Big Ten announces 9 game schedule starting in 2017

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BleedGopher

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per these tweets:

"Who wants more #B1G football? The Big Ten just announced that schools will play 9-game conference schedules starting in 2017."

"Three teams each from Legends and Leaders Divisions will feature 5 conference home games during odd-numbered years."

"Other three schools from each division will host five conference contests during even-numbered years."

"2017 (and all odd-numbered years) schedule will include five conference home outings for ILL, IND, IOWA, MSU, NEB and OSU."

Go Gophers!!
 



Only thing I hope is that they don't do a cross-over opponent with the other division. I know that Wisconsin & Iowa want to play every year, but I'd like to see the other teams as much as possible, since we won't be seeing them as much in the first place. If it goes cross-over, we'll see 4 of those teams even less.

If they do go cross-over....give us Indiana, Illinois or Purdue. Only fair since we already have Wisconsin.
 

FireDaveLee said:
Only thing I hope is that they don't do a cross-over opponent with the other division. I know that Wisconsin & Iowa want to play every year, but I'd like to see the other teams as much as possible, since we won't be seeing them as much in the first place. If it goes cross-over, we'll see 4 of those teams even less.

If they do go cross-over....give us Indiana, Illinois or Purdue. Only fair since we already have Wisconsin.
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Agreed. It's going to be hard enough getting potentially screwed out of a home game every other year. The NC scheduling will be a nightmare unless we go with all non-BCS opponents.
 




Does this new schedule help or hurt Notre Dame. Surely we will see less of NDSU, UND, SDSU, USD etc.
 

If you accept that the best chance for a team to make the championship will be in years where they have five home games, then this means the Gophers most likely championship opponents would be Wisconsin or Penn State, good teams from the opposing division with five home games the same year.
 



4four4 said:
Surely we will see less of NDSU, UND, SDSU, USD etc.
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Unlikely IMO. Adding the 9th B1G game means more money for the athletic depts on ticket sales. It also means that the schools can reduce the amount they are paying out to MAC teams. That's not a prob for 1AA's. You don't have to pay them as much guaranteed money as a non-BCS D1 school thus I suspect we''l continue to see a yearly 1AA game remain on the schedule.
 

I don't pretend to be an expert but it seems like this would all but kill interesting September non-conference games. Nobody is going to want to play another BCS team now that there are only three non-con games and they now MUST be home games (at least every other year, anyway). I wouldn't think we'd want to schedule the likes of North Carolina and USC after 2017.
 

I'm afraid this just means very few B1G schools will schedule high-end BCS games in the non-conference. Good-bye USC, hello USD/SDSU.
 

badgergopher said:
If you accept that the best chance for a team to make the championship will be in years where they have five home games, then this means the Gophers most likely championship opponents would be Wisconsin or Penn State, good teams from the opposing division with five home games the same year.
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Yeah. But honestly I don't accept that.

Good teams, especially teams that go on to Conference Championship games, win at home AND at away games. The odd years w/ 5 home conference games will be such a minor factor (if at all), they won't make or break a team.
 



The golden age of Big Ten football is most likely in the past. The 'lower level' schools accept kids the Big Ten cannot admit. Expect more South FL, Central Fl and to move up the rankings and to put a beat down on our BT bowl game rep.
 

wait!what? said:
The golden age of Big Ten football is most likely in the past. The 'lower level' schools accept kids the Big Ten cannot admit. Expect more South FL, Central Fl and to move up the rankings and to put a beat down on our BT bowl game rep.
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WTF?
 

FireDaveLee said:
Only thing I hope is that they don't do a cross-over opponent with the other division. I know that Wisconsin & Iowa want to play every year, but I'd like to see the other teams as much as possible, since we won't be seeing them as much in the first place. If it goes cross-over, we'll see 4 of those teams even less.

If they do go cross-over....give us Indiana, Illinois or Purdue. Only fair since we already have Wisconsin.
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The B1G has basically (though I do not believe officially) said that they won't be doing a 2nd protected crossover. From Rittenburg's article:
Commissioner Jim Delany does not expect a second protected cross-division rivalry game to be added. "That has not been discussed," he said. "The second protected rival, that tends to undermine the competitive equity."
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A big reason for this would likely be:
2. Maintains intimacy in conference: "We don't expand to play each other less. We expand because we like to play the teams and the schools that are involved in the conference. Also, it gives a clearer sense of a champion by having more competition, not less."
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Adding another protected game won't help with the problem of schools playing each other less in a 10 year span as much as adding a B1G game with no 2nd crossover will.
 

wait!what? said:
The golden age of Big Ten football is most likely in the past. The 'lower level' schools accept kids the Big Ten cannot admit. Expect more South FL, Central Fl and to move up the rankings and to put a beat down on our BT bowl game rep.
Click to expand...

