Divisional Change and Disaster Avoided
With Maryland and Rutgers joining the Big Ten in July 2014, the conference was given a mulligan and an opportunity to redefine the football divisions. The Legends and Leaders divisions were organized with the goal of splitting the football powers evenly. The Legends featured Nebraska, Michigan State, and Michigan. The Leaders' top powers were Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State. The division winners from each side would meet in the Big Ten Championship Game to determine the League Champion and the Big Ten's representative to the Rose Bowl. The Big Ten Championship game was to be played the week after the last regular season game... which features The Game between Ohio State and Michigan. I specifically single this game out during the last week of the regular season for many, many reasons, but the one pertaining to this discussion is this: The Big Ten set itself up for a rematch of college football's greatest rivalry in successive weeks. A rematch of The Game would be a travesty for college football; and the opportunity to realign the divisions provided the Big Ten with a way of avoiding a disaster without having to confess their huge gaff when initially setting up the divisions.
Before I get into why an Ohio State-Michigan rematch would have been terrible, let's first cover the new divisional realignment that will take effect when Maryland and Rutgers join the conference in 2014. The new divisions are based on a geographical split and are appropriately named: East and West. In the East are Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indian, Maryland, and Rutgers. The West has Wisconsin, Nebraska, Purdue, Northwestern, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. With Ohio State and Michigan in the same division, the possibility of a rematch the next week in the championship game is eliminated.
Now, what's the big deal about seeing an OSU-MU rematch in the conference championship game? You call this matchup the greatest of college football, so wouldn't it be awesome if they played twice a year, and the second matchup being for the conference championship and the right to go to Pasadena? No... and here's why:
A rematch would completely nullify the result of the first matchup. How can we say this is the greatest game on earth if the winner of said game could have that tremendous victory completely nullified in the following week? Yes, the Buckeyes could beat the Wolverines twice, and the victories over Michigan would be twofold for the Buckeye fans. However, a very real possibility exists that winner of the first game could lose the second game, thus rendering the original result of The Game worthless. A result of The Game should never be worthless if it truly is "The Game." An absolute worst-case, doomsday scenario would be if OSU and MU had secured their respective division titles prior to their matchup in the last week of the season. Then The Game would be played knowing that regardless of the outcome, both teams would be seeing one another the following week in the Championship game, rather than one or both teams playing for the opportunity to get in. I'm not going to suggest that winning The Game in this scenario would be meaningless, but that would be a horrible approach to what we call best rivalry in sports. I can't overstate these points enough, any game in which we refer to as "The Game" or the greatest rivalry in sports cannot have its outcome rendered meaningless the following week. By definition, this cannot happen. This is why it would be a complete disaster to let these teams play a rematch in the following week.
I called for this change from the original announcement of the divisional structure after Nebraska joined the conference. The two biggest reasons I heard for not changing it were "it will rarely ever happen, it's not worth worrying about" and "teams in other conferences have played rematches in their conference title game." With respect to the latter, good for them. They don't play "The Game," and therefore not as much is diminished in a rematch. As far as the rarity argument, had Ohio State been eligible to play in the Big Ten Championship game, the league was one game away from the doomsday scenario mentioned above. Ohio State ran away with the Leaders division, and if Michigan would have beaten Nebraska, it would not have needed a victory against OSU to play in the conference title game. And 2012 was year two of the Legends and Leaders. Only year two... and it almost brought about the worse-case scenario. Another popular response was "let the two biggest traditional powers battle it out in the conference championship game, that's how it should be." No. For the reasons mentioned above. And thanks to the new divisional realignment, Ohio State and Michigan will battle it out every year. Winner gets a victory over its archrival and goes to the Big Ten Championship game to play for the conference title and a trip to Pasadena, and the loser goes home and watches the Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl from their couches.
Needless to say I am thrilled with the decision to put Ohio State and Michigan in the same division. The Big Ten took full advantage of the mulligan provided by expanding the conference to fix this problem. However, we are not out of the woods yet. The changes do not take place until 2014...
