ESPN: Division setup brings plenty of drawbacks

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Rittenberg:

Every league with a division setup should closely monitor the deregulation debate. If divisions are no longer needed for a championship game, leagues should take a long look at whether they're truly necessary.

"I could see the flip slide," said Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who has coached in the Big Ten both with and without divisions. "Instead of having divisions, you just have the two top teams play. If that’s what we decided to do as a league, I'd be all for it. But right now, especially when we get in divisional play, everybody feels like they can win, and that’s exciting for the game."

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/118536/division-setup-brings-plenty-of-drawbacks

Go Gophers!!
 

Yes, but for the most part, the divisions also protect a lot of traditional rivalries.
 

I love our East/West split. It makes sense for many reasons...tradition, geography, etc.
 




MNGoldenGophers1 said:
Agreed. If you're going to have divisions, this is the best way to do it.
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Agree that if we are going to have them the way it is setup right now is the best way to do it. That being said if it is no longer required to have divisions in order to have a championship game then I am all for them going away, even though right now that would be detrimental to the Gophers hopes of getting to the title game since the top two teams in the conference clearly reside in the East.
 

Eventually, the West will take in Iowa St. KU and KSU while the East welcomes Pitt, Notre Dame and WVU and we'll have The Big Ten Heartland and The Big Ten Rustland.
 

Conferences are too big.

Now playing 12 game schedule and still can't play every team in your conference every year. Something wrong with that.

Having said that, east/west is by far the best. I don't want to give up playing wisky/iowa and even nebraska : to play rutgers and maryland.
 

I agree that divisions are like mini-conferences. Actually, I would go further than that, they are the size of conferences, and conferences are becoming superconferences. I think divisions keeps the season interesting

Sent from my LG-L38C using Tapatalk 2
 



Big fan of divisional play for football. Keeps more teams in the hunt for a conference title longer into the season.

Unfortunately the focus in college football has become so much about being one of the 4 CFP teams that any accomplishment short of that is being devalued (fueled & driven by the folks at ESPN). That's just plain wrong. Even if it doesn't lead to a CFP semifinal spot, divisional championships still mean something because they give you a 1-shot deal at a conference title and a New Year's 6 Bowl.

Especially with these new mega-conferences, would hate it if the B1G went to a format that simply said, "We'll have our two highest ranked teams in the title game." 14 teams too many to not have divisions. Some years the best two teams will meet in the title game, some years (like last season) they won't. Can live with that. Besides, pretty confident that as long as a 4-team playoff is around, a 0 or 1-loss B1G champion is going to make the CFP more often than not.
 

This is a preview of the hew and cry that with the darlings of the east battling for a spot in a conference game against some also ran from the west. We would just all be better off if the East was the champion. Certainly the winner of The Ohio State v. Michigan game should go directly to the national playoff. This is nonsense. Its Eastern media setting the agenda. I call B.S.
 

Not a fan of divisions. Hate how in certain scenarios we might not even end up playing a team like Michigan who we have played over 100 times for what? 5 years? It's been that way with Indiana and it doesn't even feel like we are in the same conference with them anymore. We will have played IU once in the past 9 years? That is absolutely ridiculous and you should have to play every team in your conference once in at least every 3 years which is still too much time in between. I'd be willing to give up say a guaranteed yearly game with Iowa and an easier path toe the conference crown if it means no Minnesota-Indiana type scheduling scenarios.

I think we can all agree that the conferences have just gotten too big. 10 is an ideal number with 12 being the absolute maximum. Anything more is just way too many.
 

die hard gopher said:
Not a fan of divisions. Hate how in certain scenarios we might not even end up playing a team like Michigan who we have played over 100 times for what? 5 years? It's been that way with Indiana and it doesn't even feel like we are in the same conference with them anymore. We will have played IU once in the past 9 years? That is absolutely ridiculous and you should have to play every team in your conference once in at least every 3 years which is still too much time in between. I'd be willing to give up say a guaranteed yearly game with Iowa and an easier path toe the conference crown if it means no Minnesota-Indiana type scheduling scenarios.

I think we can all agree that the conferences have just gotten too big. 10 is an ideal number with 12 being the absolute maximum. Anything more is just way too many.
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Indiana has never played in the Bank. That is not right.
 



die hard gopher said:
Not a fan of divisions. Hate how in certain scenarios we might not even end up playing a team like Michigan who we have played over 100 times for what? 5 years? It's been that way with Indiana and it doesn't even feel like we are in the same conference with them anymore. We will have played IU once in the past 9 years? That is absolutely ridiculous and you should have to play every team in your conference once in at least every 3 years which is still too much time in between. I'd be willing to give up say a guaranteed yearly game with Iowa and an easier path toe the conference crown if it means no Minnesota-Indiana type scheduling scenarios.

I think we can all agree that the conferences have just gotten too big. 10 is an ideal number with 12 being the absolute maximum. Anything more is just way too many.
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Would not trade an IA or Sconnie game for Indiana...never, ever. Personally, I like the east-west split, like that we have a shot at a B1G title when otherwise we probably wouldn't. And with a 14 team conference, we can't play every team each year, so better to protect rivalries and make the cash from the TV deal than not.
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
I love our East/West split. It makes sense for many reasons...tradition, geography, etc.
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+1 It's perfect as is. Dissolving or changing the divisions would just be a way for the Conference office to screw us. (Meaning it'll probably happen, SMH).
 

WanderingGopher said:
+1 It's perfect as is. Dissolving or changing the divisions would just be a way for the Conference office to screw us. (Meaning it'll probably happen, SMH).
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Exactly....because we all know priority #1 at the conference office is to screw over the U of M. That being said, if Michigan gets back to being Michigan here at some point I can see the conference trying to figure out a way to get them and OSU in different divisions in order to set up the potential title game showdown.
 

Given the number of team now in the B10 it is necessary.

I don't see how you determine the "top two teams", as Fitzgerald stated it, when you can't play everyone. At least you can reasonably determine the best team in two divisions to meet for the B10 championship.
 

Unregistered User said:
Given the number of team now in the B10 it is necessary.

I don't see how you determine the "top two teams", as Fitzgerald stated it, when you can't play everyone. At least you can reasonably determine the best team in two divisions to meet for the B10 championship.
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Exactly.

Drives me nuts when these people want to disregard divisions when one division is weaker or has weaker teams.

If you have divisions you have divisions. If you alsways trying to 'balance' things, you don't have divisions.

Should we have two teams from the NFC play in the Super Bowl when the AFC is in a down cycle?
 

station19 said:
Exactly.

Drives me nuts when these people want to disregard divisions when one division is weaker or has weaker teams.

If you have divisions you have divisions. If you alsways trying to 'balance' things, you don't have divisions.

Should we have two teams from the NFC play in the Super Bowl when the AFC is in a down cycle?
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+1
 

GopherinPhilly said:
Would not trade an IA or Sconnie game for Indiana...never, ever. Personally, I like the east-west split, like that we have a shot at a B1G title when otherwise we probably wouldn't. And with a 14 team conference, we can't play every team each year, so better to protect rivalries and make the cash from the TV deal than not.
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Maybe not Indiana but what about our storied rivalry with Michigan? I wouldn't want the current Indiana-Minnesota scheduling deficit to eventually rotate to a Minnesota-Michigan deficit or even OSU or MSU.
 

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