2013-2014 Big Ten schedules released
ESPN's AR just posted in his blog the new schedules for the Big 10 in 2013 and 2014. Any thoughts?
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/25085/a-look-at-the-2013-14-big-ten-schedules
no wisconsin until 2015 kind of sucks.
this will give us time to grow our MANBALLZ
considering we get ND, OSU, Nebraska, and Iowa every year. Now the next two years we also get Penn State. That's a tough gauntlet in addition to any additional national non-conference matchup that might be scheduled.
It bothers me on the more basic level, that there are going to be guys in our program who will go their entire careers without facing another conference team, unless we happen to play them in the conference title game. That's absurd.
A lot of this nonsense could have been avoided if the league would have gone with straight geography for the divisions. Then, there would have been no need for protected cross-division games, since all the rivalries would have been contained in the divisions. Then you could have played three of the six teams in the other division one year (or two years), and then play the other three the next. Instead they went to this stupid gerrymandered setup, which is just making things more complicated than necessary.
Yeah, I'm with you, but maybe we'll get to play them in the Big Ten Conference game. That wouldn't be so bad I guess. Michigan/Wisconsin is one of those games I always look forward to.
No Wisconsin for 4 years? That should help us out unless they fall apart completely.
focused on stopping the run, I'm not so sure this is a good thing -- assuming they will be successful at it, better to see what they know and want to focus on combatting
I'd like to think that at some point in the next four years, the winningest program in history will be able to compete with mighty Wisconsin.
I don't like losing 2 in a row to Wisconsin (and both in ugly fashion) and not get a chance at revenge for 4 years (I'm still waiting for a rematch with Oregon)
Hopefully we face them in the Championship game in the next 3 years
We had a home and home with Oregon. We blew both games.
I beg to differ, but only a little.
We blew the 2003 game. We blew them in the 2007 game.
I watched the 2003 Michigan Oregon game in the desert on the Armed Forces Network. What a shitty result in an even worst location.
i will miss playing wisconsin. and i think the players miss out by not getting a trip to madison.
My first two years of undergrad, Indiana and Wisconsin were the 2 best party weekends bar none.. sad to see them go away for my final 2 years
That is one crazy atmosphere to play a college football game in. I still remember watching the Ohio State-Wisconsin game this past year and couldn't believe how loud it was even on the TV.
MSU doesn't get to play it's "rival" for the next four seasons. You know, the rivalry that was eventually supposed to blow M-OSU out of the water.
Hahahahaha.
There's a guy at my work who has half a dozen relatives on either side of that "rivalry". I just brought this up and he feels like the Big Ten dropped the ball on it because of how intense the rivalry was in his family each year.
Not to be stupid, but what is this "rivalry" you speak of?
THE BATTLE FOR THE LAND GRANT TROPHY OHHHH YEAH!!!!
Yeah. It was kind of cute how hard the Big 10 tried to make PSU/MSU a rivalry. There's no history to dwell on. I don't ever remember hearing the players trash each other or stories of fans getting into it. It was always just a regular game to end their seasons.
Penn State has won 13 of 18 meetings and most of them have been complete blowouts to the tunes of 59-31, 51-28, 61-7, 49-18 and 42-14.
Back in the days when we ruled the rivalry with OSU, I always got a kick out of watching PSU humiliate Sparty later that evening. It was the perfect aftertaste once the bucks crawled back in their holes after THE GAME.
Still, I'm going to miss it on multiple levels. Trash it all you want, but there WAS something budding between PSU-MSU. The Sparties I know definitely looked at it as their third biggest game (after us and Ireland). Also, it doesn't help to know that Sparty will probably end up in a situation where they play neither OSU or PSU, and we don't need a repeat of 2010.
Lastly, one of my favorite non-UM games of all time was the MSU-PSU game in 2002. It was fairly hyped, only because Larry Johnson needed something like 260 yards to pass 2,000. I remember the pregame talk was obviously all "Will he or won't he?". The answer was "he will...in the first half." 279 rushing yards in TWO QUARTERS. He just annihilated the Spartan "defense". One of the more absurd individual performances I have ever seen, and the fact that it was against Sparty made it that much better.
repeat because of the conference championship game. Nothing to worry about there. If Sparty misses OSU and PSU some particular year with cross over games, it's likely that if they somehow win the Legends div, they'll get one of them in the Championship game. And if they win that matchup, the rest of the conference won't be able to complain.
Sidenote: I didn't realize how painful it would be to type "Legends" for the first time. Part of me still wants to believe this is all an elaborate practical joke and Jim Delany will appear with Ashton Kucher one day on the set of the B10 network to tell us all we've been punk'd.
I don't know how to fix it, but things like Wisconsin NOT playing Michigan, Michigan State and Nebraska in 2013 and 2014 is ridiculous.
Using a 9 game conference slate would not completely correct the situation, but it would probably help by adding a team from the other division to play.
