Division alignment idea

[NateDawgUM]

I have no idea if this is against any NCAA rules or not, but just an idea that I think makes a lot of sense.

Since the Big Ten has too many old school rivalries to have teams play by division, what if the divisions changed every year with the same protected rivalry system that we have right now?

At the end of each season, all of the teams who finished at an odd standing (1,3,5,7,9,11) are placed into one division for the next year, and (2,4,6,8,10,12) go into the other division.

Schedules wouldn't be based on the division, those would just be the teams that you're fighting against that season for the conference championship berth.

Though teams change quite often in college, it would still help maintain a competitive balance in each division.

 

[highwayman]

I have no idea if this is against any NCAA rules or not, but just an idea that I think makes a lot of sense.

Since the Big Ten has too many old school rivalries to have teams play by division, what if the divisions changed every year with the same protected rivalry system that we have right now?

At the end of each season, all of the teams who finished at an odd standing (1,3,5,7,9,11) are placed into one division for the next year, and (2,4,6,8,10,12) go into the other division.

Schedules wouldn't be based on the division, those would just be the teams that you're fighting against that season for the conference championship berth.

Though teams change quite often in college, it would still help maintain a competitive balance in each division.

FYI, I'm trying to be nice. The conference does not have too many old school rivalries to play by division. A simple east-west geography, splitting between the Indiana and Illinois state border takes care of almost all of them. I think playing for the jug 2 of every four years is just fine. Michigan became less of a rival over the last 30 years. "Competative balance"? East-west takes care of that too. Changing divisions every year is rediculous...

 

[wels0081]

While innovative, I don't like it.

We (Minnesota) could have a year where we wouldn't see Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, or Nebraska.

How do you have a football season without any of those games?

 

[MrGopher]

While innovative, I don't like it.

We (Minnesota) could have a year where we wouldn't see Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, or Nebraska.

How do you have a football season without any of those games?

You don't get it.

The teams we play are not based on our divisions.

The divisions are only in place for one reason: the conference championship game.

The schedules on the other hand, are based on geography and rivalries.

I kinda like it. Isn't perfect, but I like it.

 

[dpodoll68]

For obvious reasons, the conference schedules are made years in advance, and to change them on an annual basis due to shifiting divisions would be lunacy.

That taken into account, it is a foregone conclusion in such a scenario that teams in the same division would play wildly variant schedules. How can you legitimately crown division champions when, hypothetically, the two top teams may only play 2-3 common opponents?

 

[NateDawgUM]

For obvious reasons, the conference schedules are made years in advance, and to change them on an annual basis due to shifiting divisions would be lunacy.

That taken into account, it is a foregone conclusion in such a scenario that teams in the same division would play wildly variant schedules. How can you legitimately crown division champions when, hypothetically, the two top teams may only play 2-3 common opponents?

The schedules wouldn't be based on the divisions. The divisions are just set up to yield two teams for the conference title game.

There are too many old school rivalries to have balanced divisions. Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan in one division is lunacy.

Adding 1 extra team suddenly creates wildly different schedules?

If every team is playing 8 of the 12 teams, how are they only playing 2-3 common opponents? Fail math?

 

[dpodoll68]

The schedules wouldn't be based on the divisions.

Pretty sure they will, actually. We'll wait and see, but I feel pretty comfortable that playing every team in your division will be a component of the schedule.

The divisions are just set up to yield two teams for the conference title game.

Since when? Every team in every DI-A conference with two divisions has always played every team in its own division every year. Why would the Big Ten be the first to do things differently?

There are too many old school rivalries to have balanced divisions.

No.

Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan in one division is lunacy.

Rather than going on how strong you perceive these teams to be, go look at how they've actually fared since 1993, and get back to me. Penn St. is basically Wisconsin, Iowa, or Northwestern during that time frame. As others have said, whichever division Ohio St. is in will be unbalanced simply by virtue of their presence there. Why do people insist on looking how things have been the last few years and assume that's the way things will always be? Who's to say that 10 years from now Illinois or MSU won't be a powerhouse? The ACC divisions are an absolute joke because they put them together piecemeal rather than on geography, which is the only sane way to do things. Team's fates will change, but their location on earth, barring a fault line running through the upper midwest, will not.

