how about big ten pods in 2011

[Bowlhawk]

Goals:
To play every team twice in a 3 year period.
Playing a home and home in back to back years.
Guarantee each team would play at least 3 teams from the top tier. (ticket sales)
Emphasize rivals.


Tier 1's
Michigan
Ohio State
Penn State
Nebraska

2nd Tier
Michigan St
Wisconsin
Iowa
Purdue

3rd Tier
Northwestern
Illinois
Minnesota
Indiana

Split up in four pods taking one from each tier.
Try to use geography as much as possible.

West
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota

North
Michigan
Wisconsin
Northwestern

South
Ohio State
Purdue
Illinois

East
Penn State
Michigan St
Indiana

Each pod would play the members of their own pod as well as two of the other pods for 8 games.
In addition, each team would play a protected rival in the remaining pod leading us to 9 total conference games.
Teams would have either 5 home games or 5 away games rotatig as the Pac Ten does today.

Your thoughts?

 

[Palpatine]

That's all well and good, but you're forgetting about the double-secret addition of Notre Dame and Rutgers that will happen next June.

 

[bhawk326]

Not bad, it is essentially the rotating pod system people have discussed for the possible 16 team Big Ten coming that may still happen. I'm assuming you would have two sets of pods aligning (that play each other completely) to form the divisions. In this scenario you could have it as you've described or you could play 2 teams from each of the other pods (1 your protected rival and then another team). Either way these would accomplish the same goal. Your system has the same number (6) of protected games as hard divisions (5 division + 1 cross division rival), but unlike divisions, you don't share as many of the same protected games as your rivals (everyone in division play v the other team intrapod and zero extrapod) - if that makes sense. Suffice to say this system makes it easier to keep the Michigan State v PSU game (if they were in separate pods and anyone wanted to keep the rivalry going) a yearly affair than if MSU and PSU were in opposite divisions and PSU really wanted a protected rivalry with Nebraska.

 

[cuinknk]

Goals:
To play every team twice in a 3 year period.
Playing a home and home in back to back years.
Guarantee each team would play at least 3 teams from the top tier. (ticket sales)
Emphasize rivals.


Tier 1's
Michigan
Ohio State
Penn State
Nebraska

2nd Tier
Michigan St
Wisconsin
Iowa
Purdue

3rd Tier
Northwestern
Illinois
Minnesota
Indiana

Split up in four pods taking one from each tier.
Try to use geography as much as possible.

West
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota

North
Michigan
Wisconsin
Northwestern

South
Ohio State
Purdue
Illinois

East
Penn State
Michigan St
Indiana

Each pod would play the members of their own pod as well as two of the other pods for 8 games.
In addition, each team would play a protected rival in the remaining pod leading us to 9 total conference games.
Teams would have either 5 home games or 5 away games rotatig as the Pac Ten does today.

Your thoughts?

I like your proposal, but how would we determine the teams that play in the Big Ten Championship game?

 

[Bowlhawk]

Just to clarify. One pod would play two other complete pods and then one team from the remaining pod. Each team would have three protected rivals, one from each pod. In essence we would end up playing each of the other pods two out of three years as they would rotate.

 

[Bowlhawk]

Not bad, it is essentially the rotating pod system people have discussed for the possible 16 team Big Ten coming that may still happen. I'm assuming you would have two sets of pods aligning (that play each other completely) to form the divisions. In this scenario you could have it as you've described or you could play 2 teams from each of the other pods (1 your protected rival and then another team). Either way these would accomplish the same goal. Your system has the same number (6) of protected games as hard divisions (5 division + 1 cross division rival), but unlike divisions, you don't share as many of the same protected games as your rivals (everyone in division play v the other team intrapod and zero extrapod) - if that makes sense. Suffice to say this system makes it easier to keep the Michigan State v PSU game (if they were in separate pods and anyone wanted to keep the rivalry going) a yearly affair than if MSU and PSU were in opposite divisions and PSU really wanted a protected rivalry with Nebraska.

I didn't even think about the two pods aligning but it would work out that way each year. It would rotate as to who the divisions would be N/S vs W/E one year N/W vs S/E the next and so on. So, to answer the other question on this thread that would give the head to head matchup to decide who would play in the championship game if there was a tie break needed.

 

[Bowlhawk]

Year one scenario:
North plays South/East pods
South plays North/West pods

First division would be North and South pods

East plays North/West pods
West plays South/East pods

Second division would be East and West pods

First division vs Second division in conference championship game