B1G Crossover Constants
Ok, here we are just hours away from the start of the newly realigned B1G conference season. The B1G in an attempt to never lose "The Game", is attempting to create the illusion of other B1G rivalry games through its use of the Constant Crossover as follows:
Illinois vs Northwestern
Indiana vs MSU
Ohio vs Michigan
Penn State vs Nebraska
Purdue vs Iowa
Wisconsin vs Minnesota
Essentially the B1G has now scheduled automatic wins for Wisconsin and MSU. I can imagine Michigan and Penn State on a 50/50 split (60/40 at best). And really ... Iowa v Purdue & Illinois v NW rates a very simple who cares (these games will likely never determine a divisional champion). Essentially, whoever made this determination has granted Wisconsin and MSU an advantage that can never be rectified from a scheduling point of view.
I know we beat on this topic during the off-season, but now this matters. There has to be a better solution, doesn't there ... ?
Go Blue!
September 29th, 2011 at 12:41 PM ^
The solution was to put the teams in geographically-based divisions, which would have completely eliminated the need for this. But it's water under the bridge.
Minn-Wisc is an important rivalry. It needs to be played every year. I don't think you can fault the conference for wanting to keep that going. And actually, that game is often very competitive. It means everything to Minnesota.
NW-Ill is another essential rivalry, and PSU-Neb is a logical matchup. Iowa-PU and MSU-Ind are the only truly odd ones (although MSU-Ind actually is a trophy game).
September 29th, 2011 at 12:43 PM ^
I'll just point out that if it's now an advantage for Wisconsin to play Minnesota every year, it's one they've had forever, because it was a protected rivalry and woudn't rotate off the schedule before.
When it was recognized as a rivalry game, no one it thought it was an advantage for "worse than Indiana" Wisconsin, but (still pretty bad) Minnesota. MSU/Indiana is a major advantage, but that's loser talk hoping to see Indiana as your "big game" every year. So the humor offsets it a little.
September 29th, 2011 at 7:13 PM ^
We made fun of MSU for having Indiana as their big protected rilvary game. It was a demeaning step down from Penn State.
Well we can't have it both ways. They get to win while we make fun of them. I guess that's the beauty of MSU - even when they win you can still find reasons to make fun of them.
September 29th, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^
Plus, they'll Sparty away a game against Indiana now and then.
September 29th, 2011 at 12:49 PM ^
even if you switch the odd two, it's MSU/Purdue and Iowa/Indiana--they are maybe even more unfair. It will probably rarely matter anyway--if M can't beat OSU, they probably don't deserve to win the division, no matter what MSU does to IU.
Plus, with Gunner Kiel going to IU in 2012, and MSU hopefully returning to their normal middle-of-the-league place, that rivalry game might not be as lopsided as you might think.
When Delany announced the divisions, he said they split the conference into thirds (IIRC)--(1) M, OSU, PSU, Neb.; (2) Iowa, Wisco, MSU, Illini; (3) IU, NU, Purdue, Minny. Assuming I remember correctly, each division has 2 teams from each grouping, accomplishing theoretical competitive balance. Under that assumption, Wisco and MSU are basically counterparts, so it's fair that they have similar rivalry games.
Finally, MSU probably should get an easier schedule considering they have had the most unbalanced and difficult schedule for the last 20 years--their two permanent rivals were Michigan and PSU. Ohio was the only other school to have two of the big 3 in the 11-team Big Ten as permanent rivals.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:14 PM ^
to actually switch Iowa with either Purdue or Indiana to make it so the relevant protected crossover games are Purdue-Indiana, which makes great geographical sense, and Iowa-MSU, which makes sense to me since I think of both programs as similar. As the divisions stand, there's no way to keep those games from being stupid.
September 29th, 2011 at 12:50 PM ^
I don't know about it being "everything" to Minnesota. They value their rivalry for ol' Floyd of Rosedale with Iowa very, very highly.
September 29th, 2011 at 1:04 PM ^
That pig is a big deal as well. (Minnesota's got some funky trophies to play for.) But Paul Buyan's Ax, I believe, is the biggest prize of all for a Gopher.
September 29th, 2011 at 4:32 PM ^
I don't know why they think of Michigan as a rivalry but they do. They also think Green Bays biggest rivals are the Vikings, when everyone else knows it is the Bears. I think the bitter cold does something to there stinking gopher minds.
September 29th, 2011 at 1:56 PM ^
This will partially be rectified by a 9 game conference schedule. Considering we have an auto-bid against one of the best B1G teams (Ohio), the extra conference game means that teams with an easy cross-over will more likely play a tough team. Conversely, also increases the chances we will be playing teams like Indiana.
September 29th, 2011 at 12:52 PM ^
win the whole fucking thing!"
September 29th, 2011 at 12:53 PM ^
never be a consistent competitor..... but they may surprise people in the coming years if Kiel is as good as advertised.
It doesn't really matter much anyway. Win our division = Go to B1G championship game.
Not to mention, as a season ticket holder, I'd much rather have OSU on the sked every year than Indiana.
September 29th, 2011 at 1:00 PM ^
Is what's keeping us from winning division titles, I'd say the bigger problem is with our program, and not who they're playing. If Nebraska got Indiana every year, then yeah, there might be reason to bitch.
September 29th, 2011 at 1:34 PM ^
Agreed.
When UM gets back to its historic level of talent and performance, we will be beating MSU like a drum again which would mean that Sparty would effectively need UM to lose 2 games in the conference without losing another game themselves as UM would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.
MSU's "rivalry" game with Indiana will improve their record but I doubt it will have much impact on their ability to win the Legends division as that will most likely be decided by Nebraska and Michigan most years.