Adding 1 extra team suddenly creates wildly different schedules?

When you move from an 11-team conference to two 6-team divisions? Yes, absolutely.

If every team is playing 8 of the 12 teams, how are they only playing 2-3 common opponents? Fail math?

My bad on that. I miscalculated. But the point remains that, in order to crown a legitimate division champion, each team must play all the other teams in the division. Only by sheer luck would that actually happen in your model.

 

[howeda7]

I agree, your idea will not work. Your basically saying keep scheduling the way we do now but randomly throw 6 teams together and declare a winner, even if several of them never played each other. That's never going to happen.

The natural East-West split is perfectly fine. It breaks up no major rivalries at all. Sorry MN-Michigan is not a major rivalry. It's a lopsided butt-kicking that happens to have a trophy and is not worth altering any plans over. As far as competative balance, Nebraska, Iowa and Bucky are not chopped liver. The East will be strong because of OSU, but Indiana is the most consistantly terrible team in the conference and they will always have them as well. There may be seasons where the West has 6 solid teams.

 

[MrGopher]

dpodoll, he is trying to describe a new idea, not how other conferences have done it in the past.

you are reading his posts from the wrong angle.

 

[dpodoll68]

dpodoll, he is trying to describe a new idea, not how other conferences have done it in the past.

you are reading his posts from the wrong angle.

I get that. I'm just pointing out all the reasons why it won't work. The fact that every other conference ever has done it the same way lends a lot of credence to doing it that way. People are pretty slow to change a good thing, especially when all precedent is exactly the same.

 

[MrGopher]

No matter how they decide to do the division alignments...

I think it should be written in their bylaws that the divisions should be re-evaluated every ten or twelve years. If we find that something isn't working after that long, we should have the flexibility to tweak the system.

Also, an idea could be to encourage teams to play non-conference games against conference opponents. There was talk of doing this with Michigan last year to open the Bank. This could keep the rivalries going while not crumbling the division structure.

 

[highwayman]

No matter how they decide to do the division alignments...

I think it should be written in their bylaws that the divisions should be re-evaluated every ten or twelve years. If we find that something isn't working after that long, we should have the flexibility to tweak the system.

Also, an idea could be to encourage teams to play non-conference games against conference opponents. There was talk of doing this with Michigan last year to open the Bank. This could keep the rivalries going while not crumbling the division structure.

No.

No.

No.

After the first 8 years, the Big Twelve Championship was 4 north 4 south. The south has won the last few, but Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and KSU have been remarkably competative.

It WILL be east-west. It covers the most rivalries, and you will still play everyone else 2 times in four years--same as it is now. The current rivalries that really matter (IA-WISC-MIN, OSU-MCH-PSU, MSU-MCH, IND-PUR, now NEB-IA-MIN-WISC) will have even more meaning when you only have to battle 5 schools to be the top in your division.

All this talk will be gone in about 2-3 seasons...

 

[MrGopher]

No.No.No.

After the first 8 years, the Big Twelve Championship was 4 north 4 south. The south has won the last few, but Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and KSU have been remarkably competative.

It WILL be east-west. It covers the most rivalries, and you will still play everyone else 2 times in four years--same as it is now. The current rivalries that really matter (IA-WISC-MIN, OSU-MCH-PSU, MSU-MCH, IND-PUR, now NEB-IA-MIN-WISC) will have even more meaning when you only have to battle 5 schools to be the top in your division.

All this talk will be gone in about 2-3 seasons...

Not sure where we disagree here....

I think East-West could work out just fine... My reason: if OSU-Mich-PSU are in the same division, then they will beat each other up every year and someone will look bad. One of those teams could easily fall from grace. And on the other side of the coin, if one or two teams out west is constantly winning that division, their national perception could, after time, pass that of the now weaker eastern team.

If it works out fine with East-West, then it will be obvious that no change is needed. If we find out that competitive imbalance is ridiculous, then it should be tweaked. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Maverick]

The idea is good on the surface, but think about this. what if one division has a run of eight years (8-0) and all or most of those championships come from one team.... then what? Not that far fetched in a conference that has been known as the "big 2 little 8"....

