My Proposal for a 16 Team Big Ten
So I know it's just a rumor and very hypothetical situation, but rumors over the Big Ten expanding to 16 or even 18 teams are somewhat creeping up, with Oklahoma at the forefront of those discussions, with other schools such as Texas, Georgia Tech, and maybe UVA/UNC being looked at as well.
In this exercise, I'm going to propose a division and schedule realignment under the assumption that 2 teams are added (and for this, I'm going to assume Oklahoma and Texas are those two teams).
In my proposal, there would be four divisions of four teams each, which I will just name Division 1, 2, 3, and 4 for the time being.
Division 1: Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland, Purdue
Division 2: Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Indiana
Division 3: Texas, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Minnesota
Division 4: Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa
In this scenario, each division would be "paired" with another - Divisions 1 & 2 would be paired, and Divisions 3 & 4 would be paired. I'll get back to that in just a second.
In this conference, each team would play 9 conference games - 3 against the 3 other teams in your division, 3 against your "paired" division, and 3 against some combination of the other two divisions. Among those three played against your paired division, there would be a protected crossover game that would be played every year, similar to what happened with the Leaders and Legends divisions before Maryland and Rutgers were added. Those crossovers would be:
Div 1-2: M-OSU, MSU-PSU, Md-Rutgers, Purdue-IU
Div 3-4: UT-OU, Wisc-Neb, Illinois-NW, Iowa-Minn
This leaves every team with four opponents that they would be guaranteed to play every single year - 3 from your division, and the one crossover. For the other two games in your paired division, the team you would NOT play would rotate every two years. For example, Michigan could play Penn State and Rutgers in back to back years, then Rutgers and Indiana in back to back years, then Penn State and Indiana in back to back years. So you would play those other three teams 4 times every 6 years.
As for your 3 games against the non-paired divisions, you will play two from one division and one from the other. While the teams will change every two years (after one home and one away game), the amount of teams you play in each division will change every four years.
For example, say Michigan's three games out of the division are Texas, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma (I know they would probably balance out the competition level more than this, but this is just for argument's sake here). So, they will play all three of those teams in back to back years, one each at home and on the road. Then, in the next two years, Michigan would play the other two teams from division 3 (Northwestern and Minnesota), and only one more from division 4 (Nebraska). After doing that for two years, Michigan would then play the remaining two teams from division 4 (Illinois and Iowa), and then would cycle back to the beginning of division 3 with Texas for two more years. FInally, Michigan would go back to the beginning of division 4 with Oklahoma and Nebraska, along with Wisconsin for the next two years.
Overall, this would take 8 cycles to get back to the beginning, so in 16 years, you would play every team from the non-paired divisions 6 times in every 16 year cycle (I know that it would be very unlikely to actually make it through this 16 year cycle even once before more realignment, but it's still fun to think about).
Overall, assuming the layout is done correctly so that teams like Michigan won't face Oklahoma, Texas, and Nebraska all in one year, then face Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa in the next (ie., maintain pretty solid competitive balance year to year), Michigan could have a fantastic schedule every year without much need for scheduling really tough OOC games.
Then, for the conference championship game, simply take the best team from each of the paired divisions (i.e., one team from Division 1 or 2, and one team from Division 3 or 4).
I made the divisions with the best combination of competitive balance, geography, and sustained rivalries that I could possibly come up with. It's not perfect (especially for a school like Texas who doesn't have any natural rivals in their division), but it's the best I could come up with. Seems pretty fair overall; each division has one perennial doormat except division 3, but their 2nd team is probably the weakest program (assuming MSU, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska as the second best team in each division).
And, in the event that Texas or Oklahoma are not the teams that are added, keep the same format for the schedule, just switch up the teams in each division and the crossover games a little bit.
Thoughts?
*Lastly, not sure if this should be a diary or post on the board, but I figure it'd be easier to move to a diary if it belongs there and would be less of an issue on the board than as a diary if it's in the wrong place.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:19 PM ^
wut?
