Can you really rely on competitive balance when creating a new conference alignment?

[Rawkhawk73]

The commissioner has stated that they are going to judge competitive balance based on data from 1993 forward and that competitive balance is goal #1 when re-aligning the conference into divisions.

I just don't see how you can create divisional alignment using competitive balance as your #1 criteria, when that is such a fluid concept.

College football, unlike most any other sport, is a head coach dominated sport. Take Wisconsin, for instance. Before Alvarez arrived, they were basically the doormat of the league, along with Northwestern. I mean, they were god-awful. After Alvarez arrived, they became 3 time Rose Bowl winners. Speaking of Northwestern, it wasn't too long ago that they were the absolute doormats of the league. However, after a succession of good coaches (Barnett, Walker, Fitzgerald) they have now won as many B10 titles as our Hawks have over the last 17 years. Back in 1985, you would have been put in a mental institution if you suggested something as ludicrous as that. You can put Iowa in that same boat as well before Hayden arrived, although it wasn't as bad as Wisconsin and Northwestern. You can even throw Michigan in there from the opposite end as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that, with the tenure of coaches getting shorter and shorter, and with the success of teams in college football tied to the skill of their coach, does it really make sense to create re-alignment in the greatest conference in college football based on such a fluid measure that is only going to get more fluid?

 

[MidnightBlueSix]

Re: Can you really rely on competitive balance when creating a new conference alignme

The commissioner has stated that they are going to judge competitive balance based on data from 1993 forward and that competitive balance is goal #1 when re-aligning the conference into divisions.

I just don't see how you can create divisional alignment using competitive balance as your #1 criteria, when that is such a fluid concept.

College football, unlike most any other sport, is a head coach dominated sport. Take Wisconsin, for instance. Before Alvarez arrived, they were basically the doormat of the league, along with Northwestern. I mean, they were god-awful. After Alvarez arrived, they became 3 time Rose Bowl winners. Speaking of Northwestern, it wasn't too long ago that they were the absolute doormats of the league. However, after a succession of good coaches (Barnett, Walker, Fitzgerald) they have now won as many B10 titles as our Hawks have over the last 17 years. Back in 1985, you would have been put in a mental institution if you suggested something as ludicrous as that. You can put Iowa in that same boat as well before Hayden arrived, although it wasn't as bad as Wisconsin and Northwestern. You can even throw Michigan in there from the opposite end as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that, with the tenure of coaches getting shorter and shorter, and with the success of teams in college football tied to the skill of their coach, does it really make sense to create re-alignment in the greatest conference in college football based on such a fluid measure that is only going to get more fluid?

Amen. It seems like they're trying to come up with a way to keep OSU and Michigan at the top of the conference rather than coming up with what just makes the most sense. Does anyone really think that PSU will keep up its winning ways in a couple years when JoePa finally retires? The opposite may be true for a school like Illinois or Michigan. If they're using competitive balance, they're relying on players who have long-since left college (and in many instances the NFL) to determine what is fair today. It's basically imposing a caste system on the conference to ensure that Michigan, OSU, PSU, and for some reason Nebraska remain firmly fixed as the top 4, regardless of whether they truly deserve to be there.