Go a few years without a team in the playoffs and a conference can get desperate. Big 1G is considering getting rid of its conference alignments. https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/12/06/jim-delany-big-ten-divisions-realignment-playoff?utm_source=facebook.com&xid=socialflow_facebook_si&utm_campaign=sportsillustrated&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR113RhT3zI_kG6XON4gkKaUNb4MZJ-YE7L93EGWzFTM948z0V952pqF6Ng
:idea: The current division setup has nothing to do with OSU not making the playoffs. They didn't make the playoffs, because they were slaughtered by Purdue...
Agreed...but still think it's not laughable to try to figure a way to put the two best conference teams in the championship game. And if the goal is to boost their creds...so what? I guess I don't see that as laughable?
The division setup certainly makes more sense to me in a lot of ways, scheduling and maintaining rivalries esp in these large conferences. However imbalance in the Divisions is some what of a problem. Certainly of late, the SEC East is much weaker overall than the SEC West and it was worse before Smart took over at Georgia. But before that, it was reversed with UGA, Tenn, and UF being the dominant teams and the SEC West with Pre-Saban Alabama and the other teams were the much weaker division. The same now exists in the B1G with Penn State, Mich State, Mich, and Ohio State all being in the East and the West being a division of weaker programs in general. Having the 2 best teams playing for the Championship makes a lot of sense of course, but only when their is such a disparity in the divisions. Interestingly in basketball none of the conferences have divisions and that works very well, there is a regular season Champ and the standings determine the seedings for the Conference Tournament. I like the B12 setup and to tell you the truth I think we should just forget the Conf Championship game, which in the Big 12 case was done because we were at a disadvantage to other leagues that had that 13th game. If we go to an 8 team or 16 team playoff which everybody seems to want then it would make a lot of sense to go to single division leagues where there is a regular season champion and then the next week where we usually have Conf Champ games, have the 1st round of the playoffs.
Funny enough, long before the "Big 12 model" was considered successful, the Pac10 did this where you had a true conference champion who played everyone. Then conferences such as the SEC and B1G said that's not good enough. If you want to play with the big boys in the big bowls, then you have to have a conference title game and a super conference format. So, the Pac10 became the Pac12 and they play 9 conference games as well as having a conference title game. (no FCS "buy" weeks here). Now things haven't worked out for the B1G because of the imbalance in the divisions that they created. So once again, they want to re-write the rules to try to get more teams into the playoffs. Why not wait and see if Nebraska and the Western division get it together? I don't know, it's just laughable to me. It's like quitting in the middle of the game and attempting to redraw the rules/parameters of the selection method. Stop making excuses, man up and compete. Who else is talking about blowing up their format to do this? Don't get blasted by Purdue and we're not even entertaining this idea.
I'm sure it's just an added agenda item...no worries here. As Corey hinted to, in the very near future, it will be Nebraska in the West, and whoever wants the East. Did you guys see the RB/ATH/Receiver we stole from Kentucky?.....Mr. Football 2018!!......choo choo baby.......
Seems to me that everyone except the Big Ten Commissioner knew that the conferences as originally drawn up were totally unbalanced. The best solution, it seems to me is realigning the conferences. But this would mean that the OSU-M game might not be every year. Seems to me that was the reason that they drew up the conferences the way they are originally. I think Mich., MSU and Wisc. should be in one conference and OSU, PSU and Neb. the other conference. If M and OSU are that good, they'll meet in Indy.