SPECULATION: B1G Considering 20-Team Models (warning: long post)
I know it's likely that everyone is already tired of realignment ideas, speculation, hearsay, etc., but this isn't going away, so I figured that I'd share.
Earlier this week, I heard (directly) from a B1G VP that the conference is looking at "a number of options" (of course they are), but what was most interesting was they are exploring pulling in a number of Pac-12 or ACC teams to create a 20-team league. In the Pac-12 scenario, the conference would move to four 5-team divisions.
B1G North
Michigan
Michigan St.
Minnesota
Northwestern
Wisconsin
B1G East
Maryland
Ohio St.
Penn St.
Rutgers
Pitt or UVA
B1G South
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Nebraska
Purdue
B1G West
Oregon
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Washington
All 7 schools are AAU members.
The other option was to go east (+ look at Mizzou and Vandy)...Pitt, UVA, ND, UNC, Duke, Georgia Tech, Missouri, and Vandy were the names mentioned. All are AAU members. The thought behind ND is...take Pitt, UVA, UNC and Duke and they'll have no choice but to come. The ACC won't be nearly as attractive or valuable.
How would you find a champion? Well, apparently the B1G really liked that Championship Week thing they did last year and that might be here to stay. You would expand Championship Week to "Saturday to Saturday" in the final 2 weeks of the season. On the first Saturday, #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3...and everyone else is matched up. On the second Saturday you have the B1G Championship Game and everyone else is matched up (like this past year).
I'm sure 16 and 18-team options are on the table, I just found this one to be particularly interesting. Not sure how I feel about the pods idea, but I suppose it works. Also, it hadn't dawned on me that raiding the Pac-12 could be an option (and it is very much is on the table).
Last, I asked "why not look at finishing off the Big XII" and basically what I got was that is a last resort right now. What's more important are name brands and/or large cities. I'm sure it's a pride thing...your biggest rival, the SEC adds OU and Texas and you go get the mighty Jayhawks of Kansas. Yikes.
Your source is either non existent or has literally no idea how of any of this works.
Grabbing from the ACC right now is virtually impossible. Those teams have grant of rights locked up until 2036. Zero chance the Big Ten or those schools is going to pay that penalty. The only two schools that would provided a larger financial benefit to the Big Ten in the ACC is Clemson and FSU. Even if they wanted those schools you wouldn’t even be able to start talking about affordability of those buyouts for another 8 years for those schools. It’s another 12 years for any of those other ACC schools.
Also Missouri and Vandy have zero reason to leave the SEC.
In the West version you still have us getting a mediocre ACC school which isn’t happening.
This was either completely made up by you or the person you talked to.
If half the schools want to leave, they can vote to dissolve the ACC, which alleviates the grant of rights. Clemson, FSU, and Miami to the SEC and UVA, UNC, Duke, GaTech, and ND to the B1G could actually work.
Just whatever they change, please for the love of god don’t put us in the same division as OSU again.
OTOH, keep them in our division so we'll still have a good excuse for not making the conference title game....
ND is not an AAU member.
That is one of very very few (maybe the only one) I could see the B1G making an exception for. Though they don't have AAU membership, they would otherwise fit academically. It hasn't kept previous overtures to ND from happening.
I wouldn't mind that. It would be really hard to win a conference championship. But, at least it would be easier to win a division title and get away from OSU. I'd really like to see us also get away from guaranteeing that game every year otherwise UM has the hardest schedule if they are the only ones out of their division to be forced to play the best team every year. If they had to maintain the rivalry maybe they could move it away from the last game of the year.
“Earlier this week, I heard (directly) from a B1G VP”
Who is this “B1G VP”? In what circumstances were you talking to him? Why would he tell you what the BIG higher-ups are discussing?
I like this. It's very similar to what I've been advocating for since the OU/UT to SEC news.
I'd prefer to see Cal and Colorado included, but the outline is great.
B1G and Pac have a shared history, similar philosophies, and great academics. Adding UVA and Pitt makes sense too.
I would MUCH MUCH rather be part of this super conference than capitulate to SEC hegemony. F them.
If they even think about Vanderbilt, it’s clear they have no clue what the hell they are doing.
You want to “compete” with the SEC by taking their worst program? Academics will not matter in the next round of realignment.
1) Anything to get away from OSU could buy UM some time and space to build out the program
2) This would be the JV league to the SEC's varsity squad.
