[NU Sports] 2009 schedule

[jhcclark at aol.com]

I thought the conference had this all figured out back in the late 1990s -- I thought some math whiz from Northwestern brought this to the conference.? Did they change the grouping method and go back to random scheduling voted on by the conference members?

Here is how I thought they had decided to do it, to keep everything fair and to avoid having teams rarely play each other (for an 11-team conference, it is pretty ingenious):

Teams split into 3 groups:

1) Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State
2) Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Purdue
3) Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin

Each team has?2 protected "rivals" (ours?are Illinois &?Purdue) (Michigan's are?MSU and OSU) (Iowa's are Minny and Wisconsin)

Every 2-year cycle, each team misses one team from each other group (or their non-protected rival, if any, from their group)

In our case, we might have missed:

Years 1 - 2 -- Michigan & Iowa
Years?3 - 4?-- Michigan State & Minnesota
Years?5 - 6?-- Ohio State & Wisconsin
Years?7 - 8?-- Penn State & Indiana

In Michigan's case, they might have missed:

Years 1 - 2 -- Northwestern & Wisconsin
Years?3 - 4?-- Purdue & Minnesota
Years?5 - 6?-- Indiana & Iowa
Years?7 - 8?-- Illinois & Penn State

In Iowa's case, they might have missed:

Years 1 - 2 -- Northwestern & Penn State
Years?3 - 4?-- Illinois & Ohio State
Years?5 - 6?-- Purdue & Michigan
Years?7 - 8?-- Indiana & Michigan State

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Vance <michael.vance at att.net>
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:19 pm
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] 2009 schedule


I've never thought it through completely, but it would make sense to me that you probably can't always alternate home/away for every common opponent when the schedule rotates. If you look at the last 20 years:?
?
1988-89: Michigan State (Away)?
1990-91: Purdue (Home)?
1992-93: Indiana (Home), Ohio State (Away), Illinois (Away)?
1994-95: Wisconsin (Home), Minnesota (Away)?
1996-97: None?
1998-99: None?
2000-01: None?
2002-03: None?
2004-05: None?
2006-07: None?
?
It looks like before Penn State started in football in 1993, it happened quite a bit, and continued into the first rotation after they started. Since then, they've managed to work the rotation without any year-to-year repeats (for us). But I still think that with an odd number of teams and the three groupings of "protected rivals" that it has to happen every once in a while.?
?
-Michael?
?
Jim Bendat wrote:?
> Agree that it seems weird. It's a new two-year cycle of scheduling, where we drop Ohio State and Michigan, and we add Penn State and Wisconsin. Because our home schedule in 2009 has both the Nittany Lions and Badgers on it, the schedule makers sent us packing to Iowa City again so that we would still have four home conference games and four away games.?
>?
> -----Original Message-----?
> >> From: WildElk2 at aol.com?
>> Sent: Oct 1, 2008 5:01 PM?
>> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com?
>> Subject: [NU Sports] 2009 schedule?
>>?
>> OK schedulholics, why are we playing at Iowa again next year? (good bye >> week fodder) >>?
>> GO CATS!! Eric?
>>?
>>?
>>?
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