Aaaand We Don't Even Fix The Divisions

Well there goes the only real saving grace of it all... count me in as changing from "uneasy about" to "against" it

Any chance all this makes it into TWIS?

Nebraska will challenge Michigan for the division every season with Iowa and MSU being tough games as well.

I am seeing no upside to this for Michigan.

What bribes were made to get the current B1G school to accept such additions and changes?

wrong thread

Why not get upset at Dave Brandon? Michigan is incredibly important to the Big Ten as the co-biggest ticket item with OSU. That means Michigan has a boatload of leverage on things like this, and Brandon did nothing. 

I have tried to be excited about this in several ways throughout the course of the weekend and today ("Maryland basketball.... kind of cool,"  or "Rutgers had had some decent football teams), but this is the last straw.  Needed ND/Pitt (sorry but true) and now a pretty substantial biff with these two, keeping Legends and Leaders and, WTF is this!! Not good.

My God. I don't even know what to say. Can we secede from the B1G?

I may or may not be joking. Up to you.

Everything is stupid.

is not epic win.

Did I say unbelievably? I mean all too credibly stupid.

Simple east/west divide* with nine conference games and no protected crossover would have been fine, simple, workable and about as fair as you can get.

This? This is the opposite of that.

*Draw lots to see which division gets Purude and which is left with Indiana.

Michigan vs. Ohio is no longer The Game.  Not with his set-up.  Thanks for ruining the best rivalry in sports. 

This news is the one silver lining as far as I'm concerned. I want Michigan to be as disassociated as possible from these additions.

Wait! You're telling me that, all around the country, people are saying that the B1G Ten is bad at football? 

Let's change the topic and get them talking about how bad the B1G Ten is at organizing a conference and other things that should be relatively straight forward. 

The bad part of this is that now they need to come up with new hyphenated names for some of the individual awards to recognize the greats of Maryland and Rutgers football.

Maybe they'll make some of the names double-hyphenated.

Assuming we are in a home-and-home scheduling sort of thing, we'll play PSU/Wisc/MD/Rutgers, etc. 2 consecutive years out of every TWELVE. 

Then again, trips to Happy Valley and East Rutherford only once per decade?  Ok, maybe not so bad.

I like this for Bball. Rematch of the '76 Final Four and all.

Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois should battle for basketball supremacy in the Legends. Meanwhile OSU, Indiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Purdue will be in a battle royal in the Leaders.

Here I was hoping Rutgers would be in our division so I could drive 20 minutes every two years to see my Wolverines play in New Brunswick.

Oh well.....

We should trade Nebraska and Northwestern for Maryland and Indiana. Why? Then we can rename ourselves the MI division(4 Ms, 3Is).

Let's force Penn State to change their jerseys to red and put them in a division with OSU, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, and Indiana.

Well, maybe Delany leaked ONE set of false divisions to MD and another set of false divisions to Rutgers, so he could figure out which one sucks more at keeping secrets.  

So, the upshot it:  It's Maryland.  And the REAL divisions will be announced later.

WE CAN HOPE AT LEAST

Who will MSU's end of season rivalry be?

I say Maryland.  Each year they play for "The Seat"   It will represent all the missing fans and empty seats at the end of another disappointing year.  

Wisconsin and Penn State once every six years? 

Sorry, that just sucks.

The only redeeming factor in the divisions is we can call the leaders division PIMP ROW.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/so-how-should-conference-be-re-aligned

Giving the Legends division a some-times strong team (Illinois) while adding two weaks teams to the Leaders is terrible.   

The worst part about this is that it dilutes the intensity of Ohio State week.  

I wanted to spend my time this week looking at historical Michigan-Ohio State video clips, not reading about Rutgers' attendance levels. 

Do you think we can get Marcus Vick to request a trade for us out of the B1G on Twitter?

Only thing left to say is 

DAMN IT

If PSU had never had the Sandusky scandal and was still a moderate national power, then these divisions wouldnt be quite as horrible, but.....

Everyone agrees PSU will be a bottom dwelling FBS team for the next decade or so(having a better than expected year this year, but the near death penalty is too much)

So its just OSU and Wisc in that division, thats crazyness. Where as UM, Nebraska, MSU and Northwestern are top 25ish teams. Just horrible.

I DON'T LIKE CHANGE*!!!!!!!!

* that makes no sense what so ever.

As crudy as this seems at first glance I would like to see the final fallout on divison alignment and names before making a final decision.  There is still a few years left to round all the corners before Maryland and/or Rutgers gets here.

I was on board with Maryland and Rutgers. I could see it for the health of the league as things move toward four superconferences.

But to not re-align the divisions is stupid. It seems that Delany and others are taking the easy, and incorrect, way out. Yes, it would have been more work to re-align, and it would have made the whole process messier. But it would have been worth it. These divisions blow.

You need to have rotating schedules.  One team on, one team off.  For example:

Boost conference games from 8 to 9.  Michigan would play division foes 6 times, leaving 3 open games.  Assuming we will have to keep one cross-over b/c of Mich/OSU.  Now we're left with two open games.

Rotate as such....

Penn State - year 6 away; year 1 home

Wisconsin - year 1 away; year 2 home

Maryland - year 2 away; year 3 home

Rutgers - year 3 away; year 4 home

Indiana - year 4 away; year 5 home

Purdue - year 5 away; year 6 home

You'd see Penn State for instance in 2013 and 2018.  That's only 4 years between playing each other.  So at worst you'll only miss one Big Ten team in your 4 years at the University.  If you redshirt or get a 5th year, you'll have the chance to see every Big Ten team at least once.

edit: Without the rotation you'd see Penn Sate in 2013/2014 and then not again till 2019.  So it pushes it up one year.  I know.  Still grumble-worthy.