What would be a fair and balanced divisional alignment?
- Thread starter ezluke
- Start date
I think it should stay the way it is and strictly be determined by geography. That said, maybe they add one more interdivisional game. I don't think you should necessarily have to play each team in your division every season. For instance, I would like to see us play Nebraska, which I guess we will eventually.
Why should it be determined by geography? Air travel has eliminated the need for that to be a concern
9-game B1G schedule starting soon (next year?), so you play all 6 other teams from your division + 3 from the other each year.
That's pretty dumb. UM would have a much harder schedule, and it would almost guarantee the B1G title game is a rematch.
Leave it the way it is. The conferences aren't changing because IU can't field a competitive football team.
Maybe the B1G could just give IU participation trophies to make the fans feel better.
Yeah it might be unfair to UM but having all the potential playoff teams in one division is dumber. The big ten is going to have trouble getting two teams in the playoffs with the division's being this unbalanced
I'm not saying the big ten should realign because of IU, regardless of your smart ass remarks. I'm saying it should be realigned because everyone knew it was unbalanced the moment it was announced
Uh.... as is always the case, it is obvious IU fans don't watch football outside of IU games.
An unbalanced conference is EXACTLY how you get 2 teams in the playoffs. See the SRC. You don't want your two best playing in the conference title game. Close to impossible to get a team coming off of a loss into the playoffs.
You don't want all of your good teams in one division beating each other up. Now that UM and PSU are starting to get back to normal that is exactly what you'll have
The "SRC" as you put it doesn't have as an unbalanced alignment as the B1G. UF and UGa in the east and Bama and LSU in the west is fairly well balanced at the top.
The PAC 12 south is similar to the B1G east.
Any chance that you can have a conversation without insults/jabs? I bet you can if you try.
Basing it on geography allows more fans to travel to away games which build and sustain rivalries.
Again... you obviously don't watch much football. I'm not debating with someone who can't grasp the basics.
Explain to me how LSU and Alabama both got into a 2 team playoff and then get back to me.
Fan traveling isn't a big issue. A few thousand at most tickets are sold to opposing fans.
Fan following also. For example a lot of fans in the NYC area will pay attention to an RU-PSU game or an RU-Mich or RU-OSU game or RU-MD game. Not so much an RU-Wisc or RU-Neb game. It is about proximity also to the viewers. People that know people at work amongst relatives etc that root for the opposing team. That's more likely to occur with close geography rather than far geography.
It's why i'm sure many in the mid west don't get excited playing Rutgers (btw I live in Wisconsin so I have first hand experience with mid-west fan's indifference with playing RU). It's the same reason why people on the east coast don't get worked up playing Indiana, Wisc, neb but do with PSU, OSU and MD. There are more people attached to those programs on the east coast. It creates a sense of us vs them mentality and leads to rivalries.
It's why i'm sure many in the mid west don't get excited playing Rutgers (btw I live in Wisconsin so I have first hand experience with mid-west fan's indifference with playing RU). It's the same reason why people on the east coast don't get worked up playing Indiana, Wisc, neb but do with PSU, OSU and MD. There are more people attached to those programs on the east coast. It creates a sense of us vs them mentality and leads to rivalries.
Those teams made it for the same reason two teams from different divisions made it from the SEC in 01-02
The same way that UM and OSU both made it after playing against each other in the final game
UF and Bama both made it from different divisions in 08-09, 12-13
You need to pay better attention to what's really happening
I gave you to much credit, you can't have a civil discussion
They played a very close regular season game (LSU won in OT) and then upsets down the stretch enabled Alabama to get the nod into the BCS game (which they won). It was an extremely controversial pick and generally acknowledged by most as the final straw that led to the four team playoff two years later. You're talking apples and oranges, since it's no longer a two team format (Alabama would have made every four team tournament had one existed that year, as would have Michigan had that system been in place in the 2006 season). You could use some basic brushing up, too.
As I thought: you're clueless. UM has never played in a championship game and no conference has gotten two teams in except for the SEC--both teams from the same loaded division.
