Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[ScriptOhio]

Interesting article.....

Conference expansion might mess up the Big Ten championship game yet again

This should be a banner year for the Big Ten.

After being the butt of everyone’s jokes for at least half a decade, the league now has two teams in the College Football Playoff rankings, with just two regular season weeks to go. The conference has four teams in the top ten, one of the strongest paths to being the first conference to get two teams in the playoff, and a legitimate, credible argument for being the best conference in America this season. In football. It’s true!

And yet, once again, the league might accidentally screw up a good thing.

You’ve probably heard, at this point, how the Big Ten East tiebreakers go. The team best positioned at this point if OSU beats Michigan isn’t No. 2 ranked Ohio State but No. 8 Penn State, who only needs to beat Rutgers and Michigan State to clinch a division championship.

Penn State is a good football team, maybe even a very good one, but by just about every metric, they aren’t as good as Ohio State or Michigan, OSU-PSU final score not withstanding. Michigan is second in S&P+, Ohio State is third, and Penn State is 12th. Both Ohio State and Michigan have superior wins to Penn State, whose best non-Ohio State win is probably Temple. And it would be very difficult to argue that Penn State would have a better shot at making a run in the playoff, against a team like Alabama or Clemson, than Ohio State or Michigan.

But the Nittany Lions hold the tiebreaker over the Buckeyes, fair and square. They blocked the kicks, they beat the Buckeyes, and if Ohio State wins out and knocks off Michigan, and if Penn State takes care of business against two bad football teams, they’re off to the Big Ten championship game, and potentially, the playoff, even over Ohio State.

A major reason for this? Maryland and Rutgers. They’ve messed this up again.

The Big Ten conference schedule expanded to nine games this season, but that still only gives each Big Ten East team three crossover games with the West. Penn State has avoided arguably the three best teams in the West this season, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Northwestern, and they got Iowa, their best crossover opponent, at home.

Meanwhile, Ohio State faced nearly the hardest Big Ten schedule possible, drawing Wisconsin, Nebraska and Northwestern, beating them all. Their Big Ten achievements are in no way equal. But the rules are the rules, and because Penn State lost the correct game and won the correct one, they might advance.

This happened last year too, as an Iowa team that almost everybody suspected wasn’t actually as good as their record, advanced to the Big Ten championship game without ever playing Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State or Penn State. They lost a close game to a weakened Michigan State team in the final, and then got summarily blasted to the moon by Stanford in the Rose Bowl.
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Otherwise, we could be looking at a scenario where the Big Ten squanders its best playoff positioning it’s likely to get in years.

Hope the New York and DC TV markets were worth it.

Entire article: http://www.landgrantholyland.com/20...en-tiebreakers-penn-state-ohio-state-michigan

 

[cincibuck]

Interesting argument. Also ignores 2002 - 03 when Ohio State and Iowa tied for the Big Ten, but Ohio State advanced to the BCS.

Now take it a step further - the playoffs are a NATIONAL event, yet ALL the games are played in two regions - one if you run the Mason - Dixon line from coast to coast. How is that NATIONAL? Time to rotate the games through 4 regions. Chicago, New York, Miami or NOLA, LA.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Interesting argument. Also ignores 2002 - 03 when Ohio State and Iowa tied for the Big Ten, but Ohio State advanced to the BCS.

Now take it a step further - the playoffs are a NATIONAL event, yet ALL the games are played in two regions - one if you run the Mason - Dixon line from coast to coast. How is that NATIONAL? Time to rotate the games through 4 regions. Chicago, New York, Miami or NOLA, LA.

The NFL just had it's first cold weather Super Bowl a couple years back right?

It makes sense and I want it to happen but the counter argument is like what we have seen with OSU vs MSU two years running. One team has recruited better, developed better and worked their ass off to have a well balanced team that can make you pay for cheating against the run by burning you with the pass. Now you have the slower, less developed, less skilled team not have to pay the price for their shortcomings because of the random luck of gameday weather.

I think the reason we have "neutral site"/warm weather championship games stems from the question; Do you want your championship to be heavily influenced by potential bad weather?

As a fan of the more skilled and well rounded team, I say hell no. If I were a fan of the less skilled team I'd probably make fun of the more skilled teams fans for being afraid to play in bad weather.

