Kozlo: Michigan State football should be realigned to Big Ten West

Donate To GopherHole
kinda agree with the article. MSU to the west. NE to the Big12, add some new school to the east
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Not a terrible idea, but seems one division is more likely. Question then is do they move Michigan vs Ohio state off the last game of the season?
Click to expand...
They don’t and won’t - their alums would shred Warren into billions of pieces and it’s ill advised to upset your two flagship schools and weaken the status and pub that game generates for the B10.
 
Last edited:

Someone other than Ohio State finally wins that division. So, now ….
 


Spaulding!No! said:
How about north south divisions
Click to expand...

Interesting idea but the Northern Division potentially could be very tough. If we used Interstate 80 as the dividing line, the following teams are north of that highway:

Michigan
Michigan State
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Minnesota

Then, we would have to go very slightly south of I 80 to pick up the following two schools that are very close to the boundary:

Penn State
Iowa

That would leave the Southern Division as ----

Rutgers
Maryland
Ohio State
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Nebraska

NO THANKS!
 


East/West divisions in the Big Ten was the single greatest improvement to the sport of college football since the forward pass.
 

Goldmember said:
East/West divisions in the Big Ten was the single greatest improvement to the sport of college football since the forward pass.
Click to expand...
Yeah. I don’t really get why people rail in it being awful. It is great for 9 of 14 teams in the conference. And 2 of the 5 it is bad for have won the conference since it’s inception.


let’s rate the teams:
Ohio state 14 points
Michigan 13
Penn state 12
Wisconsin 11
Michigan state 10
Iowa 9
Minnesota 8
Nebraska 7
Northwestern 6
Purdue 5
Indiana 4
maryland 3
Illinois 2
Rutgers 1

Since east west that’s how I’d rank team performance.

57 points east
48 west

Here is another potential breakdown:
Northwest:


Minnesota
Wisconsin
Michigan
Michigan state
Northwestern
Nebraska
Iowa


Southeast
Ohio state
Penn state
Illinois
Indiana
Purdue
Maryland
Rutgers

Northwest way better by a bigger margin than east west.
Just trade Michigan state and Purdue.
here is the problem, the problem will still exist because Purdue will become perennial 3-4 in the east while Michigan state has a lower floor in the west.


someone should tell Michigan state to count their blessings. They’ve been put in a division where they are given 3 easy wins per year.
Go 3-0 non conference.

they only need to go 2-4 in difficult games to be a top 20 team yearly based on getting their asses kicked by Ohio state



go one division.
here is the problem, can’t do it. Ncaa rules don’t allow conferences to have a format where you could end up with an unbeaten team left out of a championship game. So even if you said each team gets 3 locked rivals, you would have to schedule like it is divisions anyways to ensure only 2 possible unbeaten teams.

what is better, east west or rotating divisions that nobody knows because they change every year (which is essentially what the 3 lock games one division would lead to)
 

get rid of conference divisions in college football
 




There is nothing wrong with the current divisions. It's working well.
 


DarthGopher said:
My first choice would be a Ouiji Board. Second would be an invigorating game of Yahtzee. :)
Click to expand...
But it’s a serious question for people who want to do away with divisions.

And the correct answer is one of your suggestions OR to schedule in a way where it is impossible for more than two teams to be undefeated at the end. Also known as scheduling groups or “divisions”
 

Could we see major conferences eliminate non conference games and everyone plays everyone and the best team is sent to the playoff? kinda like d2 NSIC
 



BigGopher69 said:
Could we see major conferences eliminate non conference games and everyone plays everyone and the best team is sent to the playoff? kinda like d2 NSIC
Click to expand...
I would love it if there were 10 big ten games. But the big ten shouldn’t and wouldn’t do that without most playoff bids being an auto bid for conference champ.
 

I don't care what they do as long as they keep Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin together in the same division.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
I think one of the main reasons it feels unbalanced to some is that Nebraska has not been good the last few years. If they were still a 8-10 win team every year things would look different
Click to expand...
Or just realize that MN is the new Nebraska ;)
 

highwayman said:
Since the divisional records and crossover records are nearly dead even, the problem is…?
Click to expand...

Since the East/West split the divisions are pretty clearly laid out:

West: Wisconsin then NW & Iowa. Minnesota is next and the rest are pretty meh

East: OSU, then PSU and Michigan. MSU is next and the rest is crap.

Since the current divisions were formed the top 3 programs in the West are 9-27 against the top 3 teams in the East. And for those of you that think its an OSU thing only. If you take OSU out and just look at how Wisconsin, NW, & Iowa have done against PSU and Michigan, it's 8-18.

Can't have the top half the divisions that unbalanced
 

Xerxes_ said:
Since the East/West split the divisions are pretty clearly laid out:

West: Wisconsin then NW & Iowa. Minnesota is next and the rest are pretty meh

East: OSU, then PSU and Michigan. MSU is next and the rest is crap.

