Our Honor Defend

Recent news has seemed to kill off the idea of even more drastic changes to the college football landscape¹.  The most important news here is that Texas graciously decided to further aggrandize itself, accentuating the source of the problem that led to Colorado’s and Nebraska’s respective departures to the Pac-[whatever] and Big Ten.  This is an interesting turn of events, one where it seemed that the “Little 5″ in the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Big XII (Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State) receives the best payoff possible by the survival of the conference and where Texas really wins by further drawing blood from a stone.  Imagine a prisoner’s dilemma where the “cooperative” outcome is not a Pareto inefficient reduced sentence for both, but rather a scenario where Prisoner 1 gets community service and probation for two years while Prisoner 2 gets no jail time, a plasma screen TV and Nobel prize money.  That seems analogous to what happened here.  Proof?  The Little 5 had to actually agree to fork over their shares of Nebraska’s indemnity (what Nebraska is paying for its departure) to Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma. They had no credible exit strategy and paid the price for it.

So, the reports of the Big XII-Lite’s death turned out to be greatly exaggerated, for this year at least. Brian Cook is already poking holes in the story.  Importantly, where in God’s green earth is Beebe getting his estimates? And, secondly, why is this a good investment? Spencer Hall has a humorous take as well.  Big Ten fans now know that Nebraska is the end of the line for now and are no doubt beginning to wonder what type of changes are going to be made in preparation for Nebraska’s matriculation to the conference?   I consider some of the topics below.

Divisions

Nothing is officially official yet, but it is fairly clear to everyone involved that we will be getting a divisional format and conference championship game akin to the SEC and the ACC.  The nature of these divisions become interesting conversation fodder.  Delaney was asked about the topic and responded that any divisional alignment will focus on these following virtues: divisional fairness, rivalries, and geography.   In short, if we are really serious about the first one, we’re probably moving Penn State out of whatever division that Ohio State and Michigan call home.

Penn State fans are naturally not thrilled about this.  Think about what this means.   Joe Paterno championed expansion early into the process, hoping to attract the conference’s attention to Rutgers, Syracuse and Pitt.  Read: Penn State, perhaps the most remote program in the conference, wanted shorter distances to road games.  Their prize? The addition of distant Nebraska and a divisional partition where the closest divisional opponent is in Evanston, Illinois. That’s just under a 10 hour drive.  It’s unnecessarily taxing on Penn State’s travel budget, considering that their closest opponent (as of now) is Ohio State (five and half hour drive away).   The lure of putting Penn State in another, more “western” division is understandable.  In fact, I’m inclined to give the vote for DocSat’s proposed divisions on the names of the divisions alone: Plains (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nerdwestern, Penn State) and Lakes (Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin).  Nevertheless, the objections of Penn State fans are legitimate and the disparity between the two divisions if Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State (the conference heavy hitters over the past 20 years) are all on one side would not be akin to the huge distortion between the Big 12′s North and South.

Further, the proposals outlined above create interesting questions outside of Penn State’s new island state status: why are Indiana and Purdue in different divisions? Should Minnesota and Wisconsin really be in separate divisions when most people who don’t have Swedish surnames think of those two states as joined at the hip?  I like the idea, again, for the names of the divisions alone.  If I had dictator status in the Big Ten, my divisional format would look like:

Plains/West

• Illinois
• Iowa
• Minnesota
• Nebraska
• Nerdwestern
• Wisconsin

Lakes/East

• Indiana
• Michigan
• Michigan State
• Ohio State
• Penn State
• Purdue

DocSat’s proposal is a little more competitive than mine.  Nebraska, given their past glory and new surge under Pelini, will be given the task of adding necessary firepower to a western division that includes teams with conference accolades dwarfed by the heavy hitters on the other side of the aisle.   Nevertheless, drawing a line between Indiana and Illinois produces fairly equal divisions (read: no Big XII Norths) while preserving many established rivalries in the conference.

Rivalries

The other interesting questions for discussion that comes up regards rivalries.  A conference with 11 teams and no divisions, the Big Ten did not have too many problems getting established rivals to play each other.   Some fell through the cracks in a conference unable to make everyone play round-robin (a la the Pac 10).  Minnesota and Michigan’s battle for the Little Brown Jug comes to mind.  However, with the move to divisions, no one is entirely sure what conference rivalries are safe and what rivalries are not.  Further, what do you with Nebraska?  They are predisposed to hate teams like Colorado and Oklahoma, teams they may never see again in the regular season.  This topic has been discussed already by Rittenberg and Brandon Castel of the O-Zone.

