Big 4, Little 8?

Tomorrow will be three weeks till the first buckeye game of the season, today I’d like to pause and look to next year and beyond. Nebraska is coming and more will follow as the big ten and college football step towards the ‘Super Conference’. Four – sixteen team mega conferences are on the way and the big 12 managing to hold on to Texas and those other 9 only stayed the execution, there is no governor’s pardon in the future. They will be absorbed into the Pac 10, Big 10 (both now with 12 teams), and the SEC; in conjunction with the Big East and ACC trimming some fat and becoming the fourth mega conference. How all this will actually shake out is still to be seen, who will win the Texas lottery? Will this affect all sports or just football? Will they take my suggestion and rename the conferences The Big Money: East, South, Midwest, and West? Probably not, but lets deal with next year and the more immediate future.

With Nebraska now in the Big12Ten and we know there is a conference game in 2011 I will speculate about how the divisions will be aligned. Everyone seems to agree that OSU and Michigan must continue to play every year and I believe many agree this should remain at the end of the regular season. I know this hasn’t always been the case, but last time it was leather helmets were still used, so maybe things are better now? Also, I have no problem with the possibility of ‘the game’ being played twice in one season, so I see no need to put both teams in the same division. Now if they are placed in the same division it wouldn’t bother me either, but there are large reasons they shouldn’t. The obvious is then your two traditional powerhouses would be in one division, second you would also have Penn State in that division or in a division that is far from geographically balanced. Now I don’t care about geographical balance, but the schools do and rightfully so for travel cost and other reasons. My proposal is geographically balanced, allows for end of regular season rivalry matchups, traditional power balance and the possibility of the Big 2 playing for the conference championship; the way it has been and should be.

As you can see in this wonderful and artfully done (inspired by my wife’s craftiness) picture we would have the BT10-North and the BT10-South. With the north being comprised of traditional powers Nebraska and Michigan along with Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan State. The south would have traditional powers Ohio State and Penn State along with Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, and Purdue. I will agree that the North would be a more dangerous conference year in and year out, but this will be more balanced when four teams are added to make a super conference. Indiana and Minnesota are a wash as dogs, while MSU/Wisconsin/Iowa are stronger now than Purdue/Illinois/Northwestern, I contend they are mostly even level of competition over the last 20 years. Ohio State and Penn State have been considerably better than Nebraska and Michigan the last 5-10 years, so that helps balance against the fact that the north has a stronger bottom 4 than the south.

I also don’t like the final regular season game being thanksgiving weekend, I can deal with it being that weekend and understand that the long layoff hurts the big ten in bowl games, but with a championship game I think we can have the best of both worlds (at least for the 2 teams contending for the crown). How? Easy, make the last week of the regular season cross division rivalry week held the weekend before thanksgiving, with ‘The game’ – PSUvMSU – IowavIll – WiscvPur – MinnvIndiana – NebvN’west. Now maybe some of those aren’t rivalries, but it is impossible to have each game be a traditional rivalry and maybe new ones can be formed. Then thanksgiving is an open week for the 2 division champs before having the championship game the first weekend in December(giving rest and prep time for the teams and space if it were to be a rematch game). The teams not involved would still have a long layoff, but they won’t be in the National Championship picture so who cares how long their layoff is and it shouldn’t be too long a layoff because at the latest they’d be playing Jan 1 and most would play end of December. Let me know what you think or any additional or better ideas. Is it great to be talking football or what? O – H baby!!!