September 29th, 2011 at 1:36 PM ^
This problem has existed ever since the B10 went to 11 teams with unbalanced schedules and guaranteed rivalry games. The fact that we now also have divisions actually helps a bit, because we no longer need to have the best record among all 12 teams in the league to win the B10 championship. We merely need to have the best record among the 6 teams in our division to earn a berth in the BTCG.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:30 PM ^
Brian linked a 10 piece article that talked about what went into getting Nebraska into the Big 10 and the issues that they had to resolve once that happened. One piece had to do with how the divisions would be determined, and another piece had to do with scheduling and what rivalries would be preserved. If my memory is correct, the rivalries Wisky wanted preserved were Iowa and Minny and they wanted to have an annual game with Nebraska. In the end due to all the other schools needs and wants, the only annual game that Wisky received was Minny.
September 29th, 2011 at 4:30 PM ^
Any chance you can find a link to this? Sounds interesting and I must have missed it.
September 29th, 2011 at 6:19 PM ^
I don't understand why they didn't go with this:
North: Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Northwestern, Minnesota
South: Ohio Polytechnic Institute, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Purdue
Crossover Rivalries: Michigan-Central Ohio A&M, Penn State-Nebraska, Wisconsin-Iowa, Michigan State-Indiana, Northwestern-Illinois, Minnesota-Purdue
The only difference is that Nebraska is swapped for Penn State and Iowa is swapped for Wisconsin. The divisions make geographic sense, obviating the need for silly, contrived division names. Wisky keeps its Iowa and Minnesota rivalry games and gets to play us every year to compensate for not playing Nebraska every year. Iowa keeps its "Children of the Corn" rivalry game with Nebraska. Penn State plays us every year instead of playing Ohio every year (which is a wash) and they still get to play Nebraska every year. Competitive balance is preserved. The only thing that gets lost is the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry, but I think Wisconsin-Iowa is a much more compelling game than Minnesota-Iowa.
The only problem I can think of with this alignment is that it screws Penn State on its travel costs. But they knew that they were a bit of an outpost when they joined back in '92, so that shouldn't come as a surprise to them.
September 29th, 2011 at 6:26 PM ^
On top of that, the only thing they even use divisions for is football, where they charter planes anyway. I doubt it's all that much more expensive to fly a 737 from State College to Minneapolis than it is to Columbus. You're only talking a marginal increase in cost.
September 29th, 2011 at 9:08 PM ^
1) I think Penn State does care a lot about their game against the Central Toledo State Golden Zip Hawks, but I could be wrong
2) Fuel costs are significant in the airline industry. I think ~2005, fuel costs outpaced labor costs for the first time ever.
Either way, gerrymandered divisiona are stupid in my opinion - as the OP points out it created permanent scheduling inequities, and attempts to predict the future off of a very small sample size (since Penn State joined in 1994) in the past. It breaks Wisconsin off from one of their traditional rivals, and keeps them from playing an annual game against what would have developed into another natural rivalry with Nebraska. And of course, it splits us up from Ohio. If we're talking about changing up the divisions, KISS.
September 29th, 2011 at 11:02 PM ^
- Don't know, you could be right.
- I think you're wrong. PSU flying a few extra miles, even if it costs them six figures, could well be worth it depending on who they get to play.
I don't know how you break up PSU/Nebraska/OSU/M without messing around with geography, but I do agree with the Big Ten that it needed to be done. If you follow that logic, balance is the best option, and I don't see 1993-2010 as a small sample size.
September 30th, 2011 at 2:19 AM ^
1) They do, but I don't think they would mind as much if it were replaced with a guaranteed annual game against us. Pre-Nebraska, our game with them wasn't protected and so they rotated off our schedule every few years.
2) They'd probably still use buses for games against us, MSU, and possibly Northwestern and Wisconsin. They would need to fly to Nebraska and Minnesota. But I see your point; fuel costs in general would be higher for them than they would be for everyone else.
September 29th, 2011 at 9:59 PM ^
The simplest arrangement of all, which wouldn't have sacrificed any rivalries, is this:
East: Michigan, MSU, OSU, PSU, Indiana, Purdue
West: Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois
No crossovers would be necessary because all the rivalries would be contained within the divisions. That would make scheduling a lot simpler: you'd play three of the other division's teams for two years, then the other three for two years. What's more, all the East teams would be schools located in the Eastern time zone while all the West teams are schools in the Central zone.
The Big Ten didn't do this because it considered four schools (Michigan, OSU, Nebraska, PSU) a cut above the rest of the league, and didn't want them to be split 3-1 among divisions. But at this point, Wisconsin has to be considered a peer of those four schools. They are an established conference contender, with a huge fanbase, and it's hard to imagine that changing in the near future. If you factor them in, it makes it 3-2 East-West, which isn't so unbalanced. With Iowa (probably the next most-successful program) also in the West, it wouldn't be a bad balance at all.
September 29th, 2011 at 5:07 PM ^
Sparty's manufactured "rivalry" game against PSU for the Land Grant Trophy (or whatever lame name they gave it) got totally vaporized in the new alignment. Little brother trying so hard...
September 29th, 2011 at 5:55 PM ^
In fairness, I don't think either of them ever got particularly excited about that artificial rivalry.
PSU-Nebraska is a no-brainer though. Programs of similar culture, history, and pedigree. Gives Nebraska a rivalry to replace the ones they lost when they left the Big 12. Finally gives PSU a true, mutual rivalry, which they've lacked since joining the conference.
September 29th, 2011 at 7:03 PM ^
that they are both adopted - red-headed stepchildren.
Go Blue!
September 29th, 2011 at 7:30 PM ^
and I bet they tell you that, if given the choice, they'd rather play Nebraska every year than PSU.