Big Ten alignment

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:13 pm

The Big Ten is supposed to announce its divisions tonight. According to multiple leaks, this is how it's supposed to look:

Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern

Illinois
Indiana
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:18 pm

Well that really sucks.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:19 pm

I'd have to respectfully disagree

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:39 pm

Actually, this is a pretty darn good job in terms of competitive balance. The second division appears more top heavy for obvious reasons, but I believe the first division to be tougher from top to bottom...or will wind up that way, at least.

buckeye_in_sc · Post by **buckeye_in_sc** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 7:36 pm

now we can potentially beat scUM 2x per year

Shoalzie · Post by **Shoalzie** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:00 pm

Is that supposed to be a North/South thing? Meh, whatever...it's fairly balanced. I assume this goes towards hoops too, right? That second division is loaded in hoops...the first division pretty much has just State.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:00 pm

Rumors out of East Lansing (of all places) is that tOSU-UM will still play in the last week. On the surface, it's appeared that neither administration cares to fight Delaney on this so I'm still not sold.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:01 pm

Our top two rivals are in the opposite division, as is our favoritist new rival.

I believe divisions are only for football.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:03 pm

Shoalzie wrote:I assume this goes towards hoops too, right? That second division is loaded in hoops...the first division pretty much has just State.

I've heard Delaney mention that divisions will be used for football only-- CBB will remain unchanged. He wants to keep the Big 10 tourney the way it is +1 team.

King Crimson · Post by **King Crimson** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:07 pm

so, 22 game hoops conference schedule? i bet you see home-home within the division and the other division teams once rotating yearly home and away.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:54 pm

King Crimson wrote:so, 22 game hoops conference schedule? i bet you see home-home within the division and the other division teams once rotating yearly home and away.

Don't you see? You're just avoiding the middleman. You were gonna give her her spare keys and she was gonna give 'em to me. So all that's happening is that instead of giving them to her you're giving them to me. It's just unfortunate that when she gave you yours you didn't give her hers because then she would've given them to me. So then I would never have had to ask you for hers so I could get mine.

S,

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:26 pm

Goober McTuber wrote:Our top two rivals are in the opposite division, as is our favoritist new rival.

Every team is going to have a permanent, annual crossover game:

Michigan-Ohio State
Penn State-Nebraska
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Illinois-Northwestern
Michigan State-Indiana
Purdue-Iowa

Mace · Post by **Mace** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:52 pm

It looks good to me. Nothing is perfect and I'm sure that everyone, including me, will see some negatives. I'm not happy about losing Wisconsin as annual rivalry game but am happy to see that Nebraska will be our final regular season game. That should develope into a great rivalry.

M Club · Post by **M Club** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:01 am

i'm still pretty annoyed michigan and osu aren't in the same division, but it beats what was being floated, not to mention the rematch scenario will only be an issue every so often.

still, going to be weird the one year we finally beat osu and they walk off the field all nonchalantly since they'll just beat us the following week instead.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:17 am

Nebraska's welcome to the Big Ten 2011 conf schedule:

@ Wisconsin
Ohio State
BYE WEEK
@Minnesota
Michigan State
Northwestern
@Penn State
@Michigan
Iowa

Eesh, good luck with that.

Mace · Post by **Mace** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:46 am

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Nebraska's welcome to the Big Ten 2011 conf schedule:

@ Wisconsin
Ohio State
BYE WEEK
@Minnesota
Michigan State
Northwestern
@Penn State
@Michigan
Iowa

Eesh, good luck with that.

The Big 12 North, it ain't.

FLW Buckeye · Post by **FLW Buckeye** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:06 am

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Nebraska's welcome to the Big Ten 2011 conf schedule:

@ Wisconsin
Ohio State
BYE WEEK
@Minnesota
Michigan State
Northwestern
@Penn State
@Michigan
Iowa

Eesh, good luck with that.

Eye of the storm...welcome, beotches!

M Club · Post by **M Club** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:39 am

nebraska's schedule looks like the big ten is doing everything it can to get a michigan/osu ccg.

At Large · Post by **At Large** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 4:13 am

It does look like they wanted to be sure NU didn't cruise to an easy slate in their first two years. I read that in the next two years, NU will have 2 of these 3: Indiana, Illinois, Purdue.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:02 pm

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:
Goober McTuber wrote:Our top two rivals are in the opposite division, as is our favoritist new rival.
Every team is going to have a permanent, annual crossover game:

Michigan-Ohio State
Penn State-Nebraska
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Illinois-Northwestern
Michigan State-Indiana
Purdue-Iowa

Yes, but we've also played Iowa something like 73 of the last 75 years.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:20 pm

What's your point? Isn't Minny-Wisco the longest running rivalry or some shit? Not exactly surprising those two are hooked. But...Iowa-Wisconsin is obviously the better matchup. If it were me, I'd have paired them up, and stuck Minnesota with Purdue. Pairing Purdue with Iowa doesn't make any sense anyway, so might as well pair them with Minny instead and give us the game we'd rather see: Iowa-Wisconsin.

Mace · Post by **Mace** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 2:46 pm

I'm not happy about losing Wisconsin off the schedule either but, should Michigan and Nebraska return to their former selves, there are going to be multiple awesome matchups every week. There is no rivalry between Purdue and Iowa, and I would rather have seen Illinois in that spot if we weren't going to get Wisconsin. Overall, it looks good, and good for the Big 10 in the big picture.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 6:04 pm

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:What's your point? Isn't Minny-Wisco the longest running rivalry or some shit? Not exactly surprising those two are hooked. But...Iowa-Wisconsin is obviously the better matchup. If it were me, I'd have paired them up, and stuck Minnesota with Purdue. Pairing Purdue with Iowa doesn't make any sense anyway, so might as well pair them with Minny instead and give us the game we'd rather see: Iowa-Wisconsin.

My point has always been that they should have gone with the logical east-west alignment. So what if tOSU and UM are in the same division? Michigan sucks out loud. UW would have kept both of their long-standing border war rivalries, plus added a new rivalry with Nebraska due to the Alvarez connection.

I look at this division:

Illinois
Indiana
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

And I see no real rivalry games. UW-tOSU has been interesting in recent years but that’s it. I also see 3 of the top 4 teams in the league last year. Someone was going to get fucked in the deal because of Delaney’s criteria, I’m just pissed that it’s Wisconsin.

Mace · Post by **Mace** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 8:43 pm

Do you think that it's because Barry was so willing to leak information to the media during all of the discussions?

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Thu Sep 02, 2010 9:58 pm

Goober McTuber wrote:I look at this division:

Illinois
Indiana
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

And I see no real rivalry games.

That's because the Big Ten made no bones about the fact that competitive balance would be the top priority. As it should've been. Still, it's not like there's going to be some huge dropoff in rivalry games. They're still playing 8 games, soon to be 9.

PSUFAN · Post by **PSUFAN** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:42 pm

Personally, I regard tOSU as a rival - not a classic rivalry yet, but one day it will be.

M Club · Post by **M Club** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:45 pm

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote: That's because the Big Ten made no bones about the fact that competitive balance would be the top priority. As it should've been. Still, it's not like there's going to be some huge dropoff in rivalry games. They're still playing 8 games, soon to be 9.

does that mean they're going to consider realignment when one division invariably becomes more dominant? the big xii north was formed with nebraska, colorado, and kansas st. all national players at the time. worked out well for them, eh.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:34 am

M Club wrote:does that mean they're going to consider realignment when one division invariably becomes more dominant? the big xii north was formed with nebraska, colorado, and kansas st. all national players at the time. worked out well for them, eh.

So don't even try for balance? I don't see any absolutes here just because of what happened in the Big 12 North.

It was pretty much common sense to split the big six in half. If half those teams go to shit, eh, what can you do?

M Club · Post by **M Club** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:33 am

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote: So don't even try for balance? I don't see any absolutes here just because of what happened in the Big 12 North.

