Big Ten Divisions Taking Shape? Alvarez quote

I rather like the Alvarez Plan. Except I would have Minnesota and Illinois switch. Wisconsin, Iowa, and heck, even Nebraska would find a lot more rivalry and meaning against Minnesota with the histories than against Illinois. Illinois can have Indiana and Northwestern can develop rivalries with Wisky and even further their hold on Iowa's number. I think that having Penn State and Nebraska in the same division is utterly rediculous. The furthest Eastern and furthest Western teams just to save Ohio St v Mich? No, I think ole' Barry is testing some waters and reactions and I like it 95% of the way. :)
 
Its really not that different to just have, Iowa Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois,
Northwestern, and Minnesota. The wins are not that much different and you have the obvious geographic separation.
 
Jon, I gotta say it doesn't make sense to move Minnesota to Division A, and split up their protected rivalries with Iowa and Wisconsin in favor of saving the unprotected rivalry with Michigan.
To me, it makes more sense to do a geographic split, which is the way it should be anyway!
 
I wonder what they will do for basketball. Will they have seeding based on divisons like the SEC or will they just play straight up like Big 12, Big East, etc.?
 
H8IAST8 said:
I wonder what they will do for basketball. Will they have seeding based on divisons like the SEC or will they just play straight up like Big 12, Big East, etc.?
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I think they'll stay at 18 - if you had a full round robin, that would be 22 conference games a year.

I'll echo the sentiment that I can't see Minnesota lumped into East division.
 
The problem I see with your divisional split Jon, is putting the 2 worst teams (Indiana and Minnesota) with arguably the 3 best teams (OSU, UM, PSU). That would not fall in line with the #1 criteria of competetive balance. IU and Minn will almost never contend in that division and it would give the top 3 easy wins every year. I think each division should be more balanced.
 
Minnesota in the east doesn't make any more sense than having Penn State in the west. But as long as we get Nebraska for the final game of the season it sounds good to me.
 
I have said all along that it would end up with Minny,Iowa,Neb,Wis,Ill,and NW in the West. It is very logical.

Jon: why would you possibly switch Minny into the East? Makes zero sense. After the top six programs, the rest are a crapshoot year to year in strength. Make Minny fans travel to the east makes more sense than PSU to the West?

No, it will be geographical,and it will make the most sense.
Thankfully.
 
Just switch Minnesota and Illinois. That way the Michigan-Minnesota rivalry stays intact (assuming they do a protected rivalry game). All of Minny's other rivals would be in the division. Illinois' only real rival in the Big Ten is Northwestern, so make that their protected game.
 
I'd prefer Minnesota and Purdue switch. That is only a 19 win difference.

Keep 9 conference games but lose protected rivalries. Then you would play each team in the other division twice in 3 years.
 
Regarding Minnesota to Division B and swapping out Illinois. Perhaps it was the six hours I spent at Adventureland yesterday that didn't allow me to see that as I was putting this together last night. Of course, this makes solid sense as Illinois and Minnesota have just one game worth of difference in the win column since 1993, and it would keep the rivalries with Iowa and Wisconsin in place.
 
I'm in the corner that OSU, PSU, Michigan should not be in the same division, I'd move Michigan & MSU west, and Wisconsin and Illinois east. Could these divisions be temporary anyway? If it is, then this first exercise in laying out divisions is not as important as we are making it.
 
JonDMiller said:
Regarding Minnesota to Division B and swapping out Illinois. Perhaps it was the six hours I spent at Adventureland yesterday that didn't allow me to see that as I was putting this together last night. Of course, this makes solid sense as Illinois and Minnesota have just one game worth of difference in the win column since 1993, and it would keep the rivalries with Iowa and Wisconsin in place.
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That Silly Silo will do that to you!:)
 
With the new Rich Rod allegations, will Michigan be back in the top 5 of the BT in the next 5 years? It's gonna be tough, especially since we're adding another team like Nebraska.
 
Okay, I am starting to change my mind when I think of this thing selfishly. If we move to this scenario and all we really have to do is beat Nebby and Wisky to get into the championship game and a shot at the Rose Bowl? Go for it.

I mean how sweet would it to be to see a PSU or Michigan team at like 11-1 have to watch us get to play for the Rose bowl at like 9-3. What would be particularly sweet is if we played OSU, Michigan, and PSU during the regular season and they all beat us and then OSU beat both of them, but Pryor and a couple of guys got hurt in the Michigan game and we were able to sneak a win against OSU. It would be even better if we were like 8-4 and only won our division by some wierd tie-breaking rule.

Now I am starting to understand how Missouri and Kansas must feel with the break-up of the B12 North. Wow, sucks for them.
 
OK assuming the Minn/Ill swap from what Jon wrote:
West: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin
East: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mich State, Ohio State, Penn State

I like that. It's not as clean as Illinois in the West and Purdue in the East, but it is close, and it would be more fair if historical records are an indication. It also preserves all rivalries other than Ill/NW and Indy/Purdue. It would be easy to preserve those as cross division rivalries without touching the other 8 teams schedules. Think of it this way, in years when the rotation would have IU play NW (and not PU) and Ill play PU (and not NW) they could just switch. In practice it would result in them maintaining their annual rivalries and no-one else is effected.
 
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