(07-06-2021 06:24 AM)goofus Wrote:  

(07-06-2021 05:39 AM)schmolik Wrote:  I'm not exactly sure how all Big Ten teams feel about divisional play. From me as an Illinois fan and being pro East I want to see Illinois play more of the big boys more often, especially if they come to Champaign and sell more tickets. W/L record doesn't mean as much to Illinois these days. On the other hand, Penn State in the East Division gets annual games with Ohio State and Michigan every year. If the Big Ten did away with divisions, that could go away (I assume OSU-PSU would be protected but Mich-PSU might not). It might also force Penn State to have to travel to Nebraska and Iowa more often than they do now. The Big Ten of course is geographically stretched out. Having divisions keeps the Eastern schools and Western schools away from each other so they might want to keep divisions for that reason. On the other hand, the middle schools don't benefit as much from divisions. Since Ohio State is the "valuable" brand (and Michigan and Penn State aren't far behind), the border schools in the West Division are the ones that like divisions the least. Iowa and Nebraska don't get to play Ohio State and Michigan that often but also don't have to travel to Maryland and Rutgers that often either. Illinois is 519 miles from Nebraska and 620 miles from Penn State, PSU isn't that much further away. Ohio State (296 miles) and Michigan (342) are closer to Champaign than Lincoln is.

That all makes sense, except for this thing called "parity" scheduling in the Big Ten. For the 6 years from 2016-2021 every school gets a cross-division opponent they play every single year.

Neb-OSU
Wisc-Mich
Iowa-PSU
NW-MSU
MINN-MD
ILL-Rut
PUR-Indy

So Neb actually has been playing OSU every year and PSU has been playing Iowa every year. Meanwhile ILL has been playing Rutgers every year. The main reason they do this, is Purdue and Indiana need to play every year.

Now as an Iowa fan, I like that Iowa gets to play a team like PSU every year. Except I would prefer a little more Mich, MSU, and OSU and still play PSU often but not every year. That's why I would prefer to scrap divisions and go with a schedule with 5 permanent rivals. Permanent rivals that make sense. For all the other teams, playing them 50% of the time seems about right to me.

Now when the Big Ten starts its new rotation in 2022, each team gets a new cross-division rival that It plays for 6 straight years. Some make sense but some don't at all

WISC-OSU
Neb-Mich
Iowa-Rut
NW-MD
Minn-MSU
ILL-PSU
Pur-Indy

As you might imagine, as an Iowa fan I am not happy. It simply makes no sense for Iowa and Rutgers to be playing every year. They are not geographically close and not competitively close. I don't understand this decision at all. Well, At least ILL gets PSU every year.

I get where you are coming from Goofus, and I agree with you. It doesn't really make sense that Iowa is playing Rutgers every year for six years. The two states (Iowa and New Jersey) don't border each other and Iowa really doesn't have much of a history in playing Rutgers. I'm not even sure if Rutgers likes the idea of playing Iowa every year for six years.

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