It was pretty much common sense to split the big six in half. If half those teams go to shit, eh, what can you do?

i didn't say anything about absolutes, just that today's competitive balance isn't necessarily tomorrow's. breaking up rivalries for the sake of hoping michigan is decent again seems a bit short-sighted to me. then again, maybe the divisional balance is maintained for like a million years. i don't really know.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Fri Sep 03, 2010 2:24 am

M Club wrote:breaking up rivalries for the sake of hoping michigan is decent again seems a bit short-sighted to me.

Meh, when every game in the conference has some goofy 83 year old trophy on the line, catering becomes complicated.

When you really look at the divisions, it's not a huge issue. It'll be less of an issue when they move to 9 conference games. The only glaring non-yearly game I see is Wisco-Iowa. The rivalries people actually care about are protected.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:21 am

Except that for a number of years now UW-Northwestern has been a highly competitive and intense game as well. I think Mclub was very honestly nailed it. This was done with the hope that Michigan will once again be dominant, and even if that does happen, Iowa will probably be back on one of their down cycles and that will be a two-team division. I thought tOSU and UM in the same division was not a bad idea as they could have kept their game as the season finale.

The one positive for UW in being in the other division is that they can place higher in the ratings by beating tOSU and PSU than they could by beating Iowa and the Cornholers.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:14 pm

Goober McTuber wrote:Except that for a number of years now UW-Northwestern has been a highly competitive and intense game as well.

Oh, heaven forbid. Let's just scrap the whole thing and start over because the UW-Northwestern game has been "highly competitive and intense." What a sham it would be if those two programs didn't meet on an annual basis!

Sweet jesus.

MSU-Northwestern has been highly competitive and intense. Iowa-Northwestern has been highly competitive and intense. Lots of games that don't involve Indiana and Minnesota are highly competitive and intense.

There was no feasible way to please every. single. fan.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:50 pm

We had three decent rivalries with Iowa, Minn and NW. Two of those are long-standing intense rivalries. MSU is a relative late-comer to the Big 10. What comparable rivalries do they have? Other than UM, Notre Dame is probably their biggest rival. You could swap them for Wisconsin in this alignment and I’d be happy.

I’d still like to know what would have been so bad about the natural geographic alignment:

Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Wisconsin

Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue

The only argument against this is, “Oh my God, what if Michigan ever becomes good again?”

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:56 pm

Stop with the bullshit. You just don't want to be jammed with OSU and PSU, and you know it.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 2:05 pm

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Stop with the bullshit. You just don't want to be jammed with OSU and PSU, and you know it.

Sorry, but your logic, like your mother, sucks much black cock.

Over the past 10 years we are 3-5 against tOSU and 4-4 against PSU. Fairly competitive.

Over the same time period we are 4-6 against Iowa and 2-4 against Northwestern. Guess we should be happy to get away from them.

And as I mentioned earlier, UW stands to benefit from being in the same division as tOSU and PSU.

Screw_Michigan · Post by **Screw_Michigan** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 2:16 pm

The proof is in the pudding: Nobody gives two flying fucks about Wisconsin.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 2:31 pm

The fact is that Barry obviously just went along with whatever Delaney fed him. It’s not the end of the world, there are positives, it’s just not what I would have wanted. How’s Kalamazoo Tech looking this year, you cock-smoking dipshit?

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Fri Sep 03, 2010 7:48 pm

Goober McTuber wrote:We had three decent rivalries with Iowa, Minn and NW.

Who gives a fuck? I don't think the idea was to structure the divisions around all the teams Wisco wants to play, and then figure out the details later.

You got your no-brainer protected rival in Minny. I already agreed on the omission of UW-Iowa from the yearly slate. And Northwestern...? Sorry, you lost that battle to Mark Hollis (MSU AD). He lobbied hard for that game, and got it. A natural rivalry has been developing between NU and MSU, and yes, the games have been better and more competitive than NU/UW over the last decade.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 8:53 pm

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:I don't think the idea was to structure the divisions around all the teams Wisco wants to play, and then figure out the details later.

It probably should have been. Again, I'll ask, what was the problem with a geographic alignment?

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:40 pm

I could roll with the alignment you posted, but I don't prefer it. I don't think OSU/PSU/Michigan should be in the same division.