, and Nebraska as 4 of the top 12 most valuable college football programs. There's a reason for that. Forget who won or lost what however long ago and think money. Which is, of course, what this is all about.
 

"Look at it this way: Forbes ranks OSU, Mich, PSU, and Nebraska as 4 of the top 12 most valuable college football programs. There's a reason for that. Forget who won or lost what however long ago and think money. Which is, of course, what this is all about."

Thank you. With Nebraska now in the fold, ask any average Joe Blow college football fan on the street to name the four Big Ten football programs with the most tradition, success and brand name and most of them are going name these four. ... Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State and Penn State. It's a no-brainer.

No disrespect intended to the Gophers, Michigan State, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc., it's just the way it is.
 

RodentRampage said:
As I define a "brand name" team, it's one whose reputation remains high for extended periods of time regardless of what they do on the field. Notre Dame is a classic brand name team, they are still coasting off of Knute Rockne. Michigan and Penn State might not be any better than Wisconsin and Iowa, but they are much more brand names.

I look at it like RCA. One upon a time, RCA was top of the line. Towards the end, it was a low-end brand. Now, RCA doesn't even exist as a company, all that is left is the name. The company that holds the rights to the name "RCA" license it out to cheap electronics manufacturers. I had an RCA MP3 player, it died due to a firmware error - when I looked up that firmware error, I got over 10,000 hits. I don't know it is still the case, but the cheapest DVD player was an RCA player.

Yet the RCA name is still worth something, because it still carries connotations of quality. The actual quality is long since gone, but the reputation remains. Something similar is true with some of the brand name teams. I'm not comparing Michigan to a POS MP3 player, but Michigan's brand value is still high, even after a few poor years. It could take a very long time for all the shine to wear off one of the brand name teams.
Click to expand...

That's all fine, we may be arguing a matter of degree. My only point is that 6 schools right stand out ahead of the remaining 6.

1. OSU
2. Nebraska
3. PSU
4. Michigan
5. Wisconsin
6. Iowa

The East/West split lands 3 in each Division. Sure it would even more ideal if 2 of the top 4 were in each division, but to screw up a lot of other things, just for the sake of getting 2 of the 4 'historical' brands in each division is not worth it. I agree that Michigan and PSU still have stronger brands, but the difference is shrinking and not worth basing the alignment off of. OSU is the only true top-end brand the Big 10 has. How you align the other 5 is not terribly important as long as they're split evenly.

It all is about money. But if I'm ESPN, and in scenrio 1 you offer me PSU-Nebraska, PSU-Minnesota and PSU-Iowa and in scenerio 2 you offer me Wisconsin-Nebraska, Wisconsin-Minnesota and Wisconsin-Iowa, I'm not feeling compelled to offer you more money for scenerio 1. As for the Championship game, it's a crapshoot anyway, ESPN, et al have figured that out by now. Thier dream Miami-FSU game has turned into GA Tech-Wake-Forest enough times that to base alignments on what you might think shake out for that 1 game is moronic.

Also, it's not certain that they'll use divisions for basketball, but they probably will, at least for regular season scheduling. Right now, the East/West is reasonably equal for this as well, but probably leans slightly East. Swap PSU for Wisconsin or Illinois, and you tilt that balance pretty severely to the East. That might be good for the Gophers, but not in general. Having Nebraska, PSU, Iowa and Northwestern in the same basketball division would be pathetic, frankly.

The only swap from the geographic alignment I would be moderately OK with, is OSU for Illinois. However, all this would really accomplish is making the West the stronger division by far, IMO. Illinois would lose the NW rivalry, but gain Indiana. It would also basically obligate them to have one cross-division set game to ensure Michigan-OSU and Illinois-NW would be played though.
 

maybe we don't play....

South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Middle Tennessee State, Illinios State, Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Lafayette, Temple, Northern Iowa, Memphis, NE Louisiana, Arkansas State, Southwest Texas State, Troy State, Florida Atlantic, Montana State, Pacific, Indiana State etc etc
 

tato2001 said:
Look at it this way: Forbes ranks OSU, Mich, PSU, and Nebraska as 4 of the top 12 most valuable college football programs. There's a reason for that. Forget who won or lost what however long ago and think money. Which is, of course, what this is all about.
Click to expand...

exactly, sadly ohio st and mich will be in one division; penn st and neb will be in the other
 

wetgopherhole said:
exactly, sadly ohio st and mich will be in one division; penn st and neb will be in the other
Click to expand...

That's because killing the goose that laid the golden egg is just so profitable. Arranging the divisions to maximize revenue is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Penn State will stick out like a sore thumb in the "west".

Why not build the brand? The west is just as competitive as the east.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom