A way to play all other 13 conference teams, home and away, within 4 seasons
So, inspired by Seth's scheduling proposal earlier this week, I decided to take a pen and paper and sit down and see if I could, under the current 14-team Big Ten (yes, I'm leaving in Maryland and Rutgers, it's what we got, let's face reality and make the best of it), create a scheduling alignment that allowed every team in the conference to face every other team in the conference, home and away, within four seasons.
It can be done. In short, there would be "floating" divisions that would reset every two years, in two groups of four, and two groups of three. In long, well, keep reading!
The first order of business is that it's necessary to ditch the permanent 7-team divisions. In order to create "fluid" divisions, we need two groups of four, and two groups of three, as stated above, in which each team in a given group would play every other team in that group every season. Those groups are below. I grouped based on proximity and traditional matchups.
Hate Quad Group | |||
---|---|---|---|
Wisconsin | Minnesota | Iowa | Nebraska |
Illiana Group | |||
---|---|---|---|
Illinois | Northwestern | Indiana | Purdue |
East Coast Group | ||
---|---|---|
Penn St* | Maryland** | Rutgers*** |
Toledo Strip Group | ||
---|---|---|
Ohio St* | Michigan** | Michigan St*** |
The asterisk represents teams that are in the same column in "small" groups, and are each team's permanent crossover opponents. Crossover opponents in "small" groups are for schedule balancing purposes only and may or may not reflect historical "rivalries". Yes, Michigan gets a blah opponent to play every year, in addition to Ohio State and Michigan State, but it's necessary for schedule balancing, and I couldn't think of a better way to do it.
Now, all we have to do is take each team's group and, where necessary, small group crossover opponents, and combine them with those from other divisions to form our 4-year schedules, which I have done tabularly below.
Hate Quad Group | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
HQG | at HQG | HQG | at HQG |
at HQG | HQG | at HQG | HQG |
HQG | at HQG | HQG | at HQG |
at ECG1 | ECG1 | at TSG1 | TSG1 |
ECG2 | at ECG2 | TSG2 | at TSG2 |
at ECG3 | ECG3 | at TSG3 | TSG3 |
IG1 | at IG1 | IG3 | at IG3 |
at IG2 | IG2 | at IG4 | IG4 |
Illiana Group | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
IG | at IG | IG | at IG |
at IG | IG | at IG | IG |
IG | at IG | IG | at IG |
at TSG1 | TSG1 | at ECG1 | ECG1 |
TSG2 | at TSG2 | ECG2 | at ECG2 |
at TSG3 | TSG3 | at ECG3 | ECG3 |
HQG3 | at HQG3 | HQG1 | at HQG1 |
at HQG4 | HQG4 | at HQG2 | HQG2 |
East Coast Group | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
ECG | at ECG | ECG | at ECG |
at ECG | ECG | at ECG | ECG |
HQG1 | at HQG1 | IG1 | at IG1 |
at HQG2 | HQG2 | at IG2 | IG2 |
HQG3 | at HQG3 | IG3 | at IG3 |
at HQG4 | HQG4 | at IG4 | IG4 |
TSGp | at TSGp | TSGp | at TSGp |
at TSG1 | TSG1 | at TSG2 | TSG2 |
Toledo Strip Group | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
TSG | at TSG | TSG | at TSG |
at TSG | TSG | at TSG | TSG |
IG1 | at IG1 | HQG1 | at HQG1 |
at IG2 | IG2 | at HQG2 | HQG2 |
IG3 | at IG3 | HQG3 | at HQG3 |
at IG4 | IG4 | at HQG4 | HQG4 |
ECGp | at ECGp | ECGp | at ECGp |
at ECG1 | ECG1 | at ECG2 | ECG2 |
This all checks out. For visualization's sake. I've created 4-year schedules for Nebraska, who is in a 4-team group, and Michigan, who is in a 3-team group, to show that the math and rotations do check out. Please note that these are simply lists of opponents and not a chronological order of when the actual games would be played.
Nebraska (Hate Quad Group) |
|||
---|---|---|---|
Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
Wisconsin | at Wisconsin | Wisconsin | at Wisconsin |
at Minnesota | Minnesota | at Minnesota | Minnesota |
Iowa | at Iowa | Iowa | at Iowa |
at Rutgers | Rutgers | at Michigan | Michigan |
Penn St | at Penn St | Michigan St | at Michigan St |
at Maryland | Maryland | at Ohio St | Ohio St |
Illinois | at Illinois | Indiana | at Indiana |
at Northwestern | Northwestern | at Purdue | Purdue |
Michigan (Toledo Strip Group) |
|||
---|---|---|---|
Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
Ohio St | at Ohio St | Ohio St | at Ohio St |
at Michigan St | Michigan St | at Michigan St | Michigan St |
Illinois | at Illinois | Wisconsin | at Wisconsin |
at Northwestern | Northwestern | at Minnesota | Minnesota |
Indiana | at Indiana | Nebraska | at Nebraska |
at Purdue | Purdue | at Iowa | Iowa |
Maryland | at Maryland | Maryland | at Maryland |
at Penn St | Penn St | at Rutgers | Rutgers |
I won't go through the 4-year schedules for every team, but I think it's clear that this algorithm works. It wouldn't be perfect, and undoubtedly wouldn't satisfy everyone, especially if a strength of schedule discrepancy arose during a conference title run, but at least you're only going four years max between conference opponents.
February 11th, 2017 at 11:08 AM ^
February 11th, 2017 at 2:42 PM ^
I don't get what high quality gifs has to do with this
February 12th, 2017 at 8:30 AM ^
February 13th, 2017 at 10:10 AM ^
Your "group" is always part of your division, and it floats every two years.
Michigan will always have Ohio State and Michigan State as part of their division, since they're in the same group. In Years 1 and 2, the rest of their division would be Illinois, N'Western, Indiana, and Purdue. In Years 3 and 4, the rest of their division would be Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa. In Michigan's case, Maryland would never count as a division game, as well as the other rotating East Coast Group team.
Confusing to have to get used to new divisions every two yeas? Yeah. But that's how you'd play everyone.
Concerning the 8-9 conference games issue, the Big Ten could get around that by simply enacting that each school play a P5 in the non-conference. Hey, a better way to get Notre Dame back on the schedule without cancelling an existing series.
February 12th, 2017 at 1:27 PM ^
I like it, but I think it'd be more interesting to play teams every other year. Basically, I would propose it goes Year 1, Year 3, Year 2, Year 4, with venues adjusted for teams you play every year.
February 13th, 2017 at 7:29 PM ^
Well thought out.
February 15th, 2017 at 1:27 PM ^
Late to this. I like it, but OSU and PSU would object to gettng a perceived "tougher" rivalry pairing. Particularly unfair to PSU since Rutgers gets the easiest opponent.
Still, I hope something like this can be arranged to meet the goal of playing every conference team home and away every four years. I have a personal interest in this, since I live in Minnesota and want Michigan to come to town regularly, and I think it suits the conference well to have this kind of arrangement.
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