John Shipley: Big Ten expansion will make it harder for Gophers football

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Per Shipley:

But for what is at heart a football move, because that’s where the new money comes from, it doesn’t do much, if anything, to help most of the Big Ten’s football programs. Not competitively. The Gophers haven’t been able to win a seven-team Big Ten West Division. Now they have to be better than two additional programs if the conference adopts a true regional split — and it should because that’s the way sports divisions work. Sending Purdue east will make it a true east-west split and immediately add some substance to what has been the Happy Loman of the Big Ten’s brother divisions as soon as Fall 2024.

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John Shipley: Big Ten expansion will make it harder for Gophers football

But adding UCLA and USC is smart for a conference trying to sustain its current pace of growth
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Go Gophers!!
 


Even with the current B10 West, you have to be as good as those two teams to win it.
 




BleedGopher said:
Now they have to be better than two additional programs if the conference adopts a true regional split — and it should because that’s the way sports divisions work. Sending Purdue east will make it a true east-west split
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That’s not how math works
 

Shipley. Duh. 14 teams, now 16 teams. Glad he can understand mathematic probability. He deserves a raise.
 

USC and UCLA weren't exactly added because they've been great football teams. B1G just wants the media market and the blue blood history doesnt hurt
 

I'm A Maroon 2! said:
USC and UCLA weren't exactly added because they've been great football teams. B1G just wants the media market and the blue blood history doesnt hurt
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Both schools rank very high the past two years in Director Cup similar to Michigan and OSU. They both have high quality athletic programs.
 



They're is a 0% chance they keep an East-West division split. There will be 4 sub divisions so each team can play a select few every year, to protect long standing rivalries, and the remaining teams every other season. How a "Champion" is decided is debatable, all depending how it will eventually play into a CFP.
 



Dropping Purdue and adding UCLA makes the division worse

Under previous coaches…an 8 team division with one fewer crossover might actually be easier to win IMO

West and east are dead now. Either zero divisions or 3+ divisions
 



It'll be 20 or 24 teams pretty quickly. And yes, it will be more difficult for the Gophers to win a championship. We will compete and it'll be fun!!
 

I do not forsee divisions but fewer non conference games and more conference games.
 

Gaard, Scoggins and Burns have a new "Pair and a Spare" podcast up.

mostly on the B1G expansion.

they basically agree that this will end up with 20 teams, divided into 4 'pods' of 5 teams each.
 

hello-world said:
Way too premature to be worried about this and Minnesota is currently competitive with both of these teams.
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Correct. It's more competition which obviously makes things harder....but USC is not the world beater that they once were. Obviously they have the resources to turn that around....but it's not as thought the West would have an OSU to deal with. The Gophers will still need to be very good to win the West.

TruthSeeker said:
Here's how it will work:

20 teams
4 divisions consisting of 5 teams
Division winners go onto the Big Ten playoffs
Big Ten champ vs SEC champ for natty

It's the NFL model. That's why everyone outside the Big Ten and SEC will be irrelevant.
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That's the way I see it. And each division plays one of the other divisions each year. Every team sees every other team at least once every three years. And to make things even better....that would mean that each team would play the same conference schedule (ignoring home field) as the other division members. Hell....they could even combine the two divisions for standing purposes when setting up the four team playoff in the case that the two best teams are from the same division.

Add a tenth conference game.....maybe a protected rivalry with a team outside the division?
 

And how do the fearless prognosticators divde up the teams into those four divisions?
Why complicate things?
Increase mandatory BIG games to ten a season and the team with the best conference record wins the BIG.
The only reason to divide into a maximum of two divisions is for the extra $$$ in having a championship game.
 

Plato said:
And how do the fearless prognosticators divde up the teams into those four divisions?
Why complicate things?
Increase mandatory BIG games to ten a season and the team with the best conference record wins the BIG.
The only reason to divide into a maximum of two divisions is for the extra $$$ in having a championship game.
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4 divisions leads to the potential for a final 4 - which would mean 2 additional "playoff" games for the conference above and beyond the championship game.

No idea where things are headed but this is the most commonly tossed out scenario that I have seen involving a 20 team super conference.
 

To preserve rivalry games for example, a division with MN ould also have to have IA and WI in that division.
What two additional teams would you add?
Whom to add to OSU,MI and MSU?
 

The Gophers are no longer beefcakes. I think the westward expansion may even improve Gopher recruiting.
 

Plato said:
And how do the fearless prognosticators divde up the teams into those four divisions?
Why complicate things?
Increase mandatory BIG games to ten a season and the team with the best conference record wins the BIG.
The only reason to divide into a maximum of two divisions is for the extra $$$ in having a championship game.
Click to expand...

That's why I think they need to grab at least two more west coast teams. If the Big Ten did that...they could group most of those teams together and maintain mostly traditional Big Ten divisions.

And I like the championship game. And I think a four team playoff would be fun too.
 

Plato said:
And how do the fearless prognosticators divde up the teams into those four divisions?
Why complicate things?
Increase mandatory BIG games to ten a season and the team with the best conference record wins the BIG.
The only reason to divide into a maximum of two divisions is for the extra $$$ in having a championship game.
Click to expand...
Isn’t that the reason for all of this? Seems to be the only reason that matters.
 

It's about money. It may even draw more fan interest.

If we want to watch college football in the old way, watch Division III football. Saint John's dresses up to almost 200 players in their home games sometimes.
 

60's Guy said:
It'll be 20 or 24 teams pretty quickly. And yes, it will be more difficult for the Gophers to win a championship. We will compete and it'll be fun!!
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As I posted in another thread, I’m not convinced it will be more difficult for us. If all of this money leads to the Big10 and SEC paying players with an agreed upon salary structure, and it very well might, I would argue it puts us on a more equal footing with the big boys. Even without the salary structure, the four and five star players are going to have only 40 teams to consider if they want to play elite football. We should be able to recruit even better going forward.
 

U2Gopher said:
As I posted in another thread, I’m not convinced it will be more difficult for us. If all of this money leads to the Big10 and SEC paying players with an agreed upon salary structure, and it very well might, I would argue it puts us on a more equal footing with the big boys. Even without the salary structure, the four and five star players are going to have only 40 teams to consider if they want to play elite football. We should be able to recruit even better going forward.
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Your scenario could happen, I agree. Problem is there are probably more scenarios still making it tough to be a Minnesotan. It's gets 40 below here....yes it does at some of our rivals too but it's always going to be a factor. Our starting line is well behind many others. We gotta win consistently to recruit better going forward.

The teams outside the top 40 won't just stop...some have big donors...some are in nice weather and some will cheat etc. There will still be competition and we will still lose some recruiting battles we all think we shouldn't.

It seems PJ will give us a great chance to navigate whatever transpires. It is all about mindset and he has the shoulder crack.
 



60's Guy said:
Your scenario could happen, I agree. Problem is there are probably more scenarios still making it tough to be a Minnesotan. It's gets 40 below here....yes it does at some of our rivals too but it's always going to be a factor. Our starting line is well behind many others. We gotta win consistently to recruit better going forward.

The teams outside the top 40 won't just stop...some have big donors...some are in nice weather and some will cheat etc. There will still be competition and we will still lose some recruiting battles we all think we shouldn't.

It seems PJ will give us a great chance to navigate whatever transpires. It is all about mindset and he has the shoulder crack.
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I can only assume you are being flippant here. 40 below? Sure, it can get that cold on very rare occasions, but if you look at the average temp's trough the football season, you're about 70 degrees off. Just ask Dilly Bar Dan.
 


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