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B1G Might Eliminate Divisions

There's scuttlebutt that in place of divisions, conference teams would play 3 opponents annually & cycle thru the other 10 teams over the course of a few seasons. You can imagine what those 3 teams would be for Indiana,.... Purdue, of course, plus Ohio State & Penn State!!
 
I wonder how much being in the big east helps recruiting. Apparently 5 of the top 6 classes are in the east.

Is being in the east helping with recruiting or the boost solely base on recent success prior to this past year and the staff?
If you take recruiting rankings as gospel, then yes. You are correct. I struggle to take them that serious when Purdue had a recruit go from 900 to 105 in the most recent update.

I think this could benefit the big ten of done correctly. Especially the 8 game part, allowing teams to still cycle through the rest more quickly. Issue is, I don't trust the big ten to get it right.
 
Conference divisions should be eliminated at all D1 schools. So should the championship game. Give the conference championship to the team with the best record. This would also eliminate one game at seasons end. Then choose the best 16 teams for a playoff. First game at a neutral site. Second round site goes to remaining top seed. All other rounds at neutral sites. As this format continues, top recruits will be more open to attending other schools (instead of just the top 5-6 schools) because recruits chances of being in playoffs increases.
Maybe some holes here but a lot better than what there is presently.
 
Conference divisions should be eliminated at all D1 schools. So should the championship game. Give the conference championship to the team with the best record. This would also eliminate one game at seasons end. Then choose the best 16 teams for a playoff. First game at a neutral site. Second round site goes to remaining top seed. All other rounds at neutral sites. As this format continues, top recruits will be more open to attending other schools (instead of just the top 5-6 schools) because recruits chances of being in playoffs increases.
Maybe some holes here but a lot better than what there is presently.

I like it but I doubt anything so sensible will happen. The conference gets a LOT of money for that championship game and as we all know, money is the driving factor!
 
Can we not keep the championship game, however it is played be the two teams with the best BIG Record?
I could live with that. Although I think we'd find a lot of years with 3-4 teams tied up in the top 2. Especially with a 14 team conference.

I personally like the pods system idea, but nothing is perfect & people are always going have valid points to nitpick with whatever they go with.
 
4 non conference games is definitely a positive. I don’t recall the heavyweights in the East ever complaining about the divisions though. I like the divisions the way they are. I really think we should be careful what we wish for.
 
4 non conference games is definitely a positive. I don’t recall the heavyweights in the East ever complaining about the divisions though. I like the divisions the way they are. I really think we should be careful what we wish for.

I think in the long run we may have benefited from being in the more prestigious side of the big ten. On the flip side, an easier schedule should lead to a better record which could also help recruiting so maybe a flip of the coin on that.
 
Heard that story reported on local radio yesterday.

I agree that the current BiG 10 East West imbalance makes for some ugly comparisons … it was flawed from day 1.
Reverting to a rotating schedule improves equity to a point.

I am not so sure it makes sense to trade 1 big 10 power 5 game for two power 5 Alliance opponents.
(1-ACC, 1-PAC12). 3 MAC teams have been the norm for many big 10 squads for decades.

Rotating one game (each) between 14 ACC teams and 12 PAC 12 teams could result in some arbitrary outcomes.
Seeing a given team once every 26 years (one alliance game) seems bound to fail …
There could easily be 5 or 6 realignments in 26 years.

Creating a seeding and relegation system seems too tricky

My guess is that ADs will agree (pledge) to play either 1 PAC 12 or 1 ACC school … leaving 3 G5 opportunities.
They may agree (pledge) to play 2, but I would insist on making the cross conference schedule were I an AD.

Forcing the SEC to only play SEC and G5 games will result in more SEC Pay to Play home games … leading to a guaranteed 7 or 8 home games a year. How will Letting SEC leaders to play 8 home games improve Big10 bowl eligibility.
 
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I could live with that. Although I think we'd find a lot of years with 3-4 teams tied up in the top 2. Especially with a 14 team conference.

I personally like the pods system idea, but nothing is perfect & people are always going have valid points to nitpick with whatever they go with.
I like the pod system. If the B1G uses the pod system it will work the way they are talking about the change.
 
Heard that story reported on local radio yesterday.

I agree that the current BiG 10 East West imbalance makes for some ugly comparisons … it was flawed from day 1.
Reverting to a rotating schedule improves equity to a point.

I am not so sure it makes sense to trade 1 big 10 power 5 game for two power 5 Alliance opponents.
(1-ACC, 1-PAC12). 3 MAC teams have been the norm for many big 10 squads for decades.

Rotating one game (each) between 14 ACC teams and 12 PAC 12 teams could result in some arbitrary outcomes.
Seeing a given team once every 26 years (one alliance game) seems bound to fail …
There could easily be 5 or 6 realignments in 26 years.

