Who gets their way in alignment: Wisconsin or Iowa?

Indiana and Minnesota should be spilt up also.


Having those to in the same division is unfair to the other that would be more competitive.
 
West:
Iowa
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Illinois
Northwestern
Minnesota

East:
OSU
PSU
Mich
MSU
Indiana
Purdue




That is it... easy... we need to stop looking at who was good 20 years ago in deciding Divisions. Times have changed. Rivalries aren't as big of Paydays as they used to be and are gettign old. They get hyped up for nothing anymore. A Conf Championship is going to be huge. If anything based on the past 10 years you could argue the West is the much stronger division if set up this way.


I'm with you & SirJam that in the end, I also see this as the alignment. I believe there currently is much more parity in the Big10 than years past & both these divisions will be competitive & make sense geographically. Most the rivals & border wars are protected. Fans need to be able to travel by auto to the rivals or there would be a bunch of pizzed-off fans all over the conference. Fans should be able to travel without too much of a problem to rival stadiums.
 
Striving for "perfect" competitive balance between divisions seems somewhat fruitless when you factor in likely future expansion. I find it hard to believe that additional teams that would be added in the future will not disrupt the "perfect" balance to some degree. Are we going to pick and chose future additions based on how well they fit into maintaining Delaney's perfect competitive model?

Like others, I say keep NE / IA / WI on one side and PSU / OSU / MI on the other......that's perfect enough.
 
Does the Missouri River equal Barry Alvarez's influence?

That's the only thing that matters if the 1st 4 are Mich/Nebby and OSU/PSU
 
Michigan and Nebraska will be in one division. Penn State and Ohio State will be in the opposite division. The next two most successful programs since 1993, the criteria Jim Delany set out, are Wisconsin and Iowa.

I would suggest both programs would want to be in the west with Michigan and Nebraska....who gets their way? Who gets to call in their marker? Barry Alvarez is like a freaking unofficial spokesman for the Big Ten right now...one of two men to ever win three Rose Bowls as a coach...along with Woody Hayes...he is very active..and young.

Who wins the showdown?

Have you considered this? I had not, until this morning.

WEST

Michigan
Nebraska
WISCONSIN
Michigan State
Minnesota
Northwestern

EAST

OSU
PSU
IOWA
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois

Have you thought about this? Do you like it? I am not a fan of it...and I understand the instant thought; no way is Iowa not playing Nebraska....well, Wisconsin wants exactly what Iowa wants...someone is going to be ticked off...who gets to play their chip?

In this split Iowa, although placed with THE big boy of the league, looks to be in the weaker division of the two. I don't think Iowa will be opposite Nebraska, Minnesota AND Wisconsin though.
 
I wouldn't care if we never play Indiana in FB again ... but I do like the idea of play Illinois and Penn State every year

This is all ridiculous and stupid ... just put Wisconsin and Iowa in the west and NW in the east and **** it ... I'd rather play in the tough division than the idiotically mapped one
 
This is absolutely rediculous. Somebody needs to put a muzzle on alverez.. We are the western most state in the big 10. Us moving east makes no sense. It would kill every rivalry we have. Plus no other new rival would be as HUGE as IOWA-NEB! Even Husker fan wants a crack at iowa each year and we should be playing them the last week of the season. Why should wisc play neb each year? Here is the divisions that I propose and they way it should be!

west
iowa
neb
mich
mich st
minn
nw

east
osu
psu
wisc
ill
pur
indiana
 
Scott Dochertman of the Gazette tweeted this to me:

I think teams get tied in pairs. OSU-PSU, Mich-MSU, Iowa-Neb, Wis-Minn, Ind-Purd, Ill-NW, divided from there
------

Interesting thought

divided from there?

by keeping those pairs together? (intradivisional)
or by the "zipper method", splitting them, then protecting them (interdivisional)
 
nah he must mean keep those pairs intradivisional, because you can't split UM and MSU and split UM and OSU, because they aren't going to protect two interdivisional rivals

I agree with Doc about keeping those pairs together, if that's what he meant ... the easiest possibility that accomplishes this is East/West ... but since they don't want that, and since UM/MSU must then be paired with Iowa/Neb in order to offset the OSU/PSU pair opposite, and Iowa and Wisc must be split, we are left with two options:

Div A: Iowa/Neb, UM/MSU, Illinois/NW
Div B: Minn/Wisc, OSU/PSU, Indy/Purdue

OR

Div A: Iowa/Neb, UM/MSU, Indy/Purdue
Div B: Minn/Wisc, OSU/PSU, Illinois/NW


wow, I think that's it, I think he's right, it's one of those two
 
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OK so BWS has the divisions down how the hell are they going to create a schedule with the protected cross division rivals. Won't that cause in some cases a 3 year gap between games with a team. I think anything longer then a 2 year gap is idiotic.
 
I think it is interesting that Iowa and Wisconsin would NOT be in the same division. I am sure that Nebraska would rather have the rivalry with Iowa and not Wisconsin every year. I am going to agree with a previous poster and say that it will be Iowa because the b10 doesn't want to tick off Nebraska already.
As a Nebraska fan I really don't know who I want in the same division or "rival". Our experience with Colorado says that rivalries can not be made, but develop with time, so I would put that on the back burner. Also the experience with the Big 12 says that the balance of power shifts with time.
 
Did I miss something, why am I not seeing:

OSU
PSU
Wisc
Purdue
Indiana
Illinois

Michigan
Neb
Iowa
MSU
NWU
Minn

Everyone gets a protected rivalry across divisions. OSU-Mich. PSU-Neb (big tv). Wisc-Iowa. NWU-Illinois. The rest get tricky, but this makes most sense doesn't it. If they want Mich and OSU playing in last game of year before championship game, they can do that, even under this scenario. I get that Wiscy may want to stay West, but do they really? If they still get to play either Minn or Iowa (they choose), and play every year with OSU and PSU, why would they care that much about Neb? The previous post by the guy who reminded us of Osborne's comment that splitting Neb and Iowa "would not be received well", tells it all.
 

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