Big Ten Conference Divisions

[Zurp]

I like the East-West idea. I think it was Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, and Purdue. That's all the teams in the eastern time zone, vs. the teams in the central time zone (Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern, and Iowa). You get all the natural rivalries (Michigan vs. Ohio State, Michigan vs. Michigan State, Indiana vs. Purdue, Illinois vs. Northwestern, etc.) every year, plus the silly man-made rivalries (like Michigan State vs. Penn State), without pulling any strings. You lose Ohio State vs. Illinois, and Michigan vs. Minnesota, and probably some others, but so what?

And the east division is stronger today. But there may be a time down the road when Iowa and Wisconsin are undefeated, playing to see which team gets to beat down a 5-3 Penn State team in the CCG. (Because Ohio State donated all their points to charity for that season. And Michigan STILL couldn't win any games!) My point is that the strength of the two divisions relative to each other doesn't hold a lot of importance to me, since the "good" teams change pretty often.

 

[kn1f3party]

Maybe with Nebraska in the west Alvarez can keep things moving upward in Wisconsin. Iowa on the other hand needs Ferentz to figure out what consistency means. If those two teams can keep going up then the West won't be far behind the East.

What can't happen is the East winning the conference 8 or 9 times out of the first 10.

 

[BB73]

Just saw this on the NW board, which splits the football strength fairly evenly:

Teams with white (or cream) as a color:
Indiana
MSU
Nebraska
NW'ern
Penn St
Wisconsin

Teams without white:
Illinois
Iowa
TSUN
Minny
tOSU
Purdue

But I really think the divisions need to be called something besides 'White' and Colored', as Just Gary suggested. :tongue2:

 

[CleveBucks]

But I really think the divisions need to be called something besides 'White' and Colored', as Just Gary suggested. :tongue2:

Just trying to emulate life in SEC land.

 

[red in colorado]

I'm thinking it might be a bit early to broach this subject as I think the conference may not be done expanding.
I pray whatever the divisions end up being that the annual tOSU/Michigan game still gets played every season and on the same traditional weekend.
That game goes far beyond the Big-10 conference, it's embraced by the entire nation.

 

[ghost of tibor]

Several rivalries should be protected (so they occur every year), but that doesn't mean they have to be in the same division. OSU / scUM need to be in the same division as otherwise they will have a rematch in the title game.

Frankly, the odds of Wisconsin / MInnesota or Minnesota / scUM or Purdue / Indiana being the title game is so remote based on the past 50 years of Big 10 play, that these groups don't have to be in the same division.

 

[toby34a]

OK, I'm going to get scientific on this now. I'll use conference records only because of eliminating the Glen Mason factor (scheduling 4 patsies to boost total winning percentage).

If we break down the conference by conference record (Big XII for Nebraska, Big Ten for all others) over the past 10 years (2000-2009), we get these results:
School, Percentage, Record
Ohio State, 0.800, 64-16
Michigan, 0.662, 53-27
Iowa, 0.613, 49-31
Nebraska, 0.573, 47-35 (note 2 additional games due to Big XII Championship appearances, when taken out, becomes 0.588, 47-33)
Penn State, 0.562, 45-35
Wisconsin, 0.550, 44-36
Purdue, 0.512, 41-39
Northwestern, 0.475, 38-42
Michigan State, 0.400, 32-48
Minnesota, 0.375, 30-50
Illinois, 0.325, 26-54
Indiana, 0.225, 18-62


All computations from this point ignore Nebraska?s two CCG losses.

In a fully geographic setting ,we would have:

East: Ohio State (#1), Michigan (#2), Penn State (#5), Purdue (#7), Michigan State (#9), Indiana (#12); Average PCT: 0.527, Average Ranking = 6
West: Iowa (#3), Nebraska (#4), Wisconsin (#6), Northwestern (#8), Minnesota (#10), Illinois (#11); Average PCT: 0.487 , Average Ranking = 7

A true competitive balanced conference would be:

Woody: Ohio State (#1), Indiana (#12), Iowa (#3), Minnesota (#10), Penn State (#5), Northwestern (#8); Average PCT: 0.508
Bo: Michigan (#2), Illinois (#11), Nebraska (#4), Michigan State (#9), Wisconsin (#6), Purdue (#7); Average PCT: 0.505

However, we have the possibility of the Ohio State - Michigan double dip at the end of the season. So, swap Iowa and Northwestern (average PCT of 0.546) for Michigan and Michigan State (Average PCT of 0.531). We're left with:

Easternish: Ohio State (#1), Indiana (#12), Michigan (#2), Minnesota(#10), Penn State (#5), Michigan State (#9); Average PCT: 0.504
Westernish: Iowa (#3), Illinois (#11), Nebraska (#4), Northwestern (#8), Wisconsin (#6), Purdue (#7); average PCT: 0.510

The only team that?s really screwed in this is Minnesota, losing Paul Bunyan?s Axe for the Little Brown Jug, as well as splitting Purdue and Indiana. A 5-2-1 conference schedule can accommodate this, and if we go to 9 conference games, a 5-2-2 schedule will play every team in a home-and-home arrangement in 4 years.

 

[toby34a]

BTW, this also shows how balanced the top of the conference would be in a purely geographic sense. Penn State has only the #4 record in the Big Ten in the past 10 years, and is easily balanced out by Iowa and Wisconsin.