2) everyone has been the JV to the SEC for 10+ years. Texas and OU make everyone else the freshman squad as the conferences are currently constituted so at least this gets the B1G back to JV status.
speculation is code for snowflake. no reason to litter the board with speculation posts like this.
If they’re going to a 20 team B1G, then there should be two divisions: the B1G consisting of the 10 teams before PSU was added, and the B1GII with the other 10 teams.
Just form an AAU conference already. You've got 9 schools in the Pac-12, 13 in the B1G, 5 in the ACC. You can make a few exceptions for non-AAU schools tied to sibling schools in the same state, Nebraska, and ND. So, basically merge the B1G, Pac-12, and half the ACC. You can absorb the Ivy league in other sports like Basketball/Lacrosse. There are also some G5 AAU schools like Rice, Tulane, and Buffalo. If you manage to pull this off, maybe you pull Mizzou and Vanderbilt as well.
You'd have members in over half the states and basically every major television market outside of Florida. You'd have something like a third of the FBS teams. Form regional divisions with round robins and have B1G-ACC-challenge-style scheduling between all divisions. 4-team playoff for conference champ. The television contracts would be enormous.
Use this power to push academics and player rights by having increased standards across the conference. Leave membership open to any school that meets the AAU's criteria and you might actually encourage schools to invest money into meeting the increased standards in order to get the huge payout.
You lost me when you mentioned Ivy League Basketball. Otherwise some amount of sensibility throughout the rest of your post.
Looks like a good plan?. The academically-minded schools can reassert the primacy of those values and the ones that are not there yet or are not interested can go another way and have more of a quasi-minor league approach. Big time recruits can choose the non-AAU route and the AAU schools can go back to truly having student teams. Everyone gets what that they want and everyone is happy.
Pitt or UVA
I'd rather see Boise St in than either of these.
If USC, Washington, and Oregon do really come in, though that sounds way too good to be true, that already puts the BIG10 far ahead of what the SEC just did.
Notre Dame is probably going to the ACC. They don't have to be in any rush to do anything. But if somehow the BIG10 could get them, that would bring an enormous amount of tv money into the BIG10. But again, that's sounds even more too good to be true than USC, Washington, and Oregon. The SEC/ESPN started the dominoes falling. And it might work out great for the BIG10/PAC12 and whoever is televising their games.
As far as a playoff, I would like 2 more conference playoff games. But at what point does this start to be too many games for college players, since there is going to be an expansion to a 12 team National Championship playoff? When would they be away from the game for any Thanksgiving to New Years holiday with their families? And when do they give their bodies a break?
As I looked it up and find that Boise St is not an AAU school, never mind.
I could never imagine a world where osu willingly joins that pod unless it's uva.
No way the B1G leaves Cal on the table for a myriad of reasons. They would be a package deal with the other CA schools. Travel/scheduling is much easier if the Pacific B1G schools have another local B1G game.
As others have mentioned, any ACC/ND schools are locked up for a minimum of 10 years before they can even start to think about leaving.
Only way Pitt gets into the B1G is if PSU leaves for the SEC or some future Super League. And if PSU leaves for the SEC or some future Super League, Michigan will be leaving as well.
But you're not totally off base with your P12 acquisition. That is the logical next expansion move and in my view it will be 9 P12 schools and Kansas. With the ACC/ND locked up and the remaining B12 schools mostly worthless, this is the only move left on the board that provides a counterweight to the new SEC:
EAST
Maryland
Rutgers
PSU
OSU
Michigan
MSU
CENTRAL
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
NW
Wisconsin
Minnesota
WEST
Iowa
Nebraska
Kansas
Colorado
Utah
Arizona
PACIFIC
Wash
Oregon
Cal
Stanford
USC
UCLA
Pros:
+This is a true national conference with 10 football Kings/Barons aka the schools that a casual viewer wants to watch. For reference, the New SEC has 9. From a financial perspective the SEC may still pull ahead but it keeps the B1G in the same ball park.
+Basketball is upgraded as well with the additions of Kansas and UCLA.
+B1G gets a footprint in CA for recruiting purposes
+All schools are AAU.
+By bringing in 9 P12 schools you reduce cross county trips since most games will occur against your own division. This also helps with the non-revenue sports. (I admit the WEST does stretch from Arizona to Iowa, but it is contiguous and provides a bridge from the Pacific to the Great Lakes and beyond.)
