[NU Sports] Divisions

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

Now that I've seen the actual schedule, let's do a side-by-side comparison of the final weekend of the season ...

The Big Ten's over-thought plan ...
* OSU vs. Michigan - The Big Game, but could be repeated the next week?
* NU vs. Illinois - Sweet Stovepipe, but could be repeated the next week
* IU vs. PU - Bucket and all ... thankfully won't be repeated next week
* Iowa vs. UNL - Natural rivalry, could be for a trip to the title game
* Wisconsin vs. PSU - Too far for rivalry, but could be for title game
* MSU vs. Minny - The one UM game w/o a trophy??? Zzzzzzz.

The natural east/west divisions ...
* OSU vs. Michigan - The Big Game and could be for division title
* IU vs. PU - Bucket game, tradition and could be for division title
* MSU vs. PSU - Growing rivalry and could be for division title
* NU vs. Illinois - Honest Abe and all, plus could be for division title
* Wisky vs. Minny - The greatest trophy (Axe), plus could be for division
* Iowa vs. UNL - Border war rivals, plus could be for division title

Add to that ...
- Competitive balance is a wash with either
- Geographic travel costs for teams (and more importantly fans) are better with the east/west
- More rivalries are kept with east/west
- The rivalries MEAN MORE with east/west
- Michigan vs. Ohio State MEANS MORE with east/west

Can someone tell me why we're going with the artificially forced divisions again over nature???

The league will survive this - thankfully college football is the greatest game out there (even the B(C)S can't ruin it) and this is the best league overall ... but why add things that suck so bad to such a great sport without any real reason???

OK - I promise I won't rant on this anymore ... the season is right around the corner thankfully ... but now that the divisions were official I wanted to add that.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT




* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
Super Bowl XLIV Champions!
==========================


--- On Wed, 9/1/10, Jim Leonard <jleonard518 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Jim Leonard <jleonard518 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [NU Sports] Divisions
> To: "Northwestern Wildcats" <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
> Date: Wednesday, September 1, 2010, 6:22 PM
> I don't think today's announcement
> was all that important. Divisions had to be 
> created and there was no hope of satisfying everyone. I
> think Paul is correct 
> that avoiding tOSU every year is a positive thing. I
> personally enjoy having 
> Wisconsin and Penn State on the schedule every year but it
> couldn't be done and 
> I'll get used to it. If these divisions had existed before
> I came to NU I never 
> would have thought twice about them. 
> 
> 
> It will be slightly amusing whenever Michigan and Ohio
> State both have their 
> divisions locked up and they play the big game twice in a
> row. Imagine Ohio 
> State wins the regular season game but then Michigan comes
> back the following 
> Saturday in the championship game and beats them for
> the BCS bid. That's the way 
> they wanted it I guess, but I doubt their fans will enjoy
> it when it happens. 
> 
> 
> Go Cats!
> Jim
> 
> 
>       
> 
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