Go back to your IU tailgate where you can be the smart one of the group.
Nice copy and paste from Wikipedia.
I bet you recite Dr. Suess to your girlfriend and pass it off as your own. I bet she buys it.
Not a copy and paste, though you must have gone there to see if it was accurate. In other words, you were way off base and ignorant of the facts. That's at least twice today.
I didn't say that UM played in the title game, that was an example of a team losing its final game and still making the BCS.
You didn't say same conference, the discussion was same division. You are now changing the discussion because, even with all of your unfounded arrogance, you were proven wrong. By a know nothing IUFB fan.
I just gave you several examples of teams from the same divisions making the bcs. If you are going just on the new playoff system, that sample size is too small to make an intelligent conclusion. Which now that I think of it, unintelligent conclusions is your entire argument
Time to quit while you're behind. Stick to bashing TC, that bar is so low even you can manage that
He tried to make an argument based on the two team format, either forgetting or not knowing that it was expanded to four teams last year, in large part due to the LSU-Alabama matchup (and will someday grow to eight to further remove intraconference issues). Based on his few posts, it's apparent he doesn't follow college football closely.
You're out of your league corky.
Go back to complaining about how life is unfair to IU.
Indiana
Purdue
Louisville
Cincinnati
Western
Ball State
Indiana State
Eastern
Murray
Southern Illinois
Marshall
Memphis
Welcome to the bus league.
Purdue
Louisville
Cincinnati
Western
Ball State
Indiana State
Eastern
Murray
Southern Illinois
Marshall
Memphis
Welcome to the bus league.
Never said life was unfair to IU, not surprising that you find reading difficult.
I love that you are resorting to name calling now that you had your ass handed to you by more than one poster.
I'm going to be nice and I am going to stop smacking you around. It's not sporting to pick on the likes of you. Helpful hint: Stick to hoops FL, you don't know crap about that either, but it won't stand out as much
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We have someone who sees it (finally) for what it is for. Put IU with a group of teams a little bit more to their profile. The Big Ten is big boy football. Align them where they belong. In the Big we are overwhelmed and out of our league. Pull in a couple of bigger schools and dump IU and Purdue so this can become a superconference.
Because geographic proximity creates natural rivalries. It's the nature of sports, whether it's the Chicago Bears vs. the Green Bay Packers, Michigan vs. Michigan State, Ohio State vs. Michigan, Auburn vs. Alabama, Florida vs. Florida State, USC vs. UCLA, Stanford vs. Cal, Liverpool vs. Everton, Manchester vs. Manchester City, the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New York Yankees, etc. Anyway, another reason is that the Big Ten now stretches from Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Atlantic Ocean, so geography makes more sense with that type of distance and also the rivalries. All the states in the Eastern Division are contiguous: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. Not sure how air travel addresses that. Michigan can take a bus to Michigan State, but Maryland isn't going to take a bus to Nebraska. Air travel is more costly, and a flight halfway across the country is still going to take time, especially when you factor in all the time it takes to get on a flight. I would much rather IU spend the next 125 years of football trying to beat the teams in our division.
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Many of Those rivalries started at a time when cars were a luxury item, and train travel was the norm. I can get to Iowa quicker now than Bears fans could get to a Packers game in the 1940s
I do allow for geography to be part of the equation but I like the SEC approach. Missouri is in the east because they needed the right balance.
The current alignment works perfectly for every school not named Indiana University. That's the problem and why the administration at IU consented to this is baffling to me. We lost our natural opponents and created increased travel for our fans in addition to creating a horrible competitive disadvantage for ourselves. At a time when we were trying to build a competitive football program, we essentially guaranteed ourselves four conference losses every year. If we had already been competitive, this might not have been so bad but in our situation, it's a death blow.
Illinois and Northwestern are neighbors and easy trips for IU fans. In recent years we have had very competitive games with Iowa which is also an easy trip. We can effectively compete with every team in the West right now given that Wisconsin and Nebraska are not currently dominant ( and admitting Nebraska was a mistake too IMO). Nebraska is a shell of its former football self and I don't think it will ever return to its Big 8 glory days. Not sure if Wisconsin's recent history of coaching turnover will be a short-term or long-term issue but the Badgers are not what they have been for sure.