Cons:
-Loss of tradition/rivalries?
-This is the way college football is heading, so you might as well be proactive.
Do OSU, PSU, MSU, and Michigan have to stay together? Could you take MSU and Michigan and put them in the Central, and take Indiana and Purdue and put them in the East? Do those 4 teams have to keep knocking heads every year? I mean, keep Michigan vs OSU on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. But I just don't want to see those 4 teams have to face that level of competition with each other perpetually. Plus, there'd be a chance then of Michigan and Ohio St meeting in the BIG10 playoffs. Very good for BIG10 tv.
24 teams seems good. Play everyone in your division (5 games) play 2 each in two other divisions (4 more games) and play one "knockdown" (1 v. 1, 2 v. 2...) week at the end of the year vs the division you haven't played.
Championship games features the two winners of the 1 v. 1 knockdown week games.
Rotate around every two years which divisions play each other during knockdown week. First year division A hosts knockdown week, the next year division B hosts all games knockdown week. So you'll know ahead of time whether a team is away or home during knockdown week, but you obviously won't know your opponent (and where you're traveling if you're an away team).
10 league games. Knockdown week opponent is guaranteed not to be a rematch (only game you play that year v. That division). The only possible rematch is the championship game. 5 games out of division every year v. 18 non-division league members so you should play non-division teams once every 3-4 years.
That works better than any other setup I've seen. It could also be applied to a 20-team conference, it just means 9 conference games per season rather than 10.
I get the feeling that the B1G is leaking some of these things intentionally to makeitg appear like we're trying to catch up. In reality, I would kinda be surprised if we added or subtracted any teams. And that's fine. Once an actual football season is played out I think everyone will see that too.
The only question, I think, would be if the Big 12 tries to keep their conference and add like Boise, Air Force, Houston, SMU, etc., or if the remaining teams get poached up by the Pac 12 and ACC
While the underlying premise is probable. There is a ZERO percent chance that Stanford and UCLA would leave Cal (the latter being in the same California School System).
The UC Regents do not care about athletics; that won't be an issue. Although, Cal is more likely because it fits the nature of the conference.
I understand why Cal is unappealing athletically, but academically they'd be a huge get. Plus, these models that have the B10 taking Stanford but not Cal - I wonder if Stanford would be willing to split off from their main rival. My Rose Bowl loving soul really doesn't know what to do w/all of this...
Seth brought this up last week on the Michigan Insider Roundtable, but I think it bears repeating (and emphasizing): why are academics a factor??? Seriously. When you stop and think about it, it makes absolutely no sense. This is a 100% ATHLETIC issue. Academics should play no factor in this whatsoever.
The academics factor will fall by the wayside. They won't be able to pull off a 20 team conference with academics as a priority.
And yet, 4Roses and MRunner73, the academics part of it all is a long-standing line in the sand those in power absolutely won't abandon.
I honestly believe, based upon the history of the B1G and knowing the power wielded by the academic side of member schools, that academics is probably the most immovable object in the entire process of expansion.
They won't be able to pull off a 20 team conference with academics as a priority.
Why? They could probably make it 24.
No way Stanford happens but not Cal, and we want Cal regardless since Cal and Michigan are sort of spitting images of each other academically and culturally. The same holds true for Stanford and Northwestern.
TLDR (the comments), so this may be repeating what someone else wrote but at least the new name would be easy:
Big XX
Sounds good to me. Maybe, The Big-10/20 could work as well.
B2G?
Big pac?
The B1G-Ass PACk?
I don’t think the BIG and the Pac12 are actually going anywhere. Both have too much tradition, brand value, and pride to just fold up and go under one formal umbrella conference. The most likely scenario is that the BIG and Pac12 formalize the scheduling alliance that they previously abandoned and create some kind of formal joint academic organization that links the schools like the old CIC/new Academic BIG.
There are a number of options for the B1G to expand but it make makes great speculation. The expansion talk is real but how soon? Will there be a mini final 4 playoff system? If they get to 4 divisions, they'll need at least two rounds of playoff games to get a conference championship. How many regular season games will be played? Do we stay at 12 but drop 1 or 2 non conference in September? How about the national playoff system, will we even need 8 or 12 teams to be involved?
I'll be listening or reading or whatever.
I guess if this happens we can call it the 2B1G.
Correct pronunciation being "Too Big".