First, it is necessary to recap the current Big Ten format.  Every team has two protected rivalry games, meaning that other eight conference teams are likely to be taken off the radar for two year stretches.  For example, Ohio State’s protected rivalry games are against Penn State and Michigan.   Michigan State and the Nerds were cycled off for last season and this one.  Here is the breakdown of everyone in the Big Ten:

• Illinois: Indiana, Northwestern
• Indiana: Illinois, Purdue
• Iowa: Minnesota, Wisconsin
• Michigan: Michigan State, Ohio State
• Michigan State: Michigan, Penn State
• Minnesota: Iowa, Wisconsin
• Northwestern: Illinois, Purdue
• Ohio State: Michigan, Penn State
• Penn State: Michigan State, Ohio State
• Purdue: Indiana, Northwestern
• Wisconsin: Iowa, Minnesota

My proposed conference divisions are able to protect many of the conference’s storied rivalries.  Whether or not it comes to fruition is another topic.  However, there are certainly rivalries that fall through the crack, particularly:

• Ohio State-Illinois (Illibuck Trophy)
• Illinois-Purdue (Purdue Cannon)
• Minnesota-Penn State (Governor’s Victory Bell)
• Michigan-Minnesota (Little Brown Jug)
• Penn State-Iowa (no trophy, but still fun, even when 6-4)

Of that list, the Little Brown Jug may be the biggest loss.  The rivalry has not been competitive since Bo Schembechler took over the reins of that program many moons ago, but it is distinctively Big Ten.   However, this is not a real improvement over the status quo because this series will lay dormant for two seasons every now and then.   Further, I may be in the minority about this, but I could care less about the Illibuck.  Seriously. Illinois can keep that stupid turtle if they want it; I just want the win.  The only group of people I know who cared the slightest bit about the trophy game is the Romophos group responsible for having to tell people why Ohio State-Illinois is a rivalry on par with Ohio State-Michigan.  It’s not.   It can go away forever and I’d never miss it.

You may have to ask around, but I can’t imagine some of these rivalry games are that important for their respective fan bases.   One wonders if Penn State fans even know that there is a trophy at stake when they play the Golden Gophers.

Further, the Big Ten can take the lead from the SEC² and create a protected interdivisional game. With the move to geographically coherent divisions with the expansion of 1992, the protected interdivisional game has protected the Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia rivalries in the SEC. I could not name all of them off the top of my head, but this is why LSU-Florida play each other every year (producing some quality games of late) and why, for some reason, Ole Miss and Vandy play every year.  If the Big Ten pursues this option within the divisional format I’ve outlined above, it can protect those aforementioned trophy games.

Next, what do you with Nebraska?  Don’t underestimate this: this is a really important question.  The context is a little different, but Nebraska will be the Big Ten’s version of the SEC’s Arkansas here.  Both swapped conferences, leaving a more natural setting and becoming the most remote, isolated team in their conference and without any real history with its other conference mates.  In the Arkansas example, the SEC compensated by hooking up Arkansas with LSU (another team with no natural conference rival³ ), creating a trophy game for the two sides to play for at the end of the season. The end result? Something very artificial.  I’m guessing the SEC brass in 1992 saw that both universities lay in bordering states that looked to form a boot. Thus, they play for a trophy that looks like a boot. Are you excited? Yeah, you’re not.

The Big Ten should proceed carefully here.  Wisconsin is already making the first move, asking for Nebraska to be an end-of-the-year rival.  Bielema wants a trophy game too.  The idea here is to celebrate the mutual connection between these two programs (viz, Barry Alvarez).   I’ll have to ask a Nebraska fan to make sure, but I’m guessing this would mean more to the Badgers than it would for the Huskers.  It just seems synthetic.  The real interesting rivalry game to emerge from Nebraska’s addition to the conference is Iowa.  The two schools are separated by 500 miles and have a nice blend of commonalities (cornbred flyover country flatness), contradistinction (school colors), mutual history (41 previous encounters, including once sharing a conference).  Honestly, Nebraska’s addition to the Big Ten automatically makes an Iowa-Nebraska series the second most interesting rivalry (for me) in the Big Ten.  If I’m the Big Ten, I let this one grow organically.  It will and it won’t need a trophy.  For two sparsely populated states, it should generate quality regional broadcast TV year in and year out.

1. Utah to the Pac 10 is still on the table. [↩]
2. I’m not sure if the ACC and Big XII do this. [↩]
3. …and no, the Ole Miss rivalry was not that serious. [↩]