ESPN: B1G exploring more early season (and Week 1) league games

[BleedGopher]

per ESPN:

One quirk of the recent Big Ten expansion is that Penn State and Rutgers already had scheduled a pair of September nonconference games. Thus, their meeting in Week 3 this season functions as a league contest.

Outside of that exception, however, the Big Ten schedule is following a well-worn path: Teams take on out-of-league competition throughout September, and then conference action begins in October.

That will soon change. Thanks to both the arrival of the nine-game conference schedule in 2016 and a desire by the league to get its most-desired games front and center, the Big Ten is planning to stage more conference games early in the season, including opening week.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post...ing-more-early-season-and-week-1-league-games

Go Gophers!1

 

[dannygopher9100]

I would prefer not to have that one week in late November where everyone plays cupcakes. But I don't know if that correlates from what they said.

 

[Dilemina]

I don't like it, unless the non-con games that come after the b1g match-ups are always teams from power 5 conferences. Because I foresee late season cupcakes if this comes to pass.

I'd rather, if the team schedules a cupcake, to let it be the first couple games of the season. And then play highly competitive teams throughout the rest of the season.

But I doubt anyone cares what I think.

Sent from my 78Dian 78P01 using Tapatalk

 

[Unregistered User]

It's the SEC model. Look at any SEC team schedule, and they have a league game early, and the a cupcake that you may not have even heard of. Along with the bye weeks, it is easier to have a healthy team for the late season rivalry weeks, conference championship games and bowl games. Notre Damn used to do that a lot too, but they've backed off the past couple of years.

 

[LBJ]

It's the SEC model. Look at any SEC team schedule, and they have a league game early, and the a cupcake that you may not have even heard of. Along with the bye weeks, it is easier to have a healthy team for the late season rivalry weeks, conference championship games and bowl games. Notre Damn used to do that a lot too, but they've backed off the past couple of years.

Having done no research on it, early losses seem to hurt ratings much less than late season losses. I feel like that is one way he SEC has so many ranked teams at the end of the year. It's smart.

 

[Iceland12]

Two other interesting points from the link.

1.) The Big Ten would also prefer those early games, especially in Week 1, to be cross-division contests and not the marquee intra-division showdowns or rivalries that it likes to keep for the back end of the schedule..

2.) That's not an entirely revolutionary phenomenon, as Week 1 league contests happened fairly regularly in the late 1970s and early '80s. But the last time it occurred was in 1996, when Michigan played Illinois and Purdue faced Michigan State to kick off the season.

 

[bottlebass]

Having done no research on it, early losses seem to hurt ratings much less than late season losses. I feel like that is one way he SEC has so many ranked teams at the end of the year. It's smart.

The SEC has so many ranked teams at the end of the year because they all start as highly ranked so when they lose to each other is not a bad loss and the loser doesn't fall in the rankings. That aside, I can see benefits of having an easier team to break up the schedule later in the season. My hope though is that with the CFP teams work harder to schedule more difficult non conference games. Playing a sh!tty team later in the season or earlier in the season gets you no where anymore.

 

[husker70]

If the Big 10 was serious about early season match ups, take the East and schedule games with the SEC West. Take the West and schedule games with the SEC East.

 

[Iceland12]

If the Big 10 was serious about early season match ups, take the East and schedule games with the SEC West. Take the West and schedule games with the SEC East.

Yes! But only if the Big Ten Home game is scheduled for the now "open spot" in November!

 

[FireDaveLee]

I remember the Gophers opening the season vs. Penn State in '93 & '94. I still think Ki-Jana Carter is running towards the end zone.

One thing I'd be worried about is attendance, especially for the Gophers. If the U has trouble getting 40K for a SJSU/Western Illinois in September, it will be double the fun getting people to go watch them the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

 

[GophersInIowa]

I am okay with early conference games, just don't like it in week one.

What sucks though is the possibility of playing Iowa and Nebraska in back to back weeks, then have to face a program like Eastern Illinois the following week. What a letdown.