 

[zincfinger]

My biggest complaints about Leaders and Legends were the stupidity of the names and having tOSU and TTUN in separate divisions.

Responding here since it seems more fitting than the recruiting thread. Your second point is exactly the kind of unavoidable disadvantage of pursuing competitive balance that I was talking about. If you want balance, you're just about forced to split important rivalries apart, put someone in a division with a bunch of schools a thousand miles away, or both. The conference tried that approach and a lot of people didn't like it, and not just because of the superficial reason of the names, I think.

 

[BuckeyeSoldier]

splitting scUM and tOSU was problematic to many due to the chance of a rematch in the championship game.

 

[cincibuck]

splitting scUM and tOSU was problematic to many due to the chance of a rematch in the championship game.

A) Every year poses the threat of a repeat.
B) What were the odds that Ohio State would be on probation and Michigan would suck at the same time.
C) The current alignment puts 4 of the more consistently strong programs in one division and two pretenders in the other.

 

[jwinslow]

A) Every year poses the threat of a repeat.
B) What were the odds that Ohio State would be on probation and Michigan would suck at the same time.
C) The current alignment puts 4 of the more consistently strong programs in one division and two pretenders in the other.

That's the point cinci. Absolutely no one saw sparty coming.

Absolutely no one saw nebraska becoming trash so quickly. Same with PSU, and that lasted for most of two decades.

We saw what osu could become with the wrong coach. We've seen the same from Michigan, and even a supposed great hire has them in a pretty mediocre place (during years where sparty is not that good).



You don't cancel great games out of some hairbrained guess about how good and fair the divisions will be later. It would be an absolute shame to lose the osu MSU game, and that was literally the only high level opponent they had during multiple seasons.

All so people can pretend it's more fair. Until you realize that those teams will never play the same cross divisional teams and now that's unfair.



The only predictable solution to achieve millennial parent esque fairness is to split up Michigan and osu and that would be a pretty awful choice.

 

[Mike80]

That's the point cinci. Absolutely no one saw sparty coming.

Absolutely no one saw nebraska becoming trash so quickly. Same with PSU, and that lasted for most of two decades.

We saw what osu could become with the wrong coach. We've seen the same from Michigan, and even a supposed great hire has them in a pretty mediocre place (during years where sparty is not that good).



You don't cancel great games out of some hairbrained guess about how good and fair the divisions will be later. It would be an absolute shame to lose the osu MSU game, and that was literally the only high level opponent they had during multiple seasons.

All so people can pretend it's more fair. Until you realize that those teams will never play the same cross divisional teams and now that's unfair.



The only predictable solution to achieve millennial parent esque fairness is to split up Michigan and osu and that would be a pretty awful choice.

Bolded the best part of this statement.

The idea of fairness is being applied to a sport that cycles its entire roster in 4 years. It's illogical.

Splitting up Cryami and Florida State was the worst thing the ACC could do after its expansion and it was done entirely for the ACC championship game. It literally took 15 years for Cryami to make it to the ACC title game and they obviously haven't met FSU in that game (and FSU went way down as Bowden got older and wasn't in the game to begin with for a long stretch)....

Geographic divisions are the best way to go. maybe you can swap the Indiana schools but that's just adjusting the white noise level. The best thing that could happen is for Nebraska to find another Bo Pelini type coach, Wisconsin to maintain and for two of Iowa/Northwestern/Minny to remain 7-8 win programs yearly....

 

[zincfinger]

That's the point cinci...The only predictable solution to achieve millennial parent esque fairness is to split up Michigan and osu and that would be a pretty awful choice.

Certainly it is difficult-to-impossible to ensure that the divisions would be balanced in a short time-frame, but on a longer time frame I think it would be feasible to create reasonably balanced divisions. Separating UM and OSU would be one way to do it, but not necessarily the only way - if you swapped PSU and MSU for, say, Illinois and Northwestern, I think the divisions would be a lot more balanced over any extended time frame. The question is whether that's worth it. It's not ideal that one of the BigTen divisions is permanently (I think) much stronger than the other. But is it worth disturbing rivalries and parasitic-pseudo-rivalries (OSU/PSU), and/or forcing someone to play most games way outside their geographic region, in order to achieve a greater degree of competitive balance on average? Originally, when they came out with Leaders/Legends, I thought it was - now I'm not so sure.