January 6th, 2016 at 5:45 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:52 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:20 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 6th, 2016 at 5:21 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:21 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:46 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 6:36 PM ^
To me football is about being able to beat your neighbors and then the superiority of region. The Washington Post did an article that claims there are 11 nations in the U.S. The B1G takes up Yankeedom and the Midlands. And if you count Rutgers, New Netherland. That's our footprint. We hate OSU partially because they border greater appalachia (are in? It's a small map and I'm old.) Austin is sort of an exception of their region, but my point is that Notre Dame is a bunch of chickens who don't want to play the kids in their neighborhood and are hanging out with a bunch of Tidewater whimps.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:09 PM ^
That's actually based on an excellent book by Colin Woodard. Definitely worth a read.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:31 PM ^
American Nations looks awesome. Thanks for the tip. I just bought the book on Audible.
ND is still a bunch of chickens.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:23 PM ^
To Hell with notre dame. Easily the most arrogant program in college football.
Go Blue!
January 7th, 2016 at 10:28 AM ^
There's a contract in place to give the ACC exclusive rights. ND contactually can not join another conference for football that is not the ACC until 2027.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:23 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:23 PM ^
The last thing this conference needs is more fucking teams.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:23 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:29 PM ^
One, Two, uhhhh. I know this . . . shit. Eight?
January 6th, 2016 at 5:24 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:26 PM ^
When you mentioned "In this exercise" I got tired and fell asleep and now Im gonna eat a bag of cheetos. Good day.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:27 PM ^
Pants off to a very long post. I gotta foot it to you. You did a best job.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:28 PM ^
NO MORE TEAMS!
January 6th, 2016 at 5:28 PM ^
this already sucks. We play Rutgers every year and rarely get to play Wisconsin or Iowa or Nebraska. Should've stayed at 12. It was perfect
January 6th, 2016 at 5:32 PM ^
Not saying I'm advocating for more teams, but I was just making this proposal in the scenario that more teams will be added, which is being rumored. And I understand wanting to play the best but do you really want our conference schedule to be OSU, MSU, PSU, WIsconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oklahoma, Texas? That's brutal. In this scenario you still play teams on average 3 out of every 8 years which is more than what we've been playing Wisconsin recently, and still have a balanced schedule with tough games and some cupcakes.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:29 PM ^
Still leaves you with 1 game @ for every 8 years for each opponent in the non paired division. This reminds me of the explanation of the NFL schedule I was looking at earlier. Sounds good to me, I don't think there's a simple fix to the problem I noted earlier.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:31 PM ^
teamz
January 6th, 2016 at 5:31 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:32 PM ^
My Proposal for a 16-Team Big Ten:
Don't.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:33 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:33 PM ^
you need to publish this in book format.
war + peace, moby dick, and this post would make for an awesome english class in high school.
:)
more seriously, the key thing for me would be: which teams to add?
if they are good teams, great. if they are rutgers/maryland, ...
January 6th, 2016 at 5:36 PM ^
I'm not for expansion to 16 either unless we get good teams, and even then I'm unsure. I just made this post given the rumors and I thought it would be interesting to post this.
With that said, I know Oklahoma was mentioned on a thread yesterday, and Texas was a little bit as well, so I kind of just threw them both in as they are both great programs and go hand in hand with each other.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:34 PM ^
Is that you?
January 6th, 2016 at 7:37 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:34 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 6th, 2016 at 5:37 PM ^
Nice work (not much homework this evening, huh - jk), and while I would love to get Texas as it is not only a good academic institution and would open up another awesome recruiting base, I do not think they would like to be in a democratically run B1G/16. IIRC, the Big 12 cut them some special deal in terms of revenue sharing for them to stay and not bolt. Will they really take their ego down a notch and want to be on par with the Purdues, Rutgers, and Marylands of our conference.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:55 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:38 PM ^
Drop PSU, Rutgers, Maryland, and your least favorite of { Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois, Nebraska }. Eliminate the conference championship game. Everybody plays everybody else. If there's a tie for the title, so be it. Moar titles for everyone. The team with the longest Rose Bowl drought can go.
