MY FINAL (yes, FINAL) Big Ten Division Prediction

I would hope Iowa/Neb would be the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving, but it might not be all bad if we played Minnesota. If were going to play in the big ten championship I'd rather be coming off an easier one then a tough one. It's hard psychologically to get up for huge games 2 weeks in a row. So after Nebby game, could be a letdown setup in championship. And on the flip side are opponet would probably be osu or psu who would of just played each other, which sets themselfes up for the letdown.
 
crabshack said:
why are nebbie and Iowa joined together?

it is a huge misconception to assume that you can simply create a rivalry over night.
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Even before there was a hint of Nebby joining the Big10, many of their fans were talking trash on the Iowa message boards on a regular basis. I'm sure Iowa fans were on their boards as well. When I lived in Iowa, a potential Iowa/Neb rivalry was a frequent water cooler topic. So the rivalry would not be created out of thin air. I think it would become a heated rivalry very quickly, which I think could ultimately lead to the demise of the Iowa/ISU series.
 
FCAS said:
Actually, more than a handful, 31 times to be exact. Minnesota is the only Big10 team who has played them more often. Wisky has only played them 5 times, the latest being 1974, so I really can't see what claim they have to the upcoming rivalry game.
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Actually it is 41 times, but 28 of the 41 occured between 1890 and 1949, since 1970 they have played 6 times.

I said the handful comment because that is what it is in the last 40 years but since they have only played 6 times in 40 years a rivalry is already there.
 
JonDMiller said:
I do not think the season will end with Iowa-NU

I think the season will end with NU vs Michigan and PSU vs OSU...Iowa-MN to end probably continues.OOOOORRRRRR

Maybe have the first Saturday in October be the 'Protected Rivalry Game' week in the BTN?
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I disagree. The last game of the year will almost certainly be strictly inter-divisional games. That way you avoid with 100% certainty that no teams will play back to back in the last game and then in the conference championship.

That being said, I would put money that the final weekend of the year will look like this:

Iowa-Nebraska
Michigan-Michigan St
Illinois-Northwestern

Ohio St-Penn St
Indiana-Purdue
Minnesota-Wisconsin

This makes the most sense and would create a great weekend of football for the Big Ten.
 
JonDMiller said:
I do not think the season will end with Iowa-NU

I think the season will end with NU vs Michigan and PSU vs OSU...Iowa-MN to end probably continues.OOOOORRRRRR

Maybe have the first Saturday in October be the 'Protected Rivalry Game' week in the BTN?
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I don't think the Big Ten wants cross-divisional games the final week of the season, due to the potential rematch a week later (I know we are talking about Minnesota).

I think Adam Rittenberg had it right for the final week:

Your final regular-season Saturday, which almost certainly would feature intra-division games, could look like this: Michigan-Michigan State, Iowa-Nebraska, Illinois-Northwestern, Ohio State-Penn State, Wisconsin-Minnesota and Purdue-Indiana.

Division dominoes: Wisconsin, Iowa to split - Big Ten Blog - ESPN
 
Report: Wisconsin Badgers, Iowa Hawkeyes in opposing divisions - ESPN

Pointed this out in another thread, but thought I"d add it to this thread too. In a new article on espn.com had quote from Deleney
Delany told ESPN.com that a potential benefit of putting rivals like Michigan and Ohio State in different divisions is that the teams can play for a Rose Bowl berth in the new Big Ten championship game, which begins in 2011.

"If you split teams, whether it's Purdue and Indiana or Illinois and Northwestern or Michigan-Ohio State or Nebraska and Penn State, if you split them, they can both go [to the championship game]," Delany said. "If you don't split them, only one can go."

Does anybody else think he called out 4 of the 6 cross division rivals in that statement???
 
It is probably safe to say that seven of the assignments are known and likely the 8th, Minnesota. Then it is a matter of where you put the remaining four. Purdue would help offset MSU based on competitive balance. Illinois would offset Minnesota. Leaving Northwestern and Indiana to offset each other, though NW has been much more competitive recently. Geographically you end up with only four teams out of there time zones, which does keep some sense of geography.
 
JCLP205 said:
I like what I saw somewhere in regards to the final game of the year being:
Mich-MSU..OSU-PSU..IA-NEB..WISC-MINN..ILL-NW..PUR-IND.

It has all of the instate rivals and also the great (or soon to be great) border rivals..and then first week of oct could be the crossover rivalry games.. This also makes sense so there would be no way we could have rematch in back to back weeks for the Big 10 Championship game and some of those matchups could decide who wins their division (neb-ia.. psu-osu)
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This gives me a boner.
 
