West Division Standings Without Crossover games

[ssckelley]

I agree with you, under the current format, I think we should only count division games.

However, if you really want to make it interesting, then do this:

- Play an 11 game schedule, like we used to.
- Play 4 out of conference games which have to be played by week 10. Have a bye sometime in the first 10 weeks.
- Play 5 B1G games, all against your division foes.
- After week 9, seed the teams in each division 1-4.
- Bye in week 10 for seeded teams. If you were fifth or sixth, then you play 5 or 6 from the other division.
- In week 11, W1 plays E4, W2 plays E3, W3 plays E2, and W4 plays E1. Home field goes to higher seed. fifth and sixth seeded teams play the other fifth or sixth seeded team they didnt play.
- Week 12 W1/E4 winner plays W2/E3 winner and E1/W4 winner plays E2/W3 winner. Losers play each other.
- Winner of those games play each other for the championship.

How exciting would playoffs be within the divisions? Also, if all the conferences do the same thing, take the winners of the championship games period. They say every week is the playoffs anyway, but one of the many bad things about the current format is that there is really no way to reward the team that puts it together over the course of the year. Also, it gives the teams a great opportunity to play better out of conference matchups, because they dont matter as much.

Interesting idea but what about the other 4 teams? Would they play in some kind of losers bracket?

The biggest issue I see with your plan is dropping to 11 games, each team is losing a lot of money giving up a home game. Plus as a fan I'd hate seeing them go back to 4 OOC games because they'd mostly get filled with MAC opponents.

I can't imagine the B10 ever going to something like this but it's an interesting concept and I wouldn't hate it.

 

[guffus]

The answer of course is for the Big Ten to get rid of divisions and change the NCAA rules to have the 2 best teams go to the Big Ten championship game.

Each team could have 5 permanent rivals they play every year and then play the other 8 teams 50% of the time.

 

[HuckFinn]

You guys are making this whole thing too complicated. Every BT team should play every other BT team every year. To make this work,
Rutgers, and Maryland would be dropped from the BT. See. Told you it would be simple.
And, we should skip the so called BT championship game, unless there is a tie for the conference championship. Regular season takes on more meaning. We could still play ISU as a breather at the beginning of the season.

Of course, we would have to give up the big tv market in the east created by the addition of R. And M. Oh well.

 

[dirtwrap]

Interesting idea but what about the other 4 teams? Would they play in some kind of losers bracket?

The biggest issue I see with your plan is dropping to 11 games, each team is losing a lot of money giving up a home game. Plus as a fan I'd hate seeing them go back to 4 OOC games because they'd mostly get filled with MAC opponents.

I can't imagine the B10 ever going to something like this but it's an interesting concept and I wouldn't hate it.

I always tend to think from a global macro view then narrow it down from there. Sometimes the details make the idea not feasible, sometimes it leads to something else entirely. In this case, I think the championship is diluted if all the teams don't play each other. I also don't like the current format of the cfp because it heavily favors the pre season favorite teams, and this basically eliminates the underdog. I also really favor the nfl playoff system, because it doesn't weigh every game so dramatically and a team can be rewarded for improving over the course of the season.

Thinking out loud though, my plan was for the teams seeded 9-14 to play each other in a round Robin type format. In the second round of the "playoffs", the loser of the w1/e4 game would play the loser of the e2/w3 game, and so on and so forth. Then the third round would be the losers playing the losers again, so that at the end of the 8 team playoff we would have a clear positioning of teams 1-14.

I think teams would be encouraged in this format to play a better non conference schedule, because it doesn't matter as much with an overall record. The current system, for everyone but the elite sec teams, clemson and Notre dame, is geared toward being undefeated. Look at clemson. I don't care they win by 40 points a game, if UNC had gotten that 2 point conversion and they lost, they would still be in the cfp. They won't play a ranked team all season, but nobody talks about that. But for everyone else, like Iowa in 2015 or Minnesota or Baylor this year would have to win all their games and still have to hope for some of those teams to lose and sometimes lose twice. So most teams want to schedule games that they will win in the non conference. But if the emphasis is how you are playing at the end of the year, and no matter how badly you play at the beginning of the year, you still have a chance to some degree. I think that is cool.

 

[Fryowa]

I'm sure people will disagree, but my opinion is that Division champions should be determined solely by each team's record against other division foes. This is particularly true when considering the fact that each team's schedule against East Division teams (or West Division teams) varies wildly from year to year. When you consider only West Division games, the race would have been much more interesting this year. Here are the current standings:

1. MN 3-1 (remaining West Division games: At NW; Wisconsin
2. WI 3-1 (remaining West Division games: Purdue; At MN)
3. IA 3-1 (remaining West Division games: IL; At Neb)
4. IL 2-2 (remaining West: At IA; NW)
5. Neb 2-3 (remaining West: IA)
6.PU 2-3 (remaining West: At WI)
7.NW 0-4 (remaining West: MN; At IL)

The East Division also would be much more interesting, since at this juncture Michigan would have only one loss (to Penn State), while Ohio State and Penn State would have no division losses. Michigan still has to play Ohio State and Ohio State still must play Penn State. The crossover games distort those standings as well.

Under the above scenario, if Iowa wins out and Minnesota defeats Wisconsin, Iowa is the champ since it would win the tiebreaker against Minnesota.

I suppose one argument against this is that the Big Ten doesn't want a Division champion crowned who has not played well against East Division foes. I think that argument is rather hollow, since Norrthwestern recently made the Big Ten Championship game with an 8-4 record.

