(07-28-2020 09:30 AM)goofus Wrote:  As for the need to have the top 2 teams in the CCG, I personally think that is over-rated. The key is did every team get their shot at least 1 team playing in the CCG. If they had their shot, they don't need to play again. If OSU beats Mich in the last week of the season, do the 2 teams really need to play again a week later. Give somebody else a shot to beat OSU.

What if that's Michigan's only loss of the season?? Not going to deny a one loss 2nd place team not to play in the conference championship.

(07-28-2020 11:53 AM)Crayton Wrote:  You can get most of these 3-, 4-, and 5-permanent rival proposal accomplished within the existing rules, you just can’t guarantee the Top Two make the CCG without an AAC-type waiver. If “top two” is less of a concern, then use a mixed pod system for scheduling and divisions.

You're assuming that ex post facto divisions would be acceptable to the NCAA, and that's far from a guarantee.

(07-28-2020 02:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 07:32 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Just move Michigan and Michigan State to the West:

Rutgers
Maryland
Penn State
Ohio State
Purdue
Indiana
Illinois

Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
Northwestern

Lock in a cross-division rivalry game to protect key rivalries, and you now have a stronger (North)West division.

The bolded part isn't fair to teams that have to play the strongest team in the other division every year. Michigan would get the shaft by playing Ohio State every year, while Northwestern gets to play Illinois every year and only has to play Ohio State only once every three years.

Only way around that is to put the teams that "have to" play every year in the same division, rotate cross-division opponents equally, and forget about geography for this purpose.

Division X: Michigan, Mich St, Ohio St, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue.

Division Z: Penn St, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers.

Doesn’t seem to bother the SEC or ACC. You think LSU would rather play Florida than Vanderbilt (Ole Miss’ opponent)? I bet Tennessee would much rather draw Arkansas than Alabama! Or how about FSU-Miami?

The NCAA will give the P5 whatever they say. They lead by following.

Their rules reflect actual practices, try to make it look like they control it, when in fact they do not. The NCAA is no obstacle to the P5 if they agree on an issue. And the P5 gate keep G5 requests. The AAC waiver basically required lobbying all the P5 conferences to get approval. The NCAA rubber stamps what the P5 want.

(07-28-2020 02:45 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 07:32 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Just move Michigan and Michigan State to the West:

Rutgers
Maryland
Penn State
Ohio State
Purdue
Indiana
Illinois

Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
Northwestern

Lock in a cross-division rivalry game to protect key rivalries, and you now have a stronger (North)West division.

The bolded part isn't fair to teams that have to play the strongest team in the other division every year. Michigan would get the shaft by playing Ohio State every year, while Northwestern gets to play Illinois every year and only has to play Ohio State only once every three years.

Only way around that is to put the teams that "have to" play every year in the same division, rotate cross-division opponents equally, and forget about geography for this purpose.

Division X: Michigan, Mich St, Ohio St, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue.

Division Z: Penn St, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers.

Doesn’t seem to bother the SEC or ACC. You think LSU would rather play Florida than Vanderbilt (Ole Miss’ opponent)? I bet Tennessee would much rather draw Arkansas than Alabama! Or how about FSU-Miami?

LSU and Florida coaches have complained about it. They have a particularly strong beef in that there's no argument that game "has to" be played every year, whereas there is for Bama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia.

The only real argument for putting Ohio State and Michigan in different divisions is to create the possibility of a rematch in the CCG, but that's completely unnecessary, because the possibility of an Ohio St-Penn St CCG is just as good, along with the TV ratings for the Big Ten CCG being good enough that they don't need to be juiced by a hypothetical CCG matchup that might never happen anyway.

(07-28-2020 02:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Division X: Michigan, Mich St, Ohio St, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue.

Division Z: Penn St, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers.

I think the current division arrangement is best, better than divisionless. From a Penn State perspective, who is an upgrade out west for any eastern school?

If the current divisions needed changed, Wedge posted my suggestion first. I only see Penn State - Ohio State needing protected but I'm sure there could be others.

Switch Michigan for Purdue.

