Big Ten Expansion: Four by Four???

WOW that would be easy to follow, similar to our new federal tax laws, I think it will end up:

Big ten west
ia,mn,whisky,mich,msu.mo,ill,northwestern

big ten east
rutgers,syr,pitt,psu,osu,indy,purdue, domers

if the domers stay stupid then put the huskers in the west and northwestern in the east, now we have a football playoff
 
CAARHawk said:
The four division set-up is better for Iowa with respect to recruiting. If you stick Iowa in a 2 division East/West scenario, our ability to recruit in the East gets diminished. Why do you think the Big 12 North failed? Because you isolated the best recruiting area in one division.
Click to expand...

Excellent point, CAARHawk.
 
ANY plan that fails to protect Iowa V Wisky, Iowa V Minny, and scUM V fOSU is an outright FAIL.

The problem is if the number is 16 you just cant protect 2 rivalries. If you do this that means you will play non protected non conference teams only twice in a ten year period. That just doesn't work. Thats why I like 14 teams a whole lot better. Two 7 team divisions means you wont have to go much more than 2 years without playing any given team.
 
Ohh and I think the 4 team "mini tournament" to determine a champion is terribad. Sorry CAAR
 
If the Big Ten does this will there be three other "super-conferences" created? One Pac10/Big 12, one Big 12/SEC, and one East Coast conference with ACC/Big East/ SEC teams?
 
Still need to try and convince Texas and Texas A&M to join. Those are two of the major players in the entire reorganization scheme of things and their academics are second to none--They add everything--recruiting, population centers, tvs, money, money, money.
 
NewMexHawk said:
Still need to try and convince Texas and Texas A&M to join. Those are two of the major players in the entire reorganization scheme of things and their academics are second to none--They add everything--recruiting, population centers, tvs, money, money, money.
Click to expand...

From what I hear, the Texas schools think they can get more money if they join the Pac Ten and make their own deal.

They would own a lot of key television markets.
 
If the Big Ten is going to expand this big I would rather have 15 teams with three divisions like an earlier poster mentioned. Leave out one of the eastern schools. We would play everyone in our own division plus at least two schools in each of the other divisions.

I would rather not shut the door on Notre Dame. They bring way to much to the table to have them later join another conference. Then, if they do join then we can expand to 16 with 4 divisions.

Granted we will still have to figure out how a playoffs would work. Possibly have the top team in each division and one wildcard in a four team playoff. Boocoo bucks with a two week playoff and we could extend the season by two weeks.
 
CAARHawk said:
Why exactly? I am interested in your thinking on this matter. Just saying it is "terribad" doesn't really say much.
Click to expand...

I think its too.... clunky. Give me two division winnners squaring off. Besides I don't think the NCAA would sign off on this. They allow conf title games but to do this you would be talking about adding 2 games on to the season which I don't think they can do.

I just think the clunky factor in addition to the "we can't do that" factor makes it a bad idea. I know a bad idea when I see one, usually it's mine.
 
DuffMan said:
I think its too.... clunky. Give me two division winnners squaring off. Besides I don't think the NCAA would sign off on this. They allow conf title games but to do this you would be talking about adding 2 games on to the season which I don't think they can do.

I just think the clunky factor in addition to the "we can't do that" factor makes it a bad idea. I know a bad idea when I see one, usually it's mine.
Click to expand...

You wouldn't have to add two games if you just had the teams play another division by order of standings as part of the regular season.

For instance if Iowa was number one in the West after 11 games, they would play the team that was number one from the East. Then all the West teams would play an East team. It would just be your 12th game. You would know you were scheduled to travel to the East, or they would travel to you, but you just wouldn't be exactly sure who you were playing. It would be a scheduled home game, so you could work it into your season ticket package.

This year the teams would have most likely been Iowa from the West, Wisky from the MidWest, OSU from MidEast, and PSU from East. Let's say the West had home field, so if the West was scheduled to host the East, PSU would come to Iowa for that game, and Wisky would go to OSU, or vice versa.

Okay, what about the second teams, Nebby from the West would host Pitt from the East. That is also a really nice game and would make the winner a really strong candidate for Bowl consideration.

