I was looking at the current and upcoming schedules and a couple of things came to mind. For starters, trophy games are important. Though they can be one-sided, they add an extra element (or selling point, let's face it - it's about $$ these days) to a given game. Fortunately, Wisconsin is geographically next to us so we can play them yearly and keep the most played college football rivalry alive. However, Michigan is just over the geographical divider and thus we aren't frequently maintaining the oldest trophy game in college football. Now say all you want about the historical records, but you'd think those two games specifically would be on the Big Ten's "must play" list. Side note, why are we only playing Indiana twice a decade?
Okay, so here are my two questions:
How do you feel about the above scheduling rant? Would you like to see Michigan as a permanent cross-over game for purposes of tradition (I get that we typically lose it, but c'mon... it's a pre-modern era rivalry and the oldest trophy game)?
And (though I'm sure it's been discussed before) what happens if we meet Michigan (or Penn State) in a Big Ten Championship game? Would the rivalry trophy be on the line as well or only the conference championship trophy?
Okay, so here are my two questions:
How do you feel about the above scheduling rant? Would you like to see Michigan as a permanent cross-over game for purposes of tradition (I get that we typically lose it, but c'mon... it's a pre-modern era rivalry and the oldest trophy game)?
And (though I'm sure it's been discussed before) what happens if we meet Michigan (or Penn State) in a Big Ten Championship game? Would the rivalry trophy be on the line as well or only the conference championship trophy?