JonDMiller said:
I think Iowa's voice will ultimately be aided by Tom Osborne's voice.
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You're probably right, but to me, it's a bit sad that Iowa, as a Big Ten member since 1899, would need aid from the new guy.

I'm wondering if that's the case. Whose voice truly has the most weight? Iowa's or N.U.'s? If the answer isn't Iowa, that's really sad.
 
bud2380 said:
I disagree. The last game of the year will almost certainly be strictly inter-divisional games. That way you avoid with 100% certainty that no teams will play back to back in the last game and then in the conference championship.
.
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This is a very very good point.
 
Fors98121 said:
You're probably right, but to me, it's a bit sad that Iowa, as a Big Ten member since 1899, would need aid from the new guy.

I'm wondering if that's the case. Whose voice truly has the most weight? Iowa's or N.U.'s? If the answer isn't Iowa, that's really sad.
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I think it's pretty obvious it's not Iowa.
 
BTW the divison lineup Jon proposes here is one I really like and can easily get behind. I hope it happens just this way.
 
Jon,

I agree with most of your predictions but also lets not forget that there is a geographic variable here too. NE, IA, MN are the Western most schools in the conference with PSU, OSU, IU and the Michigan schools being the Eastern most. You can't call it a western division if you put eastern schools in it and vice versa. With that said, I think you are almost right re: the alignments with a couple exceptions:

Western Division
OSU
PSU
IU
PU
Wisky
NW

Eastern Division
Michigan
Nebraska
Iowa
Mich St
Minny
Illinois

Delaney has made it clear that he wants a title game of the powerhouse programs so it's unlikely that there is an annual game of Michigan v OSU; Neb v OSU; Michigan v PSU; Neb v PSU. Those games are going to be 'reserved' for the title game. Most Big10 teams don't need to worry about selling out their games thus there really isn't that much of a need to play big names within conference every week.

I could see OSU v MSU; PSU v Iowa; Wisky v Neb; IU v Michigan; PU v Illinois; NW v Minny where the last 3 mathcups really aren't going to draw that much attention and the first 3 will be the showcase games of the weekend. All of these games will be played on the same date probably midway through the season.

What you end up with are the supposed top 2 teams in each division playing a high 2nd tier team in the opposing division and the lower 2nd tier playing the 3rd tier teams. You can't make everyone happy. Tex v Oklahoma for the past decade has been the unofficial title game in the Big12 and the Big10(12) is trying to avoid this scenario.
 
Fors98121 said:
You're probably right, but to me, it's a bit sad that Iowa, as a Big Ten member since 1899, would need aid from the new guy.

I'm wondering if that's the case. Whose voice truly has the most weight? Iowa's or N.U.'s? If the answer isn't Iowa, that's really sad.
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It's not really that NU would have more power, it's just that it seems iowa/wisc are fighting over who gets nebreska. So the obvious thing would be to ask Nebreska who they want.
 
The other thing to remember is that we are going to a 9 game conference schedule which means that you will play all but two teams in conference. If you take that into account, do protected rivals really mean a hill of beans? You will play every team at least once every 3 yrs.
 
bud2380 said:
I disagree. The last game of the year will almost certainly be strictly inter-divisional games. That way you avoid with 100% certainty that no teams will play back to back in the last game and then in the conference championship.

That being said, I would put money that the final weekend of the year will look like this:

Iowa-Nebraska
Michigan-Michigan St
Illinois-Northwestern

Ohio St-Penn St
Indiana-Purdue
Minnesota-Wisconsin

This makes the most sense and would create a great weekend of football for the Big Ten.
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Bingo! I would like to add to this. I think you have the first 4 games of the Big 10 season be solely games with the conference teams who are not in your division, with the last game of that segment being against your protected cross-over (e.g. Iowa-MN). Then the last five games are with teams only in your division, all culminating with the glorious final game showdown with the games you set forth above.
 
I think Mich and OSU fans are cry-babies about not being able to play their game as the last of the season. I think they need to realize there are 10 other schools in the conference too. The rivalry is what it is because of all of the seasons in history where they were the best two teams, and the game was the de facto championship. Suck it up, if you're not the champions of your divisions under the new system, you don't get to be on the big stage. If you say you're the best two schools, then prove it and win your divisions and then you get to play for all the marbles and it will mean even more than it did before. And we'll let you play in October too. Satisfied??? Jeesh, we're equals in this conference, aren't we? Go Hawks. This is a little off topic but man all the wining in the media is too much.
 
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