 

[13 Lined Ground Squirrel]

Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in the same division might be a little bit ridiculous, but it would be more ridiculous to split up Michigan/Ohio State/Michigan State or Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin/Nebraska or to rotate divisional partners or to force Penn State to travel 800-plus miles to all of their divisional games every year.

Of all the ridiculous options available, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State sharing the east division is the least ridiculous.

 

[Goldmember]

Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in the same division might be a little bit ridiculous, but it would be more ridiculous to split up Michigan/Ohio State/Michigan State or Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin/Nebraska or to rotate divisional partners or to force Penn State to travel 800-plus miles to all of their divisional games every year.

Of all the ridiculous options available, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State sharing the east division is the least ridiculous.

You nailed it.
And anyone who has looked at message boards for other programs in the conference would see that people are saying the same thing.

The Big Ten is good at emulating success, and I'm sure they realize the SEC has worked, and the ACC plan has totally backfired. So, I doubt they will spend too much time trying to screw with geography and natural rivalries to protect someone's outdated notion of parity.

 

[highwayman]

Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in the same division might be a little bit ridiculous, but it would be more ridiculous to split up Michigan/Ohio State/Michigan State or Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin/Nebraska. It would also be more ridiculous to force Penn State to travel 800-plus miles to all of their divisional games every year.

Of all the ridiculous options available, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State sharing the east division is the least ridiculous.

Thank you, 13LGS. You said in one post what I've attempted to say in about a dozen. Nearly ALL Big Ten rivalries are proximity-based, and a Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State rivalry must stay. Minnesota-Michigan is the only exception, and that, I'm afraid, has lost a lot of meaning to Michigan. It means far more to us than it does to them.

That said, in a east-west scenario, we are virtually guaranteed that one of Mich, OSU, or PSU will have two conference losses every year.

How does that change things?

When was the last season that all three had 0 or 1 conference losses at the same time?

THAT WOULD BE NEVER. And that includes seasons when they didn't play each other.

In fact, PSU, OSU and Mch have finished 1-2-3 only twice (1994-combined 5 losses, 1997-combined 4 losses). 13 seasons ago. Too many people are considering all-time totals and tradition, and are not looking at the B10 standings from year to year, especially the last 20 years.

There are ups and downs. "Division strength" in the conference would have little effect and would not result in much of a difference over time, except possibly in a conference championship game.

Check out the standings and analyze yourselves.

 

[Monty519]

So what do we do in 8 years when people complain our division is unbalanced because Minnesota's won the division for the 5th straight year?



What? Why is everyone staring at me?

 

[ncgo4]

Hey, I understood the concept and I like it a lot! Musta been a stupid idea,

 

[gopheraschells]

No.

No.

No.

After the first 8 years, the Big Twelve Championship was 4 north 4 south. The south has won the last few, but Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and KSU have been remarkably competative.

It WILL be east-west. It covers the most rivalries, and you will still play everyone else 2 times in four years--same as it is now. The current rivalries that really matter (IA-WISC-MIN, OSU-MCH-PSU, MSU-MCH, IND-PUR, now NEB-IA-MIN-WISC) will have even more meaning when you only have to battle 5 schools to be the top in your division.

All this talk will be gone in about 2-3 seasons...

i dont disagree with what your saying, but i am really hoping you are wrong just so i can call you out on it. you seem to be the self proclaimed czar of division alignment and everyone else is just an idiot for disagreeing with you or having an idea contrary to your own

 

[Rosemountian]

Minnesota Michigan was one of the best rivalries in college football. Pre-1968 Michigan led the series 30-19-3. Pre-1943 Michigan led the series 13-11-2.

Since Minnesota's last Big Ten title Michigan leads the series 36-3, rendering the rivalry non-existent.

 

[ChiGopher]

Does anyone else notice the strong correlation between a poster's ability to contribute a logical thought and their ability to use proper grammar and/or capitalization? It's uncanny.

+1 Rosemountain. Always a voice of reason.

 

[highwayman]

i dont disagree with what your saying, but i am really hoping you are wrong just so i can call you out on it. you seem to be the self proclaimed czar of division alignment and everyone else is just an idiot for disagreeing with you or having an idea contrary to your own

I'm just very passionate about this. The only conference that doesn't split geographically is the ACC, and they suck. The only alignment proposal that makes sense 95% of the time is geographic. All other alignments have large holes in the logic and detract from most rivalries and the desires and needs (including travel) of each school.