This is a 3-"division" solution:
If the main issue is that the top of the East is lopsided, put 1 in the West. Form 3 scheduling divisions between 5 West teams, 5 East teams, and the 4 Top Four teams. The Top Four is split between East and West and switches every other year (or, if you like, rotates every year).

This way EVERY team plays 5 permanent rivals and 4 of the other 8 in a rotating fashion. Permanent rivals may look like this:

WEST
Minnesota (Wisconsin)
Iowa (Wisconsin)
Nebraska (Penn State)
N'western (Michigan)
Illinois (Ohio State)

EAST
Rutgers (Penn State)
Maryland (Penn State)
Michigan St (Michigan)
Indiana (Ohio State)
Purdue (Wisconsin)

In this scenario Penn State and Wisconsin are actually NOT permanent rivals, allowing them 2 rivals in their nearer divisions. You could work to keep Illinois-Purdue by giving the Top Four only 1 rival in each division.

(07-28-2020 02:42 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 11:53 AM)Crayton Wrote:  You can get most of these 3-, 4-, and 5-permanent rival proposal accomplished within the existing rules, you just can’t guarantee the Top Two make the CCG without an AAC-type waiver. If “top two” is less of a concern, then use a mixed pod system for scheduling and divisions.

You're assuming that ex post facto divisions would be acceptable to the NCAA, and that's far from a guarantee.

Nah, the ex post facto is if you wanted Top Two. if it "is less of a concern," the 3 division structure above or "mini-pods" from the ACC thread could be used.

(07-28-2020 02:45 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 07:32 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Just move Michigan and Michigan State to the West:

Rutgers
Maryland
Penn State
Ohio State
Purdue
Indiana
Illinois

Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
Northwestern

Lock in a cross-division rivalry game to protect key rivalries, and you now have a stronger (North)West division.

The bolded part isn't fair to teams that have to play the strongest team in the other division every year. Michigan would get the shaft by playing Ohio State every year, while Northwestern gets to play Illinois every year and only has to play Ohio State only once every three years.

Only way around that is to put the teams that "have to" play every year in the same division, rotate cross-division opponents equally, and forget about geography for this purpose.

Division X: Michigan, Mich St, Ohio St, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue.

Division Z: Penn St, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers.

Doesn’t seem to bother the SEC or ACC. You think LSU would rather play Florida than Vanderbilt (Ole Miss’ opponent)? I bet Tennessee would much rather draw Arkansas than Alabama! Or how about FSU-Miami?

But the 6 powers all play each other: Alabama-Tennessee, Auburn-Georgia, LSU-Florida. The middle 4 play each other: Arkansas-Missouri, Texas A&M-South Carolina. And the bottom 4 play each other: Ole Miss-Vandy, Miss. St.-Kentucky.

Tennessee hasn’t been an SEC power on the field in some time.

(07-29-2020 01:19 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Tennessee hasn’t been an SEC power on the field in some time.

They're a traditional power, so it counts. Those 6 + A&M are all top-12 in attendance.

(07-29-2020 09:33 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:45 PM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 02:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 07:32 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  Just move Michigan and Michigan State to the West:

Rutgers
Maryland
Penn State
Ohio State
Purdue
Indiana
Illinois

Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Iowa
Nebraska
Northwestern

Lock in a cross-division rivalry game to protect key rivalries, and you now have a stronger (North)West division.

The bolded part isn't fair to teams that have to play the strongest team in the other division every year. Michigan would get the shaft by playing Ohio State every year, while Northwestern gets to play Illinois every year and only has to play Ohio State only once every three years.

Only way around that is to put the teams that "have to" play every year in the same division, rotate cross-division opponents equally, and forget about geography for this purpose.

Division X: Michigan, Mich St, Ohio St, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue.

Division Z: Penn St, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers.

Doesn’t seem to bother the SEC or ACC. You think LSU would rather play Florida than Vanderbilt (Ole Miss’ opponent)? I bet Tennessee would much rather draw Arkansas than Alabama! Or how about FSU-Miami?

But the 6 powers all play each other: Alabama-Tennessee, Auburn-Georgia, LSU-Florida. The middle 4 play each other: Arkansas-Missouri, Texas A&M-South Carolina. And the bottom 4 play each other: Ole Miss-Vandy, Miss. St.-Kentucky.