Since the current divisions were formed the top 3 programs in the West are 9-27 against the top 3 teams in the East. And for those of you that think its an OSU thing only. If you take OSU out and just look at how Wisconsin, NW, & Iowa have done against PSU and Michigan, it's 8-18.

Can't have the top half the divisions that unbalanced
Click to expand...
Yup. The east is top heavy. No one would dispute that.

why would that be an issue. Why would anyone in the west vote to end current set up. It is perfect for every team in the west. It is perfect for Ohio state and Michigan. Who is going to vote to change it?
 

Iceland12 said:
Balance is what they were trying to achieve with the original Leaders and Legends divisions. Not bad but the complaining abiut the names were drowned out by the grumbling about geography.

LEGENDS: Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern

LEADERS: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
Click to expand...
It's all about Ohio State.
 

cjbfbp said:
Interesting idea but the Northern Division potentially could be very tough. If we used Interstate 80 as the dividing line, the following teams are north of that highway:

Michigan
Michigan State
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Minnesota

Then, we would have to go very slightly south of I 80 to pick up the following two schools that are very close to the boundary:

Penn State
Iowa

That would leave the Southern Division as ----

Rutgers
Maryland
Ohio State
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Nebraska

NO THANKS!
Click to expand...
brilliant-guiness.gif
 

Some guy said:
How do you break ties between 3 teams 9-0 in conference play
Click to expand...
3 divisions. 3 division champions, 1 wildcard, conference semi-finals.

West: MN, IA, NE, WI, IL
Central: MI, MI St, Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana
East: Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland
 

Goldmember said:
3 divisions. 3 division champions, 1 wildcard, conference semi-finals.

West: MN, IA, NE, WI, IL
Central: MI, MI St, Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana
East: Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland
Click to expand...
So you are going to redesign the entire system? Seems simple enough. When are they playing the other game?

big ten title game after the playoff has been selected?
 

as others have said, the issue with divisions is that Ohio State has been the dominant team in the conference for a number of years. that could change if Michigan is for real and doesn't have a drop-off next year.

But whatever division Ohio State is in will be perceived as the "stronger" division, because OSU is the best team most years.
 

Get a contraption that has ping pong balls that will separate into two tubes evenly when a guest band starts playing. Then have a fan picked at random from a contest of some sort to get blind folded to touch one tube and proclaim the division. It stands for two years. redo the process every two years. Do the same for the CFP selections too. Everyone vote for 10 teams and have 4 balls come out with team names, have the farce playoff like we do now but with some excitement.
 

gopherjay said:
Get a contraption that has ping pong balls that will separate into two tubes evenly when a guest band starts playing. Then have a fan picked at random from a contest of some sort to get blind folded to touch one tube and proclaim the division. It stands for two years. redo the process every two years. Do the same for the CFP selections too. Everyone vote for 10 teams and have 4 balls come out with team names, have the farce playoff like we do now but with some excitement.
Click to expand...
That’ll be good for developing rivalries.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
as others have said, the issue with divisions is that Ohio State has been the dominant team in the conference for a number of years. that could change if Michigan is for real and doesn't have a drop-off next year.

But whatever division Ohio State is in will be perceived as the "stronger" division, because OSU is the best team most years.
Click to expand...
The issue with divisions is that people are so CFP obsessed that they don’t realize that the big ten is a really healthy conference right now because of the divisional alignment. Kind of the like the SEC.

Meanwhile people can’t even tell you who is in which ACC division. The big 12 playoff contender just had to play the second place team a second time and are missing the playoffs because of it. Whoops.
 

Some guy said:
How do you break ties between 3 teams 9-0 in conference play
Click to expand...
I got to believe the chances of that happening is extremely small. The last time two teams have finished undefeated in conference play was 2013 and that was when there were 8 games.
 

The east is usually has a much wider gap between top and bottom. I don't see moving Michigan St changing that a whole lot. We'd probably see the west have a better head to head record more often but the east would still probably win the championship most of the time because of OSU.

Since 2014 when the BT went to the east/west format, OSU has won 5 of 8 BT championships.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I got to believe the chances of that happening is extremely small. The last time two teams have finished undefeated in conference play was 2013 and that was when there were 8 games.
Click to expand...
That wasn’t my question

I didn’t say “ how likely is it?” I said what does the rule book say you do if it happens?
Even if it never happens you’d either need to schedule to avoid it or have to have a rule in place on what to do if it happens s


what if it’s 3 8-1 teams none of which played each other?
 

Does the SEC talk about realigning the East and West? The SEC West is murderer's row compared the SEC East.

Big Ten West is better from top to bottom, Big Ten East is very top heavy. Big Ten West doesn't have the marquee program, maybe Wisconsin, but Wisconsin football isn't on the level of PSU, OSU, or Michigan. I know Wisconsin competes well those schools but historically and on the national scene they haven't accomplished the same.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom