Someone explain the Big 10 split to me

Shadow_Ferret

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Haggis told me that the Michigan/OSU rivalry was very big. Why would they split them into two different conferences?

And the Wisconsin/Minnesota rivalry has been a fairly big one, too. Complete with Paul Bunyon's ax.

Sorry,this just confuses me.

Linky.http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5519832

And if this is being discussed somewhere else. Sorry. Mods can merge.
 

suki

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Haggis told me that the Michigan/OSU rivalry was very big. Why would they split them into two different conferences?

And the Wisconsin/Minnesota rivalry has been a fairly big one, too. Complete with Paul Bunyon's ax.

Sorry,this just confuses me.

Linky.http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5519832

And if this is being discussed somewhere else. Sorry. Mods can merge.

Money. It's about money.

See, whether they are in the same divisions or not, UW will play Minnesota, and Ohio State will play Michigan. Big time money games that will be played regardless of the divisions.

But the split means the rivalries of Iowa-Minnesota, Purdue-Indiana and Indiana-Illinois will be divisional, and therefore encouraged to continue. And, the split means that each division will have a balance of weaker and powerhouse teams (in football and basketball) so that they are doing a little social engineerig not to stack one division with likely favorites - which seems obvious to me, that there was some oddsmaking on likely divisional leaders in each sport over time.

At least, that's how I see it. ;)

~suki
 

Jcomp

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Money. It's about money.

See, whether they are in the same divisions or not, UW will play Minnesota, and Ohio State will play Michigan. Big time money games that will be played regardless of the divisions.

But the split means the rivalries of Iowa-Minnesota, Purdue-Indiana and Indiana-Illinois will be divisional, and therefore encouraged to continue. And, the split means that each division will have a balance of weaker and powerhouse teams (in football and basketball) so that they are doing a little social engineerig not to stack one division with likely favorites - which seems obvious to me, that there was some oddsmaking on likely divisional leaders in each sport over time.

At least, that's how I see it. ;)

~suki

Additionlly, the split makes possible an "ideal" scenario for a conference championship matchup: Michigan vs. OSU. Can't happen if they're in the same division. One of the things that has hurt the Big 12 in recent years (since Nebraska's been in an extended slump) is that most of the consistent power teams are all in the Big 12 South. UT vs. Oklahoma would make for a great title game, but it can't happen the way it's set up. I think the Big 10 (now with 12 teams, while the Big 12 has ten teams... still can't get over that) is trying to make a conference that's balanced and also set up potential big money matchups for the championship game.
 

rugcat

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And don't forget. the Pac-10 will become the Pac-12 next year, with the addition of Utah and Colorado.

And BYU, seeing the financial wall writing on a depleted Mountain West conference, is going the independent route -- where among other things, they won't have to share TV revenue with the rest of that conference any more.
 

mscelina

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For some benighted reason, the Big Ten seems to think that the perfect scenario would be getting Michigan vs Ohio State on consecutive weekends--once for the regular season game and once for the conference championship.

Absolutely stupid. Not only have they ruthlessly eliminated the great purpose behind the rivalry, trivializing it almost to non-existence, but they've basically concluded that the rest of the Big Ten is inconsequential compared to the two big dogs--kind of a ridiculous conclusion considering Michigan's last few seasons and the addition of Nebraska--who I think will be a fairly big player in the Big Ten (west?) almost immediately.

But I doubt it will work out the way they think. Remember when Florida State and Miami joined the ACC? They were put into different divisions in the conference in preparation for that annual UM/FSU conference championship game.

That game has yet to happen.
 

blacbird

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You also have to consider parity: OSU is now a powerhouse, but Michigan hasn't been for some time, and isn't predicted to be this year, either. Iowa and Wisconsin appear to be the other two really strong Big Ten teams, and both have a pretty fair history of fielding strong football teams over recent years. And Nebraska clearly is on the rebound, and likely will be a force right away when they join next year. Penn State also has good football chops. So it's by no means a lock that OSU-Michigan will wind up consistently being the championship game.
 

suki

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Well, and the divisions had to balance football powerhouses AND basketball powerhouses... so playing the odds game in two sports - there were probably a lot of compromises.

~suki

who thinks Wisconsin gets insufficient respect. :)
 

mscelina

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Agreed--not a lock, but for some reason it's still the Big Ten's dream situation. Personally, I think it'd be a huge bore to watch the same teams play back to back--once for the rivalry and once for the conference championship. It would diminish the importance of the first game immensely and make the second one seem superfluous.

And considering Nebraska's first Big Ten schedule for next year, which is horrific, their immediate impact will be more of a spoiler role most probably. "Welcome to the Big Ten--whaddaya mean you want to play Illinois? No, I don't think so. Let's try all the ranked teams first, shall we?"

Since Nebraska isn't a voting member of the conference yet, it's not like they had a choice. Personally, I think it would be absolutely hysterical if Nebraska ran the table and screwed everything up for them. *grin* Of course, then I wouldn't be welcome in my own home town, but I'm used to that.

yes, the Tennessee flag is flying by the front door right now. As usual, I *forgot* where the husband's Ohio State flag is...
 

Jcomp

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I do think the back-to-back scenario is a mistake. Keeping the game as the last of the regular season seems a mistake, even though that holds to the tradition. If it was a bit earlier in the season, like the Red River Rivalry, then if a rematch was lining up it would give time for an appropriate amount of hype and renewed animosity to build up, particularly if one team seemed to "run up the score" on the other. But lining it up to be potentially back-to-back, even with the few weeks between the regular season and conference title game, is a mistake.
 

The Lonely One

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As a Michigan fan, even given their fall from traditional excellence in recent years, I think there are plenty of big 10 matchups just as interesting as UofM v OSU. And let's face it, it's not much of a matchup right now. Sure, Robinson looks like a good Forcier replacement in the first game, but it should have been an easy game for a school like Michigan; for being #4 in the Big East UConn looked like absolute clowns last Saturday. In fact, both teams had some major issues. UConn's choice receiver (I think it was #80) couldn't catch the ball to save his life, with the exception of that butterfingers catch. Michigan dropped kickoff after punt, or kicked short punts, their pass defense was ridiculous, and Robinson more or less rushed 90 percent of the points they put on the board.

While I think Big 10 powerhouse defensive players will be less forgiving on Robinson's tendency to run (same thing happened to USF's BJ Daniels in conference play), I still think there are plenty of exciting moments to come. Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, MSU, Penn State, are all teams that excite me on the field.

So, in short, I don't care about the politics of Big 10 and I definitely don't give much of a shit about OSU. It's a hyped rivalry and certainly a super fun game to watch, but UofM/MSU or UofM/Notre Dame or really any Big 10 or Big East (USF student) game is just as entertaining to me.

Personally, I miss USF/UCF.