Precisely, the previous poster's argument that Michigan playing Ohio State is unfair when Northwestern plays Illinois is not really relevant.

The only fairer set up would be to go back to the Leaders & Legends, which was my set-up but had Wisconsin in the geographically Eastern division. It didn't include Rutgers and Maryland, obviously. But the divisions were pretty well balanced competitively.

You could basically accomplish it as:

West - Michigan, Michigan St., Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Northwestern
East - Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio St, Penn St, Maryland, Rutgers

That gives you MI-OSU, MSU-PSU, and NEB-WIS as cross-over games for the top 6 programs (though Iowa might reject being behind Nebraska in my estimation).

I honestly think if they did not have the stupid "leaders" and "legends" names, the divisions would have stuck. It was a laughingstock before they even played a season with the divisions. If they would have named them something like "Great Lakes" and "Midwest" or something along those lines then nobody would have cared.

The difference other conferences (including the old big 12) is that each side has teams that are historically great programs with the ability to win national championships. The only team in the west that fits that bill is Nebraska and they have not been the Nebraska you think of in about 15-20 years. The east/west set up in the Big 10 is just not all that fair to the east teams. They constantly have to play elite teams while the west teams get to pass them over. Zippers were actually a great idea. They just did a poor job of marketing and selling it.

(07-28-2020 02:33 PM)utpotts Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 09:30 AM)goofus Wrote:  As for the need to have the top 2 teams in the CCG, I personally think that is over-rated. The key is did every team get their shot at least 1 team playing in the CCG. If they had their shot, they don't need to play again. If OSU beats Mich in the last week of the season, do the 2 teams really need to play again a week later. Give somebody else a shot to beat OSU.

What if that's Michigan's only loss of the season?? Not going to deny a one loss 2nd place team not to play in the conference championship.

So what. They lost the 1 game that they needed to win in order to get to the CCG, and the team they lost to is playing in the CCG. They had their shot and they blew it. next time win the game you need to win.

(07-28-2020 02:33 PM)utpotts Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 09:30 AM)goofus Wrote:  As for the need to have the top 2 teams in the CCG, I personally think that is over-rated. The key is did every team get their shot at least 1 team playing in the CCG. If they had their shot, they don't need to play again. If OSU beats Mich in the last week of the season, do the 2 teams really need to play again a week later. Give somebody else a shot to beat OSU.

What if that's Michigan's only loss of the season?? Not going to deny a one loss 2nd place team not to play in the conference championship.

That’s impossible, because if Michigan’s only loss is to cross-division Ohio State, then that means they beat every other team in their division and thus own the tiebreaker.

(07-25-2020 01:43 PM)bullet Wrote:  No.

KISS.

And the balance of power changes over time. The Big 12 North was dominant over the Big 12 South in the first couple of years. At the end of the 12 team Big 12, the South was vastly superior.

The East was dominant in the 90s in the SEC. The last 10 years, the West has been dominant.

Exactly! I have always been a proponent of KISS when it comes to divisions.

Chasing "competitive balance" is a losing game over the long run. Geography, on the other hand, never changes. If you can't explain the divisional alignment to a 10-year old kid, then it's too complicated.

(07-29-2020 01:19 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Tennessee hasn’t been an SEC power on the field in some time.

That is true but seemingly about to change. The current coaching staff is recruiting well and the building blocks (big fan base, history, great stadium) are in place. Tennessee has a much better chance to regain its past magic than does, for contrast, Nebraska.

(07-30-2020 12:10 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(07-29-2020 01:19 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Tennessee hasn’t been an SEC power on the field in some time.

That is true but seemingly about to change. The current coaching staff is recruiting well and the building blocks (big fan base, history, great stadium) are in place. Tennessee has a much better chance to regain its past magic than does, for contrast, Nebraska.

I agree with Tennessee having an edge on Nebraska.

Tennessee has been in the top 25 recruiting classes the past 13 years, many of those were actually top 10. Don't be like Michigan and have that twinkle in your eye when talking recruits. It hasn't panned out well for them and Big Jimmy.

Joking aside, best of luck to the Vols!