I think this question is somewhat like the question of whether tough non-conference games are worth the risk. From OSU's vantage, winning championships would probably be easier if they didn't schedule tough OOC games, or if you took a couple of the better teams out of the BigTen East. But either of those things would also make the schedule less interesting most years.

 

[jwinslow]

Certainly it is difficult-to-impossible to ensure that the divisions would be balanced in a short time-frame, but on a longer time frame I think it would be feasible to create reasonably balanced divisions. Separating UM and OSU would be one way to do it, but not necessarily the only way - if you swapped PSU and MSU for, say, Illinois and Northwestern, I think the divisions would be a lot more balanced over any extended time frame.

But now you've canceled BOTH of OSU's best games on their schedule this year. The chances of all four east programs remaining pretty good to great is very slim.

The question is whether that's worth it. It's not ideal that one of the BigTen divisions is permanently (I think) much stronger than the other. But is it worth disturbing rivalries and parasitic-pseudo-rivalries (OSU/PSU), and/or forcing someone to play most games way outside their geographic region, in order to achieve a greater degree of competitive balance on average? Originally, when they came out with Leaders/Legends, I thought it was - now I'm not so sure.

I agree completely.


Another point, this isn't the SEC. Unless the NCAA folds and B1G alumni are allowed to fund recruits above the table, there aren't a gaggle of NC contenders to support deep divisions after splitting up the powers. There are 2.5 unless Frost can recapture the magic.


Just like when the league was struggling a decade ago, it comes down to the blue bloods. If OSU took care of business, the rest would have not mattered. If Nebraska gets back to playing pretty good football, all the noise about divisional imbalance settles down considerably. Or when Oklahoma and others join the west.

 

[scarletmike]

I say just get it over with already, drop to 4 16-18 team conferences, and go to pods. Hell, don't even bother waiting and as soon as the B1G picks up two more, go straight to pods and the scheduling diversity will get more interesting. If there were an easy way to do smaller pods with 14 I would be all for making the jump right now. Divisions make it easier to say "this large group is strong," and pods make it seem much more subjective, but you don't need to worry about geography as much, and I'll just stop because we went over this 10 million times over the previous expansion discussions.

 

[kujirakira]

The NFL just had it's first cold weather Super Bowl a couple years back right?

It makes sense and I want it to happen but the counter argument is like what we have seen with OSU vs MSU two years running. One team has recruited better, developed better and worked their ass off to have a well balanced team that can make you pay for cheating against the run by burning you with the pass. Now you have the slower, less developed, less skilled team not have to pay the price for their shortcomings because of the random luck of gameday weather.

I think the reason we have "neutral site"/warm weather championship games stems from the question; Do you want your championship to be heavily influenced by potential bad weather?

As a fan of the more skilled and well rounded team, I say hell no. If I were a fan of the less skilled team I'd probably make fun of the more skilled teams fans for being afraid to play in bad weather.

Bit late responding ... but there's more than a few domes around. I also think that's part of Homefield Advantage... let QF/SF be in cold weather in the Midwest on a rotational basis. No different than Midwestern kids having to travel to the Gulf Coast' humidity. Or home games in Denver's altitude.

 

[kujirakira]

I used to care about bringing in UT and OU to balance the West... but now, I don't think it matters.
Think of it this way - the Big Ten has now split into 2 separate Conferences that have a scheduling agreement. The West is the weaker conference, and that's fine by me. Add 2 more population-growth areas on the East side like UVA imo, and shift Indiana to the West. Often teams in the West will still get a lot of press for being undefeated. If not Wiscy then Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern... like a lamb to the slaughter bolstering our resume as necessary.

MSU will stay relevent while Dantonio still breathes. PSU and scUM will have their years accompanied by media hype. Rutgers and Maryland are the whipping boys ... it is what it is. East Division will be fine for the forseeable future. What goes on in the West doesn't matter until December.

 

[Bill Lucas]

Iowa

like a lamb to the slaughter bolstering our resume as necessary

Hmm...

 

[Bucklion]

Hmm...

Well, Ferentz will only be around to get his COY awards for so long...