The Game not the last game anymore?

[Jason]

I am SOOOOOOOOO NOT a fan of this move.

[quote][size=5][b]Division dominoes: Wisconsin, Iowa to split[/b][/size]
By Adam Rittenberg

Link: http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/14936/division-dominoes-wisconsin-iowa-to-split?prosaction=newpost&status=ok

The first two Big Ten division dominoes have fallen.

Although league commissioner Jim Delany doesn't expect to announce divisions and the 2011 schedule until mid September, one piece of the puzzle has been revealed. Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez tells the Wisconsin State Journal that Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in different divisions when the plan comes out.

Alvarez didn't reveal more specifics but said it's pretty obvious to decipher the divisions based on the selection criteria, which examines performance since 1993, the year when Penn State began competing in the Big Ten.

Alvarez implied that it shouldn't be hard to figure out how the 12 schools will be arranged in the two divisions. He said there are four distinct tiers of teams, led by the four that have won national championships in the past 25 years: Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska and Penn State.

The next level has UW and Iowa "within a hair" of one another, according to Alvarez.

Using comparative data compiled since 1993 when Penn State made its Big Ten football debut, Northwestern and Purdue would likely lead the next grouping, followed by some mixing and matching of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State and Minnesota.

Given Alvarez's revelation and the recent buzz about Michigan and Ohio State, it seems pretty obvious which direction the Big Ten is headed with division alignment. The protected crossovers will allow the league to put some rivals (not all) in different divisions, maintain their annual games and also create the possibility for rematches in the Big Ten championship game, which needs attractive matchups for TV to compete with other contests on the same day (SEC, Big 12, ACC, Pac-10).

You can make a strong case that the Big Ten is prioritizing the championship game, a likely cash cow, ahead of tradition.

Wisconsin and Iowa currently play every season as protected rivals. The teams have met 85 times since 1894. It's a good bet that their matchup will be protected through a crossover. But as I brought up a while back, it's hard to preserve the Wisconsin-Iowa-Minnesota rivalry bloc and grow the league.

Given this new information and what we know about the selection criteria, here's my best guess at the divisions:

[b]Division 1[/b]
Michigan
Michigan State
Iowa
Nebraska
Illinois
Northwestern

[b]Division 2[/b]
Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Purdue
Indiana

I'm not sure of the crossovers, aside from Michigan-Ohio State and most likely Penn State-Nebraska.

[b]Your final regular-season Saturday,[/b] which almost certainly would feature intra-division games, [b]could look like this[/b]: [b]Michigan-Michigan State,[/b] Iowa-Nebraska, Illinois-Northwestern, [b]Ohio State-Penn State[/b], Wisconsin-Minnesota and Purdue-Indiana.[/quote]

What do the other OSU (or Michigan) fans on this board think?

[|Elflocko|]

I think it fucking blows.

Not ending the season against Michigan is an abomination...

[Jason]

Here is the mailing address for the conference office.

1500 West Higgins Road
Park Ridge, IL 60068-6300

I will be sending them a letter tomorrow.

[AmishBengalFan]

Hmmm... if they divide the league under the assumption that traditional rivals should have the ability to meet in a championship game, then you're definitely looking at splitting OSU and Michigan apart. However, nothing says that the final game of the season must be a divisional one. In fact, with the right splits, you could still have the season finales being between rivals. The only downside is that you might be looking at back-to-back games, although in reality it is more likely that the finale would be an elimination game for the loser, as it is entirely possible that both teams would come into that game needing a win to secure their respective divisions.

If you split the teams in the following manner, 5 of the 6 matchups could be rivalry games:

Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Michigan State
Illinois

Michigan
Nebraska
Iowa
Purdue
Minnesota
Indiana

OSU-Michigan
Penn State-Nebraska
Wisconsin-Iowa
Purdue-Northwestern
Illinois-Indiana

[|Bengal Migration|]

I read elsewhere that OSU-meatchicken, Iowa-Wisconsin, and other "split" games would indeed be featured during the last week of the season.

Not only would this allow for traditional matchups to be maintained in spite of the split, it could also allow for a rematch a week or two later in the Big Ten title game to see who gets the Rose Bowl bid.

Whooping meatchicken's sorry ass twice in a row? Why wouldn't I like this plan?