As you went down the list, it would become less desirable. For instance, that Minnesota Syracuse game wouldn't be too spectacular, but who is to say that a normal conference schedule wouldn't end up with that game already scheduled? I know some of you would say, "No way, Iowa needs to play Minny in their last conference, game." Well, I would rather have the last conference game mean more if Iowa was a division leader. Schedule the Minny game as game number 11 and then they would have the chance to maybe play spoiler if you need tradition.

That would be a nice way to end a season before a championship game! Of course, it would give a team an advantage based on what conference had home field advantage, but that is really no different than the situation as it currently stands.

No way it happens, but it could be interesting.
 
That being said, I also like the winners of two divisions squaring off. But then you really need to be careful about how you set up those divisions. If it is East / West you are pretty much assured of having the West end up being another Big 12 North. Just not enough population from which to recruit.
 
Duffman, if you re-read CAARHAWK's post you will see he is saying that all teams have a regularly scheduled conference game at the end of the season against a TBD opponent that would be based on how conference standings align. In his scenario you still get the 4 team playoff (division champions square off), but all Big Ten teams get to play their 12th regular season game that same day. The 2 winners of the semifinal games go on to play the following week in the Big Ten Championship game.

I like the idea, but I think you have to look a little closer on how to work scheduling to make this all work out. First, there cannot be 8 conference games since some teams would have 5 home conference games and some teams would have 3 home conference games and we all know that no school in their right mind would give up a conference game. The reason this happens is because in a 4-team round-robin division schedule 2 teams will have 2 home games and 2 teams will have 1 home game. Playing a whole other division would add 2 home games for each team. Under CAARHAWK's scenario, the whole division would have an away or home game to finish the season making 4 teams have 5 home games, 8 teams have 4 home games and 4 teams have 3 home games.

The easiest way out of this is to go to a 9 game conference schedule. In this scenario, you would play the round-robin division schedule, an entire other division (2nd) and one team from the 3rd division (home or away determined by how many divsion home games you played) so that each team is guaranteed 4 home and 4 away conference games before the last game. The final game is a TBD based on how the division standings work out against the 4th division and each division gets 3 home and 3 away games over a 6 year span for this final game.

As much as I'd love the final game to be hosted by the team with the best record, I don't see teams agreeing to this because of travel arrangements and ticket sales. I think alternating between home and away games will probably be the way to go. Also, since the final game will be TBD, the whole conference could schedule their bye between the 11th and 12th game allowing for 2 weeks to prepare for travel, gameplan the opponent, get build-up for the match-ups on BTN and ESPN. Just a thought.

Also, I think the Big Ten season should start with a divisional game and the last 2 weeks before the 12th game should finish with divisional games. This would build-up the last 2 weeks as division champions could be decided near the end of the season.
 
http://dennis-dodd.blogs.cbssports....1373344?tag=comBlogEntryListCnt;entry21373344

Yet another take..

So the Notre Dame football contract with NBC does not end until
2015, is there a buyout clause in this thing? If not how does ND get out of the deal. Jon you mention this 4 team thing is was designed to put pressure on N.D. Exactly what kind of pressure are they under here?
Is the Big East is going to boot them if they don't commit football membership post for 2015?

Notre Dame is not going to get shut out in any conference realignment, seems they can pretty sit and wait can't they?
 
Last edited:
DuffMan said:
I think its too.... clunky. Give me two division winnners squaring off. Besides I don't think the NCAA would sign off on this. They allow conf title games but to do this you would be talking about adding 2 games on to the season which I don't think they can do.

I just think the clunky factor in addition to the "we can't do that" factor makes it a bad idea. I know a bad idea when I see one, usually it's mine.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's written anywhere that it CAN'T be done- and knowing the NCAA... if it makes money then they're not opposed to it.

Even the semifinal could be a major money generating possibility. Not saying I'm in favor by any means, but could see it being quite a bold move by the B10.
 
"The easiest way out of this is to go to a 9 game conference schedule. In this scenario, you would play the round-robin division schedule, an entire other division (2nd) and one team from the 3rd division (home or away determined by how many divsion home games you played) so that each team is guaranteed 4 home and 4 away conference games before the last game. The final game is a TBD based on how the division standings work out against the 4th division and each division gets 3 home and 3 away games over a 6 year span for this final game."