Have South Florida and Central Florida been putting a beatdown on the Big Ten? Not that I have seen, and if that hasn't happened, how can we expect more of it? They have moved up and did pretty well, but that's no evidence of the Big Ten being eclipsed.
 

FireDaveLee said:
Only thing I hope is that they don't do a cross-over opponent with the other division. I know that Wisconsin & Iowa want to play every year, but I'd like to see the other teams as much as possible, since we won't be seeing them as much in the first place. If it goes cross-over, we'll see 4 of those teams even less.

If they do go cross-over....give us Indiana, Illinois or Purdue. Only fair since we already have Wisconsin.
Click to expand...

From the article: Commissioner Jim Delany does not expect a second protected cross-division rivalry game to be added. "That has not been discussed," he said. "The second protected rival, that tends to undermine the competitive equity."

Though frankly I wouldn't mind if they did so long as it meant we saw Ohio State less!
 

Formo said:
Yeah. But honestly I don't accept that.

Good teams, especially teams that go on to Conference Championship games, win at home AND at away games. The odd years w/ 5 home conference games will be such a minor factor (if at all), they won't make or break a team.
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I have to disagree. What you're saying may be true on years where there is a runaway winner, but that is often not the case. Think about when OSU and Michigan were #1 and #2 and OSU won at home by 3. What if that game had been at the Big House? Or last year, wisconsin may have been the outright winner (thankfully not) if their game against MSU had been at home, who knows?
 


Now they should shorten the season by at least one game. Which would be hugely beneficial to programs like ours.

We're waaaay to thin to play our schedule already. Adding another conference game just adds to the butchery.
 


Thing I find interesting is the main reason is to get away from that worst non-conference game that's scheduled. I see the opposite happening; I see the one tough non-conference game getting axed...MAC school, Sun Belt/New Mexico St-type/FCS will be the non-conferernce schedule.

My take: if we were going to have a Mason-like non-conference schedule, I'm for the 9 games....if we were going to start having 1 decent BCS name as the norm, I was fine with 8. I'd personally rather see the North Carolina's & Oregon State's over an extra game versus Indiana, Illinois, or even Penn State.
 

Bo Darville said:
2017? There might be 18 Big Ten teams by then.
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hell, the way things are going, by 2017 there will be one super conference consisting of 120 teams. Conference winner automatically wins national championship.
 

AShreve20 said:
hell, the way things are going, by 2017 there will be one super conference consisting of 120 teams. Conference winner automatically wins national championship.
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As long as we still get to go to the Great Idaho Potato Bowl when the season ends, it's all good. :cool:
 

howeda7 said:
As long as we still get to go to the Great Idaho Potato Bowl when the season ends, it's all good. :cool:
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While that would be fun and all.. I believe that game is reserved for the top WAC team vs. the top MAC team.
 

FireDaveLee said:
Thing I find interesting is the main reason is to get away from that worst non-conference game that's scheduled. I see the opposite happening; I see the one tough non-conference game getting axed...MAC school, Sun Belt/New Mexico St-type/FCS will be the non-conferernce schedule.

My take: if we were going to have a Mason-like non-conference schedule, I'm for the 9 games....if we were going to start having 1 decent BCS name as the norm, I was fine with 8. I'd personally rather see the North Carolina's & Oregon State's over an extra game versus Indiana, Illinois, or even Penn State.
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My thoughts exactly.
 


FireDaveLee said:
My take: if we were going to have a Mason-like non-conference schedule, I'm for the 9 games....if we were going to start having 1 decent BCS name as the norm, I was fine with 8. I'd personally rather see the North Carolina's & Oregon State's over an extra game versus Indiana, Illinois, or even Penn State.
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I agree here too...it's fun to have games with teams that we VERY rarely see, while another game with Indiana, Penn St, etc. is just another game
 

Is this what the schedule will look like?

2017 - BCS @ Gophers, 2 FCS @ Gophers, 4 B1G home games, 5 B1G away games
2018 - Gophers @ BCS, 2 FCS @ Gophers, 5 B1G home games, 4 B1G away games

Whomever said that we will be playing a lot more games against the Dakotas is probably right. We will probably want to play a total of one NC road game every two years.

Look forward to a round robin schedule of ND, NDSU, SD, SDSU, playing two of four every year? Maybe we'll need to create some trophies...
 

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