My Totally Bats Idea for a Big Ten FB Season

I know this is a pointless exercise but...whatever. I'm still in the bargaining phase of my grief, and I wish something like this would work in a world where we admit that college athletes are students and semi-pros. I strove to limit the games, limit travel, play some football, and pick a champion. So my totally bats idea is to borrow an idea from chess - the swiss system - for the first few rounds, and combine it with a double elimination setup. For safety's sake, bubble in 3 sites for the first 3 round - the first half of the season. After 2-4 games per team, 6 teams will bubble together for the second half of the season. Rivalry games are up front, rematches are mostly avoided until the championship.

So 3 bubbles – the western 4 schools in the twin cities, the indiana-illinois schools in Indy, and the Michigan and eastern schools in Detroit

For three weeks they play this swiss system – but in Detroit things will have to be a bit funky.

Rd 1 is rivalry games

TC: Wiscy-Minny, Iowa Nebraska

Indy: UofI-NW, IU-Purdue

Detroit: Sparty-Mich, Ohio-PennSt, RU-MD

BUT WAIT! We’re missing the most important rivalry game. Don’t worry, we also can’t do a normal swiss system in Detroit. So UM-OSU will be mandatory, and give us a useful constraint to schedule around

 

Rd 2 is winners and losers in TC and Indy

In Detroit, 2 winners play 2 losers, but there will be one winner-loser game. It cannot be a rematch. And one game must be Michigan-Ohio State

 

Rd 3 is all the 1-1 teams play each other. BUT WAIT! Detroit is making things funky – we could have 2x 1-1 teams, or 4x 1-1 teams. No matter – all the 1-1s play each other

Round 3.5 is confusing…if in Detroit we have 2 undefeated teams, they play each other, let’s call this option A. This game would happen on 1-1 weekend

3.75A is the two 2-1 teams remaining in Detroit play an elimination game the next weekend. This is the only place where you may see a rematch before the championship final.

Meanwhile, 3.75A sees the central and western champs play each other – two weeks after 3.0 finished, 3 weeks after their last game

Also, if they want the 0-2 teams could play a consolation game for a 3-game season

So at the end of round 3 in option A, it took 3 weeks but we have 2 undefeated teams and 4x 2-1 teams

 

3.5B? well in Detroit, the 2-1 teams would play one week after round 3

and in the central and west…3.75B is the central and west undefeateds play a game after bubbling for a couple of weeks in the new bubble

 

No matter what – option A or option B, we have 2 undefeated teams and 4x 1-loss teams

 

Round 4: The 1-loss teams play each other – no rematches

Round 5: Semifinals, undefeateds play 1-losses – no rematches

Round 6: Finals

 

Max games: 7

Min games: 1-4 teams could play 2 games; 6 teams will play no more than 3, 6 teams will play at least 4, and the last 4 will play 5,6,or 7 depending on how it goes

Round 3 is 4 weeks long in a bubble, with 2-3 weeks break before bubbling for the last 3 rounds, which will take  3 weeks

So, a 9-10 week season

 

Confusing? It helps me to think of actual teams, so here's an example where favorites win.

Rd 1

TC: Wiscy beats Minny, Iowa beats Nebraska

Indy: NW beats Illinois, IU beats Purdue

Detroit: Mich beats Sparty, Ohio beats PennSt, MD beats RU

 

Rd 2

TC: Wiscy beats Iowa, Minny beats Nebraska, the Huskers are eliminated, Wiscy is the TC champ

Indy: IU beats NW, Purdue beats Illinois, Illinoisis eliminated, Indiana is the Indy Champ

Detroit: Ohio beats M, Penn St beats MD, Sparty beats RU, Rutger is eliminated, Ohio is the Detroit Champ, advances to semis, and we are in option B

 

Rd 3 option B

TC: Minny beats Iowa, Iowa is eliminated, Minny to quarters

Indy: Purdue beats NW, Northwestern is eliminated, Purdue to quarters

Detroit: Mich beats PennSt, MD beats Sparty, Sparty and Penn St are eliminated

Rd 3.5B in Detroit (week 4): Mich beats MD, Turtles are eliminated, M to quarters

Rd 3.75B in…I dunno, St Louis? (Week 6) – Wiscy beats IU, Wiscy to semis and IU to quarters

 

Rd 4, week 7, in championship bubble

IU and Purdue cannot have rematch yet, therefore

Mich beats Purdue, Purdue is eliminated, M to semis

Minny beats IU, IU is eliminated, Gophers to semis

 

Rd5, week 8, still no rematches, therefore

M beats Wiscy, Wiscy eliminated after 1st loss, M to ‘ship

Ohio beats Minny, Minny eliminated, Ohio to ‘ship

No jug this year

 

Rd6, week9, finally a rematch

M-OSU for the big ten ‘ship