Sid: Maturi says Gophs may not be in div with Iowa or UW

[gophmeister]

How many here think Joel Maturi has any pull at all during these meetings?

I'm sure he has enough and I think he has a good ally in Barry Alvarez. I doubt some mad scheme to give all the marbles to 4 teams will happen. It's 4 against 8.

 

[eker0016]

I may be wrong on this tj, but doesn't Delaney report to the school presidents. If that's correct, then if all school presidents (with input from their AD's and coaches) say they want a basic East/West split, then that's what will happen. I don't think Delaney has the power to institute his vision. He doesn't have that power.

It seems that Delaney has his own ideas, and he is planning on implementing them. I'm sure if all 12 (or 11 for these meetings) he would have to defer to them, but he seems to have his mind made up that Mich/OSU/PSU can't be in the same division, regardless of what the rest of the B10 thinks.

 

[WAGopher]

How many here think Joel Maturi has any pull at all during these meetings?

I'm more concerned that Maturi doesn't know what is best for Minnesota. He's so connected with Alvarez, that he may think what is best for Wisconsin is also best for Minnesota.

 

[Schnoodler]

If they can move the eastern most team to the west, I can't see why they can't move us to the east.

If PSU moved for balance makes sense to any of you, then you have to consider Minnesota to the east.

 

[station19]

If they are so intent on being creative, why not this;

EAST
Nebraska
Iowa
wisconsin
Minnesota
Illinois
Northwestern

WEST
Penn ST
Ohio ST
Mich
Mich ST
Indiana
Purdue

That'll fix'em

 

[GopherinPhilly]

Swap MI for Northwestern and we its all good

"Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi is back from the Big Ten meetings in Chicago, where the big topic was how the conference will establish two divisions for football. He said it's no sure bet that the Gophers will be in the same division with either Iowa or Wisconsin or both, despite their longtime rivalries. Maturi said there are so many longtime rivalries among Big Ten teams that it will be impossible to keep them all with two six-team divisions, beginning in 2011 when Nebraska joins the conference."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikings/100086939.html?page=2&c=y

Go Gophers!!

I still see the obvious movers are MI & MSU to the west along with WI/MN/IA and NE. East is OSU, PU, IN, IL, NW and PSU. MI/OSU is a protected rivalry game. This to me, makes the most sense, and all but guarantees us a lifetime of mediocrity.

 

[tjgopher]

He doesn't have that power.

Yes, he does. He is quite literally one of the top 2-3 most powerful men in college athletics. He will tell the presidents and ADs what he thinks is best and they will cow-tow to him. Basically, if Jim Delaney wants it, he gets it. It is now a foregone conclusion that the divisions will NOT be divided by geography. End of discussion. Personally, I don't like it, but that's the way it will be.

Right now it is a fight for each AD to stake a claim to preserving their rivalries and it sounds like from the remaining 3-4 models being considered that Maturi held his own and preserved the MN-IA and MN-WIS games each year no matter how the divisions are aligned.

 

[WAGopher]

Right now it is a fight for each AD to stake a claim to preserving their rivalries and it sounds like from the remaining 3-4 models being considered that Maturi held his own and preserved the MN-IA and MN-WIS games each year no matter how the divisions are aligned.

In the end, this is what matters most - playing WI and IA each and every year. I'd also like to play MI and Nebraska each year too, but that only comes after solidifying the border battles.

 

[Goldteam]

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/08/greenstein-big-ten-divisions-taking-shape.html

Greenstein: Big Ten divisions taking shape
by Teddy Greenstein

Most of the talk regarding Big Ten divisions has centered on the need to split up the "big four" -- Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Nebraska.

But that thinking might be flawed. Perhaps it's the "big six" -- adding Wisconsin and Iowa -- that needs to be chopped up.

"You have six teams that have separated themselves," Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez told the Tribune. "You can't have four in one division."

That thinking could pave the way for having Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State anchor the east (with Michigan State, Purdue and Indiana) and Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa man the west (joined by Northwestern, Illinois, and Minnesota).

Alvarez said that Big Ten officials and athletic directors have been analyzing "everything -- overall record, conference record, opponents, opponents' records, BCS ratings, Sagarin ratings" in an effort to achieve what commissioner Jim Delany calls "competitive fairness".

That's the first criteria the Big Ten will use. Second is preserving rivalries. Third is geography, though Delany did acknowledge travel concerns at Big Ten media days.

Some projections have Penn State joining Nebraska as pillars of the West, but would that be fair to Nittany Lions fans who wish to drive to road games?

"Geography plays some part of it, but it's impossible to fit it all together (perfectly)," Alvarez said. "So there has to be some compromise."

There's no debating that 1993 is the starting point for analyzing data. That's Penn State's first Big Ten football season and the beginning of the "modern Big Ten" in Delany parlance.

Using overall win totals, Wisconsin (145) barely trails Michigan (146) and Penn State (147). Ohio State (170) and Nebraska (165) are tops.

Going by victories in conference games, it's fairly easy to divide the teams into four "clusters", as Alvarez called them:

Group 1: Ohio State (106), Nebraska (98), Michigan (94)
Group 2: Penn State (86), Wisconsin (79), Iowa (71)
Group 3: Purdue (63), Michigan State (63), Northwestern (59)
Group 4: Illinois (45), Minnesota (44), Indiana (33)

So the questions become: Which criteria are most important? And should the Big Ten assume that Michigan (3-13 in Big Ten play over the last two seasons) will rise from the dead?

Delany said he hopes to have the divisions determined by early-to-mid September.