Balance of Power
Many have asserted that the new divisional alignment in the Big Ten has created an incredibly lopsided conference split. Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and Michigan State will battle to win the East, while Wisconsin and Nebraska seem positioned to take advantage of the lightly-loaded West. One might not be able to make a substantial case that the West stacks up evenly against the East right now, but how does it look for the long haul?
I'll take a stab by ranking the football programs based on how I believe the next decade will transpire. Remember, these rankings do not only reflect where the programs are now, but where I believe they are headed in the next 5 to 10 years.
Cream of the Crop: Five to seven of the next 10 Big Ten champions will come from this group.
1) Ohio State (East): The Buckeyes have been the conference's breadwinner over the last decade. And with an elite coach in Urban Meyer and superior recruiting efforts, there's no reason to think that this trend won't continue.
2) Michigan (East): You could make the argument that the Wolverines are the 2nd best team in the Big Ten right now. Brady Hoke seems to have turned the ship around in Michigan and has shown he can compete on the recruiting trails with Meyer.
3) Wisconsin (West): To me, it's really a toss up between Wisconsin and Nebraska at #3, but I give the slight edge to UW because I feel the Cornhuskers have already peaked (or very close to it) under Pelini. Wisconsin has a brand new coaching staff coming in this year, but the head start on Nebraska's new staff will mean that Wisconsin will have more time in the next 10 years for consistency to begin paying off.
4) Nebraska (West): As stated above, I'm going out on a limb here, but I don't think continued mediocrity will keep Pelini's job safe for much longer. Nebraska will be one of the top 5 programs in the Big Ten, but unless the Cornhuskers make a breakthrough, I don't envision Pelini lasting more than 5 years.
Second Tier Teams: Two to four of the next 10 Big Ten champions will come from this group.
5) Penn St (East): PSU might end the next decade looking more like it fits in the previous group, but I believe the full force of the NCAA sanctions has yet to be felt by Penn St. They had a very decent year in 2012 after struggling early on. This was impressive considering the loss of scholarships and players that fled the program. However, even with that said, the next few seasons will be very telling to see how PSU handles multiple, consecutive seasons under reduced scholarships.
6) Michigan St (East): The Spartans win total and division finishes over the next ten years might not match Northwestern or Iowa, but don't let that fool you. MSU is a decent program that will be beat up by OSU, MU, and PSU. When it comes time to playing the Big Ten's second-tier (and lower) teams, Michigan State will hold its own.
7) Northwestern (West): The Wildcats might be a sneaky good team in 2013. They played better than their 2012 record indicated due to close losses. If NU can turn the corner and find a way to become a program that can finish games, they can be contender in the Big Ten.
8) Iowa (West): In recent history, Iowa tends to field tough teams every two or three seasons and then fall back into mediocrity for a while. It will be interesting to see how much longer the longest tenured coach in the Big Ten can last at this pace.
Occasional Hay-Makers: One, maybe (and that's a big maybe) two, of the next 10 Big Ten champions from this group.
Ranking the bottom feeders seems a bit odd, so I'll just say this: It would surprise me if one or two of these programs make a bit of a run, but don't hold your breath on any sustained excellence. In no particular order:
Illinois (West)
Purdue (West)
Rutgers (East)
Maryland (East)
Minnesota (West)
Indiana (East)
Even though I've classified an equal number of teams in each tier (not on purpose, by the way), I've ranked the programs in the East ahead of those in the West. At this snapshot in time, it does appear that the East Division is tougher than the West. However, this can change fairly rapidly, as seen in the SEC. It wasn't too long ago that Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina (East) were dominating the conference over Alabama, LSU, and Auburn (West). Throw Texas A&M into the West and it tilts the scales even more so.
The bottom line: Draw up your divisions based on what makes sense as far as geography and/or history, rather than trying to create a competitive balanced based on a snapshot in time.