I have worked with many leagues and teams over the years. Many long-standing rivalries have been eclipsed by new, closer rivalries as new teams have joined leagues or shifted.

We'll see, but I believe that I will be right:

West (I like calling Great Plains)
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Wisconsin

East (I like calling Great Lakes)
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue

I will graciously apologise if wrong, and promise to hate whomever replaces one of our rivals...

 

[13 Lined Ground Squirrel]

West (I like calling Great Plains)


East (I like calling Great Lakes)

Alternately, "Grain Belt" and "Rust Belt."

Lake Michigan points out the dividing line like some divine finger. Don't mess this up, Delaney.

 

[Rosemountian]

West (I like calling Great Plains)
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Wisconsin

East (I like calling Great Lakes)
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue

Strangely enough, the Great Lakes have no schools located in cities directly on a great lake and alternately, the great plains has 1 (northwestern).

 

[gopheraschells]

I'm just very passionate about this. The only conference that doesn't split geographically is the ACC, and they suck. The only alignment proposal that makes sense 95% of the time is geographic. All other alignments have large holes in the logic and detract from most rivalries and the desires and needs (including travel) of each school.

I have worked with many leagues and teams over the years. Many long-standing rivalries have been eclipsed by new, closer rivalries as new teams have joined leagues or shifted.

We'll see, but I believe that I will be right:

West (I like calling Great Plains)
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Wisconsin

East (I like calling Great Lakes)
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue

I will graciously apologise if wrong, and promise to hate whomever replaces one of our rivals...

fair enough. I do love the names of the divisions though

 

[wetgopherhole]

while I hope its an east-west (great plains/great lakes) split--i doubt it

delaney's first rationale for splitting the conference when asked about it was competitive fairness

and while iowa, wis, and neb have been good the last couple of years, they don't have the brand name of mich, ohiost, and penn st

they are going to want two of the big brand names in the championship every year--which probably means penn st will be in the west

 

[EG#9]

I love the idea of East-West, it's great for the Gophers and that's all I care about. That said, it's beyond ridiculous to claim that and East-West split would satisfy the desire for competitive fairness. You can't go just by recent history and claim that Wisconsin or Iowa is in the same stratosphere as Penn State. An East-West split would have the 3 schools with the biggest recruiting bases all in the same division. This leads to a real possibility of Big 12 North/South part II. The argument for the East-West split is a reduction in travel costs and keeping the vast majority of rivalries intact.

 

[MrGopher]

I truly, truly, truly hope competitive fairness is not the deciding factor in division alignment.

When deciding the NFL divisional alignment back in the day, the Vikings were almost put in the East (with the Giants, Redskins, Eagles) and the Cowboys with the Packers, Bears and Lions..... all for "competitive balance" reasons. What a load of garbage that would have been!

Isn't this the big ten? The conference of equal revenue sharing, equal voting in conference issues, equal everything??

You can't start treating schools like they are better or worse than others. That is ESPN's job and the BCS's job. And it was the Big12's problem, the one that nearly destroyed the conference.

I'm starting to fall in line with the East-West alignment. Really, how much worse would the West be? You just watch... Michigan may take quite a while to get back to true Michigan form. And Penn St. might never be the same once the stability of the program (JoePa) is lost.

Competitive Balance is just another way to have the biggest, best programs win the most divisions possible. So that they can stay on top. Being strong top-to-bottom is not as lucrative as having a big-4, little-8 arrangement.

 

[howeda7]

The East-West split is fine. Michigan and PSU are currently weaker as a tandem then Wisconsin and Iowa, and there is no reason to assume that will change significantly anytime soon. PSU especially is a complete unknown once JoPa exits. Whichever division OSU is in will be slightly stronger, but the rest is pretty even. And the bottom of the East (Indiana, Purdue) is generally weaker then the bottom of the bottom of the West (Northwestern/IL/MN). It's easy to envision seasons where all 6 teams in the West are decent. Not so much with the East.