 

[rmb421]

After some good back-and-forth discussion on this subject with others, I think I've found the best possible division alignments:
Div 1
OSU
UM
Wisconsin
MSU
Minnesota
Indiana
Div 2
Nebraska
PSU
Iowa
Illinois
NW
Purdue

This achieves competitive balance while splitting the big 4 evenly. 1 annual inter-division rivalry will be given to each team. OSU-PSU play every year (since PSU is a regional outlier, playing OSU annually will make the divisions just a formality, plus OSU is PSU's biggest in-conference rival). UM-Nebraska play annually, too, then you can fill in the rest. This really doesn't even place an unfair burden on OSU, PSU, UM, and Nebraska, since the other 8 teams will be playing 3 of these 4 teams per year (2 in division with 1 of the other 2 likely on a rotating schedule...if they didn't play 3 in a particular season, they'd have to play all 4 the next year). All major rivalries are maintained, and the conference will not be lacking for exposure.

As a side note, I don't give a damn if rematches happen in a CCG to be played on a neutral field!! They are going to happen, and they are a hell of a lot better than watching a team like NW go to the Rose Bowl because they didn't have us on their schedule. Besides, we will not always be the team that won the first game. Things will balance out over the long haul.

 

[red in colorado]

Unlike the conference we just stepped away from, I have a lot of confidence there will be a lot of time and effort and discussions with all member schools and there won't be any bullying by any one school and whatever decision is finally made the whole conference will unanimously support it.

 

[zincfinger]

...the east division is stronger today. But there may be a time down the road when Iowa and Wisconsin are undefeated, playing to see which team gets to beat down a 5-3 Penn State team in the CCG.

The issue isn't what may happen in any given year, it is what will happen on average. And most likely, on average, the trio of OSU-UM-PSU would be stronger than the trio of Nebraska-Iowa-Wisconsin. I think the difference would be significant. Partly because...

..scUM is abysmal and it is hard to say when and if they will be decent again.

Let's not get carried away here. There is absolutely no serious doubt that UM will be decent again. There really isn't any realistic doubt in my opinion that they will eventually get back to their normal level; consistently putting out good-to-very-good teams. Maybe it will happen under Rich Rodriguez, maybe it won't, but it's going to happen eventually.

If we break down the conference by conference record (Big XII for Nebraska, Big Ten for all others) over the past 10 years (2000-2009), we get these results:

That's too short a time-frame. Every elite team has the occasional downcycle, and every second-tier team has the occasional burst of elite-ish success. Short time windows are easily skewed by this, so what matters is the long-term time window. It's no accident that certain programs, despite short-term downcycles, have had consistency of excellence over decades. And while occasionally a team improves it's long-term prospects (Wisconsin went from lousy to strong-2nd-tier), the safe bet for who will be elite in the long term future is the 4 that have been elite in the long-term past.

 

[SidehatchHusker]

All I know is, I want Penn St. as our rival.

What I don't know is, what uniforms are Nebraska and Wisconsin going to wear when they play each other? Even if one is all white and the other all red, it's going to be rough on the eyes. The helmets are similar too.

 

[kn1f3party]

Let's not get carried away here. There is absolutely no serious doubt that UM will be decent again. There really isn't any realistic doubt in my opinion that they will eventually get back to their normal level; consistently putting out good-to-very-good teams. Maybe it will happen under Rich Rodriguez, maybe it won't, but it's going to happen eventually.

I don't think it is reckless to think about this. It pains me to say this, but I think it is important for the sport for Notre Dame, UM, and UNL to reach greatness again. However, this sport is constantly evolving and years ago Army and Minnesota were national powers. I think winning is important for these schools and they will commit to greatness, but will they get back to being better than good? It takes more than throwing a lot of money at your football program to do this. You need help from some forces you can't control. The dwindling population hurts, it is narrowing the recruiting base. The prospects are grim for the state of Michigan as well economically so I'm not sure how this will turn around.

I hope I'm wrong and there is no reason to be concerned, but I don't think it is far fetched or outrageous to think that the teams we associate with greatness, the dynasties, may be on their way to a slumber for a long, long time.

 

[zincfinger]

I don't think it is reckless to think about this. It pains me to say this, but I think it is important for the sport for Notre Dame, UM, and UNL to reach greatness again. However, this sport is constantly evolving and years ago Army and Minnesota were national powers. I think winning is important for these schools and they will commit to greatness, but will they get back to being better than good? It takes more than throwing a lot of money at your football program to do this. You need help from some forces you can't control. The dwindling population hurts, it is narrowing the recruiting base. The prospects are grim for the state of Michigan as well economically so I'm not sure how this will turn around.

I don't think it's reckless to think about it - it's not as if some grave consequences await those who think about it. I just think the opinion that it's plausible UM permanently becomes is middling-to-weak football program is not very realistic. Yes, Army and Minnesota were once national powers - in an age before enormous amounts of money became a critical component of long-term success, and before the dream of becoming a millionaire in the NFL existed. (It's also no random coincidence that Army was a football power during WWII) Since those gradual economic/market developments came fully into existence, the power structure has been pretty stable. There have been a few additions to the power elite, but permanent dropouts have been almost non-existent, especially among the long-time elite-of-the-elite, like UM.

 

[Cinfali]

One huge difference is teams like Michigan and Nebraska have tremendous fan support. That is the most important thing for the long term success of a program IMO. A good coach can always sell that to recruits.