Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[ORD_Buckeye]

This is why I don't know what to make of this rumor except for the fact is we cannot wait for the actual games to start.

But you have to look at the source... Ohio State. Meaning Dodds and the other conference 'insiders' is getting fed info from inside Ohio State. Like it or not of the B1G schools Ohio State is the most likely to not really care much about the academics of the school. It WANTS a power school... it probably feels it NEEDS a power school to raise the football profile of the conference.

No. We need UM, Wiscy, the Corn and the Ped to get their fucking acts together in recruiting and then go out and win some big out of conference pre-season and bowl games.

Even if what you say is true, we would get massively outvoted on Okie or FSU, so why make enemies pushing for something that will not happen.

 

[Bucknut24]

No. We need UM, Wiscy, the Corn and the Ped to get their fucking acts together in recruiting and then go out and win some big out of conference pre-season and bowl games.

Even if what you say is true, we would get massively outvoted on Okie or FSU, so why make enemies pushing for something that will not happen.

disagree, most b1g would vote fsu or okie, maybe 1 or 2 would be against it

 

[Buckeye86]

Based on recent rumblings on the interwebs that Texas is a serious expansion option and they'd like to bring Oklahoma on board as well, I decided to put together a 5 team pod system for the Big Ten based entirely on geography with the hypothetical additions of: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina to bring the conference to 20 teams.

East:
Penn State
North Carolina
Maryland
Virginia
Rutgers

Mid East:
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana

Mid West:
Wisconsin
Iowa
Illinois
Northwestern
Minnesota

West:
Texas
Oklahoma
Nebraska
Missouri
Kansas

Then I ran a schedule for Ohio State using a 9 game conference schedule, playing every team in their pod every year, and with the East and West pods most loosely associated (meaning the teams from the East and Mid East pods only play one team from the West pod each season and vice versa).

Using that formula it would take 5 years for every team in the conference to play every other team in the conference.For example-

Year 1
Ohio State: Michigan, Penn State, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, North Carolina, Missouri

Year 2
Ohio State: Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Rutgers, Kansas

Year 3
Ohio State: Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota, Virginia

Year 4
Ohio State: Michigan, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland

Year 5
Ohio State: Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Iowa, Rutgers, Virginia

Or something like that, it gets a lot more complicated when you run multiple teams, obviously.

However, I think overall this would be a very workable system that sets up competitive balance relatively nicely.

It also protects historical and regional rivalries and affiliations (West is Big 12 lite and East is ACC lite while the Mids are classic Big Ten) as well as spacing out the times the geographically separated teams would play one another.

My biggest problem is that Penn State is gift wrapped their pod (the mid-west is relatively weak as well and the West and Mid East are stacked) and I'm sure they would love this set up, but trying to balance the divisions any other way gets impossible extremely quickly without completely blowing up the historic and regional affiliations.

If mega conferences are in the future, I'd be extremely happy if the Big Ten ended up with this arrangement.

Also, if you had four mega conferences with 4 5-team pods, you could have the pod winners play, have the winners of those games play in a conference championship game, then have the conference champions in a four team playoff.

It would effectively be a 16 team tournament.

One can dream.

 

[LovelandBuckeye]

Mid East:
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana

Uh, no...unless Baghdad University is added to this pod.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

So that 18 team B1G leaves a natural split along the following lines:

East:
Ohio State
TSUN
PSU
Sparty
Purdue
Indiana
Maryland
Rutgers

West:
Texas
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Wisconsin
Iowa
Northwestern
Illinois
Minnesota
Missouri
Kansas

So who goes east to balance it out? Northwestern? The last time around they preferred staying west, would that still be the case? Texas +1 would actually be easier to divide up but it still seems like a long shot to me.

Move Illinois to the East. Although Champaign is a smidge farther west than is Evanston, it would renew our annual rivalry for the Illibuck. We had played Illinois every year from 1914 to 2002 and have played them 98 times...we've played Northwestern only 74 times.

 

[Buckeye86]

Move Illinois to the East. Although Champaign is a smidge farther west than is Evanston, it would renew our annual rivalry for the Illibuck. We had played Illinois every year from 1914 to 2002 and have played them 98 times...we've played Northwestern only 74 times.

Ohio State went 58-28-3 in those games and is 53-18-2 against Illinois since 1930.

It's a terrible "rivalry" with no intensity or passion of any sort.

I have a strong suspicion that very few people would give a damn if the Illibuck wasn't awarded every year or even went away completely.

 

[LovelandBuckeye]

Ohio State went 58-28-3 in those games and is 53-18-2 against Illinois since 1930.

It's a terrible "rivalry" with no intensity or passion of any sort.

I have a strong suspicion that very few people would give a damn if the Illibuck wasn't awarded every year or even went away completely.

WHAT!? I mean it's a wooden turtle. Who doesn't care about a wooden turtle? There are quite a few that have no idea the trophy exists until they play NCAA on Xbox or PS.

 

[Muck]

Move Illinois to the East. Although Champaign is a smidge farther west than is Evanston, it would renew our annual rivalry for the Illibuck. We had played Illinois every year from 1914 to 2002 and have played them 98 times...we've played Northwestern only 74 times.

In the mind of most Illini Land of Lincoln > Illibuck

They also have a solid history with Missouri which you'd want to grow.

I have a strong suspicion that very few people would give a damn if the Illibuck wasn't awarded every year or even went away completely.

Long time Ohio State fans give a damn. Illinois fans give a damn (just arguably not more than they do about their in-state rivalry).

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Ohio State went 58-28-3 in those games and is 53-18-2 against Illinois since 1930.

It's a terrible "rivalry" with no intensity or passion of any sort.

I have a strong suspicion that very few people would give a damn if the Illibuck wasn't awarded every year or even went away completely.

