Mark Coyle is headed to Chicago after Saturday’s game to meet with fellow Big Ten ADs to determine football schedules for the 2023 season.

While the math of this format works for me, in reality, if we end up adding Stanford, Cal, Oregon and Washington to get to 20 teams, this is…well…awkward. Five team divisions with 6 west coast teams means one west coast team has to be in a Midwest division. So, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and say Washington. I can’t see the fans of the “displaced” west coast team being thrilled with that setup. But I guess money makes it all better.
Expanding to 20 without notre dame and/or a team south of Maryland would be a money loser
 

What it is doesn't matter. The point is that reduction of snoozefest cupcakes is good for college football. Yes, even if it means a fun non conference game every 2+ years doesn't happen. Our last cool nonconference game was 2021. If we can go from 3-4 boring games to 1 or 2, or hopefully zero, count me in.

Sorry but I will disagree. Without the "snooze" games a lot of those schools couldn't afford to field teams. Less teams in college football is not good for college football. Plus the upsets are awesome from afar.
 

Is it though? There's still 2 more weeks and the B1G could easily make one of them an SEC-B1G challenge.

I would love a CFB season without 3-4 filler games.
Yes it is. Big Ten teams have to play an absolute minimum of 7 home games.

Some B1G programs are trying to do an 8th home game every year (see Ohio State and Michigan this year).

10 conference games would mean your 5 away games are all conference games, and your 2 non-conference games have to be buy-in home games. It’s hard for schools like MN (and many others) to buy a home game against any FBS opponent without a return trip (even NMSU required a visit to Las Cruces). P5 opponents just won’t do it for any price.
 

Personally, I would be fine with a rule that FBS teams can only play other FBS teams. Having said that, there are a number of FBS teams that really aren't much better than a lot of FCS teams.

No one (IMHO) is suggesting that the non-conf schedule be 2 or 3 ranked teams.

But, as we saw again this year, fans don't show up to see the Gophers pound Directional State - UNLESS the Gophers would play one of the Dakota schools.
 

College football could add relegation. Brewster would have landed the Gophers in the MIAC. Ohio St can be promoted to the NFL, add the Detroit Lions to B1G East, that will level the divisions out.

Big 10 hockey still sucks. Even more so because it has Notre Dame. Feels like history will repeat.
 





Top Bottom