Oh, and get off my lawn! ;-)
January 6th, 2016 at 5:40 PM ^
Delany? Is that you? The MSU boards are further down Google's gutter. That's where this shit might find approval.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:46 PM ^
What we need to do is the following:
Add Syracuse, Boston College, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and UConn.
West Division: Michigan, OSU, MSU, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa
East Division: Syracuse, Boston College, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Louisville, UConn, PSU, Rutgers, Maryland
Have a championship game until the cable business model collapses. After it does remove the East Division from the conference.
January 6th, 2016 at 10:11 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 5:47 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 7th, 2016 at 9:29 AM ^
You hate these? Do you LOVE the 9000 threads on scholarhip counts? The "Is O'Korn Wearing #5" thread?Or how about the endless "I know a guy who says every other university is cheating" threads?
This is good discussion. The expansion is probably going to happen. It will happen when they expand the playoff.
I suppose you and the others who are turning this down want to go back to the Big 9 and no facemasks? I mean, tradition is tradition!
January 6th, 2016 at 5:54 PM ^
I am against adding any more teams. I am really, really against adding the teams that you have added, more than just about any other teams that are options.
- Texas is TOXIC and, like syphilus, ultimately destroys is host. There is no known penicillin to cure Texas-infected conferences
- Oklahoma does not qualify academically. They are a bottom-feeder.
- Geography and academics matter - Texas fails on the first, Oklahoma on the second.
- I would rather resurect dead Univ. of Chicago at the expense of all of the member conference teams, rather than these 2 options as well as most others proposed.
Thus, I really don't really care what kind of conference system that is proposed or put in place, since it would be a conference in name only.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:01 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 7th, 2016 at 9:31 AM ^
The last time academics meant anything to college football, the U of Chicago WAS in the conference.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:57 PM ^
Making four divisions is an artificial construct. For CCG purposes there will still only be two. Sixteen is not a good even number to make a decent schedule, but your idea leads to greater disparity in schedules within the divisions. If we're adding more division games, I think we could go to crossover games not counting, sort of like Notre Dame and the ACC. Then we could let the schools schedule who they wanted without worrying about them being balanced. Maybe some creative ideas could work. The conference champion gets first choice for a home opponent and so on.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:27 PM ^
January 6th, 2016 at 7:52 PM ^
in place. The Big Ten objected to eliminating it and it's expected to remain. It's an issue the conferences are divided on.
His proposal would be three games against the other teams in their four team division. Then three, two and one respectively against the other three divisions.
I don't think the setup in your last paragraph would work in practice. Well, I don't think it would be popular to knock out teams with the second best record to avoid rematches. Especially when you might also be eliminating the next couple of teams too.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:02 PM ^
It's simple.
- (8) 10-team conferences, 12-game regular season
- (9) conference games
- (3) non-conference games
- 8-team playoff
- No conference championship games (saves on the extra game added by the 8-team playoff)
- Must be ranked in the top 12 to receive automatic bid...otherwise it becomes at-large
- Quarterfinals: At home site of top 4 seeds
- Semifinals & Finals: Done exactly how current CFP Playoff is run
- Bowls for quarterfinal losers and all other teams with WINNING record
I'm sure someone much smarter than me can figure out a way to make this happen. It's inclusive of all power 5 conference schools plus the next best 15 schools. That's plenty.
Everyone plays everyone in conference.
It has a plan for weak conferences or weak conference winners.
It rewards being a top 4 seed (and gets meaningful postseason play in the north).
The CFP Playoff Committee still gets to seed and rank teams and feel important.
Bowls are filled with winning records.
One day America, one day.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:05 PM ^
Nine bullet points is about as simple as going round your elbow to get to your ass.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:08 PM ^
I think you just wanted to be funny.
But you failed to acknowledge that in comparison to the OP. What I wrote was indeed, simple.
And if you couldn't follow 9 bullet points. Whew, I feel for you brah. life gets waaay harder.