Creating a seeding and relegation system seems too tricky

My guess is that ADs will agree (pledge) to play either 1 PAC 12 or 1 ACC school … leaving 3 G5 opportunities.
They may agree (pledge) to play 2, but I would insist on making the cross conference schedule were I an AD.

Forcing the SEC to only play SEC and G5 games will result in more SEC Pay to Play home games … leading to a guaranteed 7 or 8 home games a year. How will Letting SEC leaders to play 8 home games improve Big10 bowl eligibility.
Valid points, but what will draw more eyeballs, IU and Stanford or Bama and Podunk U? At least by the computers, the BT/PAC12 should bump up rankings more than playing someone out of the Power 5. And NIL not withstanding, you'd think players would want to play in a league where they'd be seen by fans of 3 of the power conferences instead of just 1.

The biggest question is what's being played for in this struggle, the National Championship or conference domination. My personal opinion is the NIL will decide the former, but the Alliance will set up the latter in favor of the BT.
 
Valid points, but what will draw more eyeballs, IU and Stanford or Bama and Podunk U? At least by the computers, the BT/PAC12 should bump up rankings more than playing someone out of the Power 5. And NIL not withstanding, you'd think players would want to play in a league where they'd be seen by fans of 3 of the power conferences instead of just 1.

The biggest question is what's being played for in this struggle, the National Championship or conference domination. My personal opinion is the NIL will decide the former, but the Alliance will set up the latter in favor of the BT.

Based on 2021 power rankIngs FIU, USF, UL-(Ragin’ Cagins) at Alabama would all draw more, I’d say. … esp. south of that key demographical Mason-Dixon Line … than Colorado (94), Stanford (97), Cal (78), or Wash. (84) v. IU (101). Californians would go to the beach or the mountains first. A hypothetical Colorado (48) v IU (40) would still find it difficult to compete with G5 @ Alabama.

Rankings from https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/rankings/cbs-sports-ranking/
 
The divisions were set up to fail...and they did. The four top programs (arguably five) are in one division which skews the schedules badly.

The opinions on this are predictable: If you are IU you need this to change, if you are purdue you need this to stay the same.
Yeah, I agree. My opinion on this has always been that only one team is really screwed by the current arrangement and unfortunately, that is us. Maryland and Rutgers are getting no favors either, but they were beggars waiting at the door just to get in the B1G. We are the only school who got kicked in the nuts just as we were trying to get serious about building a winning football program. As I see it, every other member of the original Big Ten, as well as PSU and Nebraska are served pretty well by the current setup.

I don't know if we ever really had a choice, but the day the East-West arrangement was agreed to, we were permanently screwed. As to the other part of the rumor, I cannot see how the B1G as a whole benefits from a 9 game conference schedule. To me, that setup benefits nobody.
 
The divisions were set up to fail...and they did. The four top programs (arguably five) are in one division which skews the schedules badly.

The opinions on this are predictable: If you are IU you need this to change, if you are purdue you need this to stay the same.
So you are saying there are 5 programs in the East better than Wisconsin?
 
Yeah, I agree. My opinion on this has always been that only one team is really screwed by the current arrangement and unfortunately, that is us. Maryland and Rutgers are getting no favors either, but they were beggars waiting at the door just to get in the B1G. We are the only school who got kicked in the nuts just as we were trying to get serious about building a winning football program. As I see it, every other member of the original Big Ten, as well as PSU and Nebraska are served pretty well by the current setup.

I don't know if we ever really had a choice, but the day the East-West arrangement was agreed to, we were permanently screwed. As to the other part of the rumor, I cannot see how the B1G as a whole benefits from a 9 game conference schedule. To me, that setup benefits nobody.
I am not going to look for or expect logic from these idiots, they just need to fix the big disparity problem.
 
So we can see my point from above play out as it did on the similar thread in Dec. IU fans need this problem to be fixed and PU grads badly want it to stay the way it is.
You mean Purdue fans do see a problem and iu fans will do anything to get a couple extra wins since there are 5 better teams in the East division than the west?
 
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You mean where the East is 77-70 against the west Since conception?What a huge disparity….
You and the person who liked your post would not switch positions with IU straight up. We have had this discussion before.

Personally, I would not do away with divisions altogether. I would flip it to North/South instead of East/West and that dividing line allows you to balance more.

North: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, Michigan State, Rutgers, Northwestern

South: Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, Maryland
 
Check out the BT Championship game results. Historically, Michigan, Ohio St., and Penn St. are the best programs, and they are all in the same conference: wait until you have to start playing them every year again, you'll get it.
Historically, sure, but present say, Ohio state is the only scary one. Michigan just had a good year. Penn state has been a .500 program for 2 years now. The names are more daughting than the teams.

But now that the bottom end of the east is catching the bottom end of the west, you are probably correct in that the east is better. If you rank that teams 1-14 each of the past two years, it's not as shocking as you think. Add in the East vs west record and look at big ten championships, osu is the team that is scary year in and year out.
 
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