Zurp;1620912; said:
Interesting idea. My problem with a 14-team conference is that you'd typically want each time to play every team in its division, and then make up the rest of the schedule with teams in the opposite division. In a 12-team conference, you play 5 games in-division, and 3 of the 6 teams out-of-division. Theoretically, you play every team in the conference every other year. Or maybe they alternate so that they might go 2 years without playing some teams, but then they play them in back-to-back years.
In the 14-team conference, you'd play all 6 teams in-division, and then only 2 of the out-of-division teams. It would take a team 4 years to play each of the teams in the other division. It's almost like 2 different conferences.
In a 14-team conference with two 7-team divisions, each team plays six games within its division, three games against teams in the other division, and three games against out of conference opponents. That way, each team in one division would have a home-away series with every team in the other division at least every five years. Maybe not ideal, but not too bad, either.
The PAC-10 teams play nine in-conference games and three OOC games, so there is a precedent for playing only three OOC games every year.
Alternatively, each team could play six games within its division, four games against teams in the other division, and two games against out of conference opponents. way, each team in one division would have a home-away series with every team in the other division at least every four years.
Back in the good old days, Ohio State often played only two non-conference games every year. Three OOC games became the norm in 1974, and four OOC games did not become standard until 2006. Non-conference games are generally a waste of time, unless it is a quality match-up like Southern Cal, Miami, Oklahoma, Tennessee, etc. Games against MAC schools are nothing more than glorified scrimmages, and there's no reason for Ohio State to play three scrimmages every year. So, I'd be in favor of reducing the number of non-conference games and expanding the number of conference games, even without Big Ten expansion.
ORD_Buckeye;1620913; said:
I agree with you that Nebraska meets the minimum CIC criteria, and is clearly a strong choice from a football perspective. My feeling, however, is that the B10 Presidents and faculties don't want to merely settle for an adequate CIC member. I think they want to hit something of a home run with this. Notre Dame (from an undergraduate perspective currently and a potential graduate/research perspective) certainly fits this bill as would Texas in all areas. Pitt and Syracuse wouldn't necessarily be home runs, but they would immediately land somewhere in the middle of the Big Ten academically.
Syracuse is kind of my dark horse candidate that might surprise a lot of people. There are some substantial arguments against them, but at least to my thinking, they have that elusive "it" factor: NYC media market, a second private U. for the conference, strong basketball, great--albeit dormant--football tradition, natural for a D1 hockey program.
I'd be for Syracuse or Pitt ... or Syracuse and Pitt. I still think that, from a purely football perspective, the Big 10 would need to add at least one real football power in the west, whether that be Notre Dame, Missouri, or Nebraska, or (preferably) some combination thereof. Having three marquee programs in the east (Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State) and none in the west would make for a really unbalanced conference. And I don't even want to consider some haphazard arrangement like the ACC, where Miami and Florida State were placed in separate divisions in an attempt to create conference balance at the expense of geographic rivalries.