Bad idea. Reducing the number of games considered for a division championship would result in a huge number of three and four way ties and basically turn it into a tiebreaker contest which no one wants to watch. Nobody wants to see a four team round robin every year with three shit teams at the bottom.

 

[guffus]

There has never been a case in Big Ten history where the team with the best record inside the division has not won it's own division.

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Like you said, in order for it to happen, 1 team inside the division needs to go 6-0 inside and 1-2 outside while 1 other team goes 5-1 and 3-0. The odds of this happening are very rare.

 

[eyekwah]

The problem, as I understand, it is the unbalanced strength of schedules of teams in the West. How is that different for teams in the East? Michigan played @Wisconsin and Iowa at home this year, two of the current top three in the west. OSU got Nebraska, NW, and Wisconsin. I didn't go through all the schedules but it appears there is a similar problem for teams in the East.

For me the problem isn't as defined. The problem is 14 teams. It is just an awkward number. I liked 12 teams and the previous leaders and legends setup. It was very balanced team wise and the SoS, while still a factor, did not have the influence it is having almost every year. The solution might be 16 teams and 4 pods of 4 teams or two pods of 8 teams. I don't think there is any going back to 12 teams. You have a lot more flexibility if geography doesn't get in the way.

Long term I think the future of college football will evolve to one that resembles the NFL. One division would be tOSU, Michigan, PSU and Notre Dame. Another might be Florida, Georgia, LSU, and Alabama. Out west you have USC, Washington, Texas and Oklahoma. Probably around 24 to 32 members of the current Power 5 and Independents. It is what the sports media companies want.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Michigan State doesn't scare me next year. Unless of course all of their players are out on work-release that weekend, then they could be tough...

I forgot the name of the player but something like that actually happened the last time Sparty was in Iowa City correct?

 

[ssckelley]

One idea I think could work is every 2 years schedule the cross overs based on where you finish in the standings. So that way the top teams in each division are playing each other and each team gets a home and home. Perhaps use multiple years to determine the top teams for a larger sample (maybe a 2 year?). It would create favorable matchups for fans and for TV.

 

[cincyhawk]

The Big Ten is planning to get rid of divisions and move to a two "best" team conference format (as opposed to a two "most deserving" format) since it would allow a CCG between OSU and Michigan or Penn State, even if a current West team were undefeated but hadn't played OSU or Michigan in that year. I don't think this is fair, but it will likely be better for ratings, $$$, and getting Big Ten teams into the playoffs and won't jeopardize traditional rivalries like rebalancing the current divisions would.

 

[Fryowa]

The Big Ten is planning to get rid of divisions and move to a two "best" team conference format.

I don't think "is planning" is the right phrase; there's been talk of it this past off season, but I haven't heard anything that says they're for sure planning on it, and definitely haven't heard anyone from the B1G say how it would go down if they did.

 

[ssckelley]

The Big Ten is planning to get rid of divisions and move to a two "best" team conference format (as opposed to a two "most deserving" format) since it would allow a CCG between OSU and Michigan or Penn State, even if a current West team were undefeated but hadn't played OSU or Michigan in that year. I don't think this is fair, but it will likely be better for ratings, $$$, and getting Big Ten teams into the playoffs and won't jeopardize traditional rivalries like rebalancing the current divisions would.

I would hate this, I like the current division format and I like Iowa playing the bordering schools every year. That's my selfish POV but I think the ratings for the current CCG is fine. As a fan I would lose interest in it if the CCG was simply a repeat game of Ohio State vs Michigan because those 2 football teams are most deserving.

 

[JoeyLabasForPresident]

I had not thought of that angle. I guess the other thing that can happen is that the commissioner reshuffles the teams in each division....although frankly that doesn't change the argument that only the division games matter. For example, if Michigan came to the West to balance it out (Purdue goes to the east) it still makes sense to only count division games in determining the champion of a division.

Michigan and OSU will not be split, first because they want to play every year and that’s a painful proposition for a yearly crossover, and two because they wanted to be in the same division because they didn’t want to risk playing the last week of the year and turning around to meet again in the CG. Obviously Michigan needs to actually be a threat for the latter to be relevant, but I digress.

 

[JoeyLabasForPresident]

I don't think "is planning" is the right phrase; there's been talk of it this past off season, but I haven't heard anything that says they're for sure planning on it, and definitely haven't heard anyone from the B1G say how it would go down if they did.

Further, the Big Ten would need to seek approval from the NCAA. The only reason the Big 12 is allowed to be divisionless and still have a championship game if because the conference is trash and they only have ten teams, allowing for a round robin schedule. They instituted the game to further their chances of getting a team in the playoff, in their estimation. If they wanted to be like the SEC and play only eight conference games and still be allowed to have a conference championship game they would need two five team division, or seek some separate agreement with the NCAA.

 

[DDThompson]

Michigan, Ohio State, MSU, and PSU all wanted to be in the same “east” division. ALL of them. For similar and differing reasons the all did. ALL.

Michigan-OSU didn’t want to be in different divisions because they wanted to maintain their game as a season ending game AND they said they’d have to turn around and play each other the next week in the CG most of the time.

MSU wanted its rivalry games assured against Michigan and OSU — the latter wasn’t a guarantee. PSU wanted to make sure most of its games were against eastern geographical schools.

It’s not like the Big10 West is a weak division top to bottom. It has been ranked the third toughest division in the P5 schools. And if the BigXII has 5 divided into south and north, it would be 4th behind the Texas/Oklahoma division.