I totally agree that you would have to have a 9 game conference schedule. 8 games would be too few.

You could also do this with an annual rivalry game with one OOD team. For instance, we could keep Wisky - Heartland, Michigan could keep Minny - Jug.
 
Last edited:
CAARHawk, I think going to a single protected rivalry or having better divisions that protect rivalries would be the way to go. The divisions I like would be as follows:

Northwest - Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska & Minnesota
Southwest - Missouri, Illinois, Indiana & Purdue/NW
Central - OSU, MSU, Michigan & Purdue/NW
East - PSU and any 3 of ND/Rutgers/Pitt/Syracuse/UCONN

In this case you don't have to protect rivalries since the only ones currently hurt would be PSU v. MSU and OSU (which were manufactured when PSU joined the Big Ten) and either NW v. Illinois or Indiana v. Purdue but the alternative division still creates some nice new rivalries. I personally like NW in the Southwest and Purdue in the Central to make the divisions more even. Also, my preference for the East would be ND, Rutgers & Pitt.

So under this system and divisional alignment, Iowa's schedule for 2010 could be:

9/4 - v. Ball State (Non-Conference)
9/11 - v. ISU (Non-Conference)
9/18 - @ Arizona (Non-Conference)
9/25 - @ Nebraska (Divisional Game & Big Ten Kick-Off Weekend)
10/2 - v. Missouri (Southwest)
10/9 - @ NW (Southwest)
10/16 - v. OSU (Non-Divisional Extra Game)
10/23 - v. Indiana (Southwest)
10/30 - @ Illinois (Southwest)
11/6 - v. Wisconsin (Divisional Game)
11/13 - @ Minnesota (Divsional Game)
11/20 - Bye
11/27 - TBD home game
12/4 - Big Ten Championship Game @ Lucas Field in Indianapolis

With this schedule I see Iowa losing to Nebraska & OSU, but winning all the other games to hold a record of 9-2 (6-2) after the first 11 games. With Nebraska losing at Michigan, home against Missouri and a week 11 loss at home to Wisconsin, Iowa takes the Northwest division. Missouri takes the Southwest at 8-3 (5-3), OSU takes the Central at 10-1 (7-1) and Pitt stuns PSU in Happy Valley in their week 11 match-up to take the East with a record of 8-3 (5-3).

Iowa hosts Pitt and Missouri hosts OSU on 11/27 with other interesting TBD games like Wisconsin v. PSU with the winner more than likely headed to the Capitol One Bowl and Nebraska v. Notre Dame winner probably getting a bid in the Gator Bowl. Also, if you could convince the Big Ten to host the semi-final games as a 3:30 & 7:00 doubleheader, could you imagine the ratings?

Iowa and OSU advance to the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis where Iowa avenges their regular season home loss with a 20-17 victory on a McNutt 10 yard fade in the end zone with 30 seconds left and a Tyler Sash interception as time expires.

I think having all divisional games played Week 4, 10 & 11 allows for a rivalry game during the Big Ten kick-off week and finishes the pre-bye schedule with games that excite fans and determine divisional winners. I think the Week 13 game would provide excellent match-ups in semifinal games as well as ancillary intra-division games playing for likely bowl invites. The conference bye allows the playing up of match-ups and travel arrangements. I think a 4 division system for 16 teams is a lot better than 2 divisions in which you only get to play intradivision opponents twice every 8 years.
 
Last edited:
It would be kind of cool if they rotated the Championship game between different major cities in the midwest. Chicago, Indy, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Cleaveland, maybe they could even have a game at Kingston Stadium in Cedar Rapids.
 
Under existing NCAA rules you can not have a TBD game on your schedule that is not a Conference championship game between the winners of 2 distinct divisions that have played a round robin schedule within their division. Given that I don't see the NCAA changing their rules in the near future the pod system would work by combining the pods each year into two 8 team divisions with a round robin schedule to determine the divisional champion as per NCAA rules. Playing everyone in the conference every few years happens as you rotate the pods to create different 8 team divisions every 2 years.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top