[NU Sports] Big Ten Divisions appear to be firming up

[Jonathan Hodges]

Regarding avoiding OSU/Michigan and Big Ten titles (since 1993, when Penn
State joined and the current conference scheduling system was set up):

Ohio State (9) and Michigan (5) have won or shared a combined 14 titles over
this 17 year span.  This occurred in 13 separate times in those 17 seasons.

During that 17 year span EVERY team that has won OR shared the conference
title has played OSU or Michigan in that season.  Here are the only
conference title winners/sharers who did not play BOTH, and who they missed:

2002 Iowa (OSU)
2000 Northwestern (OSU)
1998 Wisconsin (OSU)
1996 Northwestern (OSU)
1995 Northwestern (OSU)

Yes, that's a trend, teams benefit most from avoiding Ohio State
(Northwestern 3 times).  Some teams have missed both OSU and Michigan
multiple times over that span, and although that leads to a lot of people
putting them in title contention, it hasn't worked out for anyone.

Although the 'Cats have obviously benefited from this and the "shared title"
(specifically in '96 and '00 where NU won a shared title but lost the
tiebreaker in order to go to the Rose/BCS Bowl), I am personally glad that
there will no longer be shared titles and teams will get to avoid other good
ones and still win a conference crown.  Competitively, it makes more sense,
and I'm a logical guy, so I like that kind of thing.


I also agree with Jeff: the Big Ten has seemed to make all the right moves
at the right times in recent years, and I trust them to do the same here.
While everyone can't be made happy, I think they'll do what's best for the
conference both in terms of revenues and also in terms of competition within
the conference and nationally.


Finally, about Purdue as an NU rival: they were made one of NU's two
"protected rivals" back in '93 when the current scheduling went into effect
(each Big Ten team now has 2 teams they play every season, the so-called
"protected rivals").  Basically, they were stuck with each other as neither
has a real long-term rival who was available after giving everyone else two
rivals, and they are close to each other, so that was that.  I don't think
that this is a game that the Big Ten is specifically looking to keep when
splitting divisions.  I do expect, though, that the NU/Illinois game will
continue, even if it's a cross-division protected game (like the
OSU/Michigan game is rumored to be).


Jonathan

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Mike Nolan <nolan at romaine.tssi.com> wrote:

> > The most obvious situation Delany is trying to avoid is the Big XII which
> > was essentially doomed to collapse once it became clear most of the power
> > was concentrated in the south.
>
> I was never a fan of the North/South division of the Big XII, mostly
> because
> it killed off the Nebraska-Oklahoma game at Thanksgiving.
>  (Nebrasaka-Colorado
> never caught on as a rivalry game, at least not in Nebraska.)
>
> But the Big XII voted against any kind of protected cross-division
> rivalry game.
>
> This became a bigger problem when Nebraska had a down cycle in the past
> decade (its first since the 60's.)  Colorado also hit the skids big time,
> as did Kansas State.  Kansas and Missouri were hit-and-miss, and still are.
> Iowa State is the divisional punching bag, like Baylor in the South.
>
> > The problem is that there is no great solution for the Big Ten - the
> teams
> > will have to be split somehow.  Personally, I don't like the current
> setup
> > where each team misses two others every year, leading to lot of split
> > championships.
>
> Even though Northwestern has probably benefited from that more than
> any other team in the conference?
>
> My concern from the point that the Big Ten announced it was considering
> expansion was that the big dogs would make sure that no school (at least
> not one wearing purple) ever won another conference championship
> while skipping both Michigan and Ohio State.  I guess I'd rather be
> in a division with ONE of those schools than BOTH of them, though.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>