Maybe you should check what our record is against the other option in the equation (Northwestern) before posting heads-up records. We're 59-14-1 against Northwestern including 53-10-1 since 1932 and fucking 33-2-0 since 1964. As far as "intensity or passion", Illinois always plays us harder than does Northwestern. You may be too young to remember the 7-game stretch from 1988-1994 where Illinois went 6-1 against us, including five straight...Northwestern has only had one win streak greater than two games against us ever, and that was a 3-game streak 1929-1931. It's a no-brainer when choosing between Illinois and Northwestern.

 

[Buckeye86]

Maybe you should check what our record is against the other option in the equation (Northwestern) before posting heads-up records. We're 59-14-1 against Northwestern including 53-10-1 since 1932 and fucking 33-2-0 since 1964. As far as "intensity or passion", Illinois always plays us harder than does Northwestern. You may be too young to remember the 7-game stretch from 1988-1994 where Illinois went 6-1 against us, including five straight...Northwestern has only had one win streak greater than two games against us ever, and that was a 3-game streak 1929-1931. It's a no-brainer when choosing between Illinois and Northwestern.

The argument wasn't about which team had a better head to head record against Ohio State.

The argument was that you can't put Illinois in a division opposite Ohio State because it would interfere with a rivalry.

The head-to-head record was merely to demonstrate that the rivalry isn't compelling. A bad stretch by some of the worst teams in Ohio State history isn't going to change that.

So yes, Northwestern isn't compelling either- but if there was a trophy would you argue that Northwestern is a rivalry game worth protecting too?

A wooden turtle does not make me care more about beating bad Illinois teams, but to each their own.

Long time Ohio State fans give a damn. Illinois fans give a damn.

I think you and I have different definitions of giving a damn.

If the Illibuck trophy was completely removed, how many fans do you think would be complaining about its absence five years down the road?

I'd put it at well less than 10% for Ohio State and I have no clue about Illinois.

I guess to summarize, I honestly don't care whether you swap Illinois and Northwestern in any future alignment you come up with, I just find restoring or protecting the Illibuck a pretty lame priority in the grand scheme of things.

 

[BuckeyeSoldier]

Based on recent rumblings on the interwebs that Texas is a serious expansion option and they'd like to bring Oklahoma on board as well, I decided to put together a 5 team pod system for the Big Ten based entirely on geography with the hypothetical additions of: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina to bring the conference to 20 teams.

East:
Penn State
North Carolina
Maryland
Virginia
Rutgers

Mid East:
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana

Mid West:
Wisconsin
Iowa
Illinois
Northwestern
Minnesota

West:
Texas
Oklahoma
Nebraska
Missouri
Kansas

Dont hate it but there are a few issues (I dont have a better answer either so yeah.)
1)Nebbie will likely balk at the idea of being paired with texas again due to their recent history.
2)PSU shouldnt be gift wrapped a division, this set-up WILL return them to prominance and fuck them
3)I think we should be going out of our way to assimilate the new-comers not pod them off with other newcomers where they may never truly accept this as their permanent home.

 

[Muck]

The Illibuck is the second oldest trophy game in the conference. Yes it's a big deal to long time fans. Don't confuse the <30 crowd who thinks Oregon's uniforms look cool with the majority of Ohio State fans.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

The argument wasn't about which team had a better head to head record against Ohio State.

Then why did you even post our record against Illinois in the first place, and not our record against Northwestern?

The argument was that you can't put Illinois in a division opposite Ohio State because it would interfere with a rivalry.

I personally don't care all that much about the Illibuck trophy either, but the point is that it's a factor to be considered when choosing between which of two shitty football schools to move in to our division (it's the second longest rivalry trophy in the conference, second only to the Little Brown Jug).

What factor would you use to choosing which of the two schools to move in to our division? Geography is a virtual wash. To me, the obvious choice is the team with whom you've had a longer standing rivalry. We've played Illinois 20 more times, Illinois plays us tougher, and there is a long-standing rivalry trophy involved with Illinois. Again, no-brainer...

 

[Muck]

Dont hate it but there are a few issues (I dont have a better answer either so yeah.)
1)Nebbie will likely balk at the idea of being paired with texas again due to their recent history.

So? The serfs will take their conference payout and do what they're told.

2)PSU shouldnt be gift wrapped a division, this set-up WILL return them to prominance and fuck them[

That's not how pods work. PSU would still be in a division with Ohio State & TSUN, Texas, Oklahoma & Nebraska or at the worst Wisconsin, Iowa & Northwestern/Illinois (whenever Northwestern regresses back to norm, Illinois will pick up some of the slack).

If you don't do fully rotating pods you could set it up so that the PSU & Wisconsin pods are always on opposite sides. That makes it easier as you don't have to fully balance all four pods. Using the listed pods it would also prevent Ohio State, TSUN, Nebraska, Texas & Oklahoma from all being in the same division which is something you don't want.

Even without taking the above into account, remember that Rutgers, Maryland, Virginia & North Carolina are all the flagship university in states that produce a lot of talent. With the greater FB exposure brought with B1G membership one or more of those programs is going to rise up to become competitive.

3)I think we should be going out of our way to assimilate the new-comers not pod them off with other newcomers where they may never truly accept this as their permanent home.

I don't really disagree but breaking up existing rivalries can be damaging as well.

 

[Muck]

What factor would you use to choosing which of the two schools to move in to our division? Geography is a virtual wash. To me, the obvious choice is the team with whom you've had a longer standing rivalry. We've played Illinois 20 more times, Illinois plays us tougher, and there is a long-standing rivalry trophy involved with Illinois. Again, no-brainer...

Except the decision isn't going to be made based on who Ohio State has a longer standing rivalry with.