Using a 9 game slate where UM and OSU are in the same division is the easy solution. Then the crossovers could be 3 one year, 3 the next. Of course we would miss out on some other big rivals.
You don't need a 9-game schedule to do that. With eight games, you play the other five teams in your division, and that leaves you with three against the other division.
Where the problem lies now is the insistence upon protected cross-division games, because that means that in any given year, you can only play two of the five non-protected cross-division opponents. They should have set up the divisions in a way that kept all the rivalries intradivisional.
Well, if they end up missing 3 good teams, they will likely face one of them in the championship game. If they don't, then they weren't good enough anyway and it doesn't matter.
Forget about the competitive standpoint for a minute. As a fan, don't you want to see marquee teams come to your stadium? Having the possibility of playing one of them in a domed NFL stadium in December doesn't quite make up for that.
I'm not a Wisconsin fan, so I don't really care. I only care from the standpoint of one team missing three possibly very good teams and winning the conference. That won't happen because they'd end up having to play one of those three in the championship game.
Now, if Michigan didn't play PSU, Wisconsin, and some other team, I might care. However, we still play OSU, Nebraska, and ND every year. It might be nice to have those teams off the schedule to make it to the BTCG. Then, if PSU or Wisconsin were any good, we'd face them then.
Here's the problem: OSU, ND and Nebraska are all home on the same (odd-numbered) years. Consequently, every other year (even-numbered) our home schedule is going to suck.
It should be easy for me to get tickets for cheap then.
of giving 3 weeks between games with Nebraska and tsio. The future home schedules have also improved looking year to year. Seems that in the past we would have a HUGE home schedule followed by a rather weak one (for conference games). But looking at 2013 we get Nebraska and tsio (again with 3 weeks in between - yea) and then in 2014 we have little brother, PSU and Iowa all at the greatest stadium in the universe !
As for non-conference I really hope DB drops ND ... all we give them is credibility - let them join the mighty Big East just like their BB team ! I would much rather see home and home series with Florida, Alabama, Va Tech, Texas, Oklahoma ... maybe even USC ! C'mon DB drop ND.
Go Blue !
- Easy conference openers (Minnesota in 2013, Indiana in 2014).
- Bye before Michigan St. both years;
- Four-year breaks are stupid.
These schedules will get wiped out when ND joins the B1G in 2013 for hockey reasons.
thank god we get our bye week before msu and nw, where osu gets theirs before iowa each year. i'm sure iowa likes that.
I think the Big Ten is dropping the ball on these four year breaks. It's totally unnecessary that a player could be at a BT school for four years and never play an opponent. Three year breaks are easy to accomplish if you just have a team come off and get replaced every year instead of two off and replaced every two years. I literally did the whole Big Ten in 20 minutes a few weeks ago (saved on another computer), but here's how it could work for UM.
2011 - @Ill, Pur
2012 - @Wisc, Ill
2013 - @PSU, Wisc
2014 - @Ind, PSU
2015 - @Pur, Ind
and repeat forever...
For the people who brought you "Legends and Leaders" (B1G).
has a nice schedule in '13 and '14 - no Ohio State, no Wisconsin and no Penn State.
Ohio State has rotated off of Sparty's schedule quite often. In my lifetime, Sparty didn't play OSU 10 times: 10, 09, 02, 01, 96, 95, 90, 89, 86, and 85.
Nice to see the new Big 10 won't change anything for them.
not playing these teams will tarnish the year. They could end up end up in a bowl, a better bowl than deserved, then get smashed again. Ok then.
Not playing top-ranked programs will reflect on their rankings, so there's some karma in that, too.
Some Sparty fans sighed relief when they saw their guarantied cross-division rival (no offense Hoosiers), but that means MSU will have to do more than beat IU to convince the polls.
GO BLUE!
I guess they are just rolling out the red carpet for Nebraska for 2013 adn 2014. No Wisconsin or Ohio State? That is ridiculous.
In 2011 and 12? Wouldn't they have to rotate off?
Annoying to have so many Michigan-Ohio State games the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Pushing the season a week back, they're all going to be there.
1. State got off too easy by adding Illinois and Purdue while losing TSIO and Wiscy. If they are merely competent in those years, they will win 9 games. Luckily, there is no guarantee that they will be the least bit competent.
2. Iowa got screwed by picking up TSIO and Wiscy: like MSU in reverse.
3. Everyone else pretty much has one tough team and one easy team.
Frankly, I don't feel that bad about missing out on this game. Sure I have enjoyed the matchups between the teams, but if this is what it takes to have legit divisions and to continue to face msu and osu every year (with osu as the last game) I will gladly accept it.
I appreciate the argument that it sucks for players not to be able to face a conference team for 4 years, but if they are a true conference contender and we are as well, we will have to face them in the championship game. If both or either or us suck I don't think that argument is as legitimate