BT Football Reorganization

HuckFinn

HuckFinn

Well-Known Member
I cannot believe this discussion has not invaded HN! I will therefore begin.


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The disappearance of the East and West Divisions is a horrible idea, mainly because it pretends to address the weakness of the West.


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It will change nothing. OSU will be dominate as BT champ pretty much every season. OSU will like likely play a team they have beaten during the regular season in the so called BT Championship game. Yawn. Who the hell will watch that one? In the alternative, some other team will beat OSU, or by some miracle, end up with a better record than OSU, and then play OSU in the championship game and probably get beat..

I am still astounded that so many are married to the assumption that Michigan, PSU, and even MSU have been crowned as dominant programs even with some significant evidence to the contrary. Even little ol’ Iowa has been pretty damn competitive with all three of these pretenders.

All this is about ensuring at least one, if not two, BT teams in the playoffs. In the meantime, I will have to give up a 9th conference game to watch Iowa play a PAC team or an ACC team? No thank you.

If Iowa ends up with protection of annual games with WI, MN, NE, that is at least something. But I want to play NW. I want to play IL. Both of these are GM’s border teams. Maybe even Purdue, or Indiana. I could give a shit about M, MSU, OSU, and don’t even want PSU (the Pedo team), MD, or Butt Gers in the BT.

Want to reorganize? Really? Don’t F in’ bother. Changes nothing and lets Iowa play border rivals annually and gives us the pleasure of rising up on occasion and playing for a BT title. Still remember our game with MSU. Tell me about a game that was more blood thirsty BT football than that one.

Boy. Sure was fun to post this one, even if nobody reads it. And, just to be clear, Fry, NO. I have not had one drop of alcohol. Sorry.
 
I like having divisions - a divisional championship is similar(ish) to a conference championship of the pre-expansion days in regards to the number of teams you finish above (7 teams in our division vs 8 in the Big8, etc).
It gives you something else to play for, to lay claim to.
 
I like getting rid of divisions for 2 reasons.

I like the flexible scheduling you get from getting rid of divisions. You can set up a schedule with 3 to 5 protected rivals and play everybody else at least 50% of the time. I like the idea of Iowa playing Mich, OSU, MSU and PSU at least 50% of the time. Hopefully you could set up for Iowa to play Mich+PSU in 1 year and OSU+MSU the other year.

Right now the Big Ten's dumb schedule is set up for Iowa to play Rutgers every year and to play Mich, MSU, Mich, OSU just 2 times in 6 years. I hate that proposed schedule.

The other thing I like is the idea that the 2 best teams go to the conference championship game regardless of division.
 
It appears there are 2 truths since the East-west divisions were formed

1. The overall cross-division records of East vs West teams is fairly close every year. Except for 2017, its always been within 2 games of .500 every year.

2. The winner of the CCG always come out of the East. Every single year.

I will agree the reason the East is perceived as better is because OSU is usually the best team and is almost always one of the 2 best teams. If OSU was not in the Big Ten, I would guess that the West would have won the Big Ten at least 3 times in 8 years.

But I am not sure thats a good argument to keep the East-West divisions. It would seem more fair to me to let all Big Ten teams to compete for the right to play OSU in the CCG. Why is it fair for Indiana to always have to compete with OSU for a division championship while Purdue does not?
 
guffus said:
It appears there are 2 truths since the East-west divisions were formed

1. The overall cross-division records of East vs West teams is fairly close every year. Except for 2017, its always been within 2 games of .500 every year.

2. The winner of the CCG always come out of the East. Every single year.

I will agree the reason the East is perceived as better is because OSU is usually the best team and is almost always one of the 2 best teams. If OSU was not in the Big Ten, I would guess that the West would have won the Big Ten at least 3 times in 8 years.

But I am not sure thats a good argument to keep the East-West divisions. It would seem more fair to me to let all Big Ten teams to compete for the right to play OSU in the CCG. Why is it fair for Indiana to always have to compete with OSU for a division championship while Purdue does not?
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Good stuff, Guffus.
 
If they had just put Michigan in the 'West division you wouldn't hear any of this, then everyone would say it was balanced in the media and elsewhere. If they do away with divisions than it needs to be a real computer generated random selection of games, because by time you schedule all the "protected" rivalry games the schedules won't look much different.
 
HuckFinn said:
It will change nothing. OSU will be dominate as BT champ pretty much every season. OSU will like likely play a team they have beaten during the regular season in the so called BT Championship game. Yawn. Who the hell will watch that one?
Click to expand...

I will.

So will everyone else here. So will you.

Divisions are a dumb idea. And yes, the east is better. They’ve won the Big Ten since the divisions were created. Like it or not, it’s not fair for the West teams to play OSU, MSU, and Michigan fewer times than everyone else.
 
ssckelley said:
I agree, the divisions need to stay as constructed. There is zero reason to screw with them.
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I’m in favor of dissolving. It makes the schedules more exciting, levels the playing field (whether one agrees that the east is tougher or not doesn’t matter because with no divisions then over time the schedules all are equally tough), and going to 8 conference games would be fun because we’d get some fun ACC & PAC12 games out of that “alliance” thing.
 
guffus said:
The other thing I like is the idea that the 2 best teams go to the conference championship game regardless of division.
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Would they still have the CCG?

Wouldn’t they just go back to the best record team winning the Big Ten?
 
Fryowa said:
Would they still have the CCG?

Wouldn’t they just go back to the best record team winning the Big Ten?
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The BT has already mentioned a championship game complete with tie breaker rules. Of course, we really don’t know at this point.
 
Fryowa said:
I will.

So will everyone else here. So will you.

Divisions are a dumb idea. And yes, the east is better. They’ve won the Big Ten since the divisions were created. Like it or not, it’s not fair for the West teams to play OSU, MSU, and Michigan fewer times than everyone else.
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Yeah. The East wins the CCG nearly every year. That is, except on rare occasions, OSU wins the CCG nearly every year. So what changes? In recent years, PSU, M, and MSU have not been all that dominant. All three have gone through some seasons that were pretty dismal. So if we kept divisions, but went back to a plan for equity, I would worry that the same old assumptions about the power house programs would be made with questionable data.
Full disclosure: I love border war football. And the more conference games, the better.
 
I think there should be more balanced divisions or get rid of them. Having the powerhouses in one divisions makes no sense. It's like giving Cincinnati a pass to the playoffs and having schools from real conferences beat the shit out of each other and get knocked out.

Even though I think things need to be changed, I hope they keep the divisions as they are because it makes it easier for Iowa. We're not going to win one and I don't give a shit if it's OSU or Michigan that wins it, I want Iowa to win games and if that means playing the shittier teams from the conference every year, 10-2 is better than 7-5.
 
Fryowa said:
I’m in favor of dissolving. It makes the schedules more exciting, levels the playing field (whether one agrees that the east is tougher or not doesn’t matter because with no divisions then over time the schedules all are equally tough), and going to 8 conference games would be fun because we’d get some fun ACC & PAC12 games out of that “alliance” thing.
Click to expand...
I’d rather keep playing a 9 game conference schedule and have a real championship game that consist of 2 division winners instead of a dumb format like the B12.
 
Just because the East has won every B1G champ game doesn't necessarily make it the best division.

What's the East vs West overall record since they were formed?

That would settle the debate.
 
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