[AmishBengalFan]

What do you want to bet that Jeff Sagarin is permutating the possible alignments and schedule options right now to see if there's a way to divide the league so that each division has the same relative strength (two top-four, two mid-four, and two bottom-four), can schedule 6 rivalry games the final week, and still preserve all of the other rivalry games during the regular season?

There's a solution, I know there is. I just don't have time to look for it myself right now.

Update:

Hey! I think I found one! This is based on Illinois-Indiana not being a big football rivalry. I'm in Bloomington, I can confirm that it's more of a Basketball rivalry than anything else. If one is willing to toss that protected rivalry over the side, here's an alignment and season finale set that might work:

Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin
Iowa
Illinois
Minnesota

Michigan
Nebraska
Northwestern
Purdue
Indiana
Michigan State

Final games:
Ohio State-Michigan
Penn State-Michigan State
Wisconsin-Minnesota (intra-division)
Iowa-Nebraska
Illinois-Northwestern
Purdue-Indiana (intra-division)

The division alignments are based on:
1 - Ohio State and Michigan get split
2 - Since Michigan State needs to play Michigan and can't do it during rivalry week, they go into Michigan's division
3 - That forces Penn State into Ohio State's division to ensure they can close against their Michigan State rival
4 - Which forces Nebraska into Michigan's division to keep the top-4 schools split 2-and-2
5 - Which forces Iowa into Ohio State's division to preserve the Nebraska finale
6 - Which forces Minnesota and Wisconsin both into Iowa (Ohio State's) division, since splitting either of them into the opposite division would break a rivalry (MN/WI/IA have a three-way rivalry)
7 - Which forces Illinois into Ohio State's division to keep the bottom-4 schools split 2-and-2
8 - Which means Purdue and Indiana go together into Michigan's division, thus also ensuring that the middle-4 schools are 2-and-2

One possible schedule would be:
Wk01 NON-DIVISION PLAY
Wk02 NON-DIVISION PLAY
Wk03 DIVISION PLAY
Wk04 DIVISION PLAY
Wk05 DIVISION PLAY
Wk06 DIVISION PLAY
Wk07 DIVISION PLAY (everybody except Wisc Minn Pur Ind)
Wk08 RIVALRY WEEK (Wisc Minn Pur Ind play in their own division)

For example:
Wk01 OSU-IND MICH-ILL PSU-PUR NEB-MINN WISC-MSU IOWA-NW
WK02 OSU-NW MICH-WISC PSU-NEB IOWA-MSU ILL-IND PUR-MINN
WK03 OSU=MINN MICH=NEB PSU=WISC ILL=IOWA MSU=PUR IND=NW
WK04 OSU=PSU MICH=NW NEB=PUR ILL=WISC MINN=IOWA MSU=IND
WK05 OSU=WISC MICH=PUR PSU=IOWA NEB=IND ILL=MINN MSU=NW
WK06 OSU=ILL MICH=IND PSU=MINN NEB=MSU WISC=IOWA PUR=NW
WK07 OSU=IOWA MICH=MSU PSU=ILL NEB=NW WISC-PUR MINN-IND
WK08 OSU-MICH PSU-MSU WISC=MINN IOWA-NEB ILL-NW PUR=IND

- is a non-division game
= is a division game

The Week 1 and 2 games would rotate through all of the non-division matchups excluding the matchups reserved for weeks 7+8. The week 7 non-division games would be WISC-PUR MIN-IND, and WISC-IND MIN-PUR in alternate years.

[JBandJoeyV]

I dont know why you couldnt put OSU, Michigan and Penn State on one side and Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska on the other side as the top 3 teams in each division.

Splitting up the big rivalries is stupid.

How Id do it...

East
OSU
Michigan
Penn State
Michigan State
Indiana
Purdue

West
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Iowa
Illinios
Minnesota
Northwestern

It would pretty much be a perfect split geographically and still keep MOST rivalries (the rest could be intra division rivalries) and would be pretty equal in terms of good teams and bad.

It seems very easy to me.

[Bengals1181]

I'll reserve judgement until an official announcement is made. The original article gives no evidence that OSU-Michigan will NOT be during the last week, other than blind speculation.