Bottom line is that we took a bullet in the realignment, one that may prevent us from ever becoming a respectable football program. If we fall to pieces this year after Saturday's devastating loss, it may be hard to get 20 thousand people to show up next year. Maryland and Rutgers aren't bringing a ton of people to Bloomington on a fall Saturday, and not many Hoosiers want to spend that kind of money to watch UM, MSU, OSU, and PSU kick our ass. At least a lot of Buckeyes will be able to get easy tickets to watch their team play.
Yeah....Tennessee makes it tough because it runs further east, and west, than Alabama....same for Kentucky.
I'd guess pure geography of campus there would put Bama in the West with Mizzou and the rest, and switch Auburn to the east....as Tuscaloosa is further west than Nashville?
Alabama would kinda be the "Indiana" of the SEC, with the two in-state rivals split into opposite divisions.
Team strength is cyclical. All teams go through periods of up and down. Trying to base alignment on perceived "strength" to make things "balanced" is a non-starter and should not be considered at all when forming divisions. Even if this was done, they'd need to be re-done almost every year. Otherwise, if you're saying you always know who is good and bad, why do the teams even bother playing the games?
100% agree with this.
Who knows, with concussion risk, and the further "internationalization" of the US...who knows if 75 years from now we're setting up divisions based on soccer team strength.
I'll take UM/PSU/OSU and be very confident that over the next 50yrs they will be good 75% of the time. I'll take the opposite with IU
Then our lot in life "is what it is"....don't change the rules to make success "easier". We're in a division that next to the SEC West, may be the most daunting in CFB over time....you think Mississippi State is complaining that they want out of the SEC West because of the difficulty of winning? NO.
It's an obstacle, and an opportunity.
I guarantee you, in that magic year when luck plays to us, if we run the table in conference...we won't get left out of the playoff because "we're Indiana". A 7-5 Indiana of the future will be legit....just like that 7-5 Ok State team was that pancaked us.
Pac 12 South is in the conversation for the best division
I don't want realignment just for IU. It's unfair that Iowa gets a cakewalk to the title without playing UM, OSU, or MSU. It's unfair that best teams have to beat each other up.
I'll agree that after they won at Wisky, I looked at Iowa's schedule and thought they should probably run the table....looks even more that way now. That's what'll have to happen for us, probably. Some weird transition year where 2 of the 4 "power teams" are down, (kinda missed our window with PSU and Michigan the last 5 years), and we pull an upset on the other two (or one, and win a tiebreaker or something).
Gotta walk before we can run, though. let's get to 6-6, then 7-5 consistently....then we can target that magical 10+ win season.
Like I said....if we ever get to 10 wins in the East....you'll know it's legit. We'll probably have to beat 3-4 ranked teams, which is fine.
You forget that UW and Neb. have been very good for the most part but they are having down years so usually Iowa or anyone else would't have a cake walk.
Since Osborne retired after the 97 season they have finished in the top 25, nine times and haven't finished in the top ten since they fired Solich. It's been a long time since NU was "very good"
This century UW has finished in the top 10 three times, In the last twenty years they finished outside the top 25 as many times as they have finished ranked. So it's not like they are normally "very good" either.
You are stuck in the Osborne/Alvarez era, and it's over
NU and UW are on the same level as Iowa. Good teams, sometimes better than good,but a step below the elite teams
You can say the same thing about UM and PSU last 10 years as well because they have not been elite for awhile.
This century
UM final AP rankings for the last twenty years: ranked top 25-14
ranked top 15-9
Top 10-5
PSU had a scandal like we have never seen before so the numbers are kinda artificially skewed but final AP rankings
Top 25-10
Top 15-6
Top 10-4
That's pretty damned good considering they had a fossil as a head coach and major NCAA penalties
But did you notice that you just did what you always deny doing? You made a post about NU/UW which was proven wrong, so you changed what you were talking about
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