Big Ten considering eliminating football divisions, among other changes as early as 2023

This would be great 

This would be great 

Any system that involves us playing tOSU every year while competing against teams that do not is a terrible idea. 

The same 3 teams every year.  Wisconsin will get Northwestern, Illinois, and Minnesota every year and NEVER play Michigan and Ohio State the same year.

ah ha!!! so now they can add another tomato can to the schedule. reason #1 why i am not renewing my football tickets.

Why can't we keep three conference games? Power Five teams should play only one Group of Five or FCS team a year. Stop fighting dudes in a lower weight class to get bowl eligibility and more $$$. 

I support this 1,000%. The divisions in the Big Ten are a farce. Everyone should have roughly the same strength of schedule. 

Sounds like a good idea to me. The West stinks

Sounds like a good idea to me. The West stinks

We should fight strongly against this and prevent it from happening. There's pretty much no way this benefits Michigan. We're guaranteed the toughest schedule and we'd probably get OSU in a title game rematch as opposed to the current situation where the title game would be pretty easy.

The real problem for Michigan is that the Big10 and most fans want to Michigan to play OSU every year. 

Because of this, Michigan will typically have a more difficult schedule in the Big10 than most Big10 teams.

I think this is stupid- I can live without a Michigan/OSU game every year if it gives Michigan a better chance of making the Big10 Championship game. 

'm sure I'm in the minority because most U of M fans seem to be happy with the annual dong punch from OSU - 2021 of course being a glorious exception!

Divisions are fine- they should be more balanced.

The real way to fix this is that for winning your division, only intra-division games count.  This way if a team has good or bad crossover games from the West it doesn't hurt or help that team's chances of winning the East Division.  This is a simple concept and I can't believe this change hasn't been made already.

1. The original idea of a 10 team conference was nearly perfect - a few non-conference games and everyone plays everyone (3+9) = 12

2. The fairest option might be all-play-all but that would require a 13th game and giving up all of the non-conference games. 

I'd rather play iowa or wisconsin in the championship than osu in b2b weeks.

I really don't like dropping to eight conference games unless they are thinking of reducing the regular season by a game because of an expanded playoff.

We'd be trading a Big Ten opponent for some shit bag MAC team or worse.

If they drop to only eight conference games, I think they need to limit protected games to 2 games. if you are protecting almost half your schedule, might as well just keep the divisions.

I came up with this list of protected games awhile ago when there was an idea of removing divisions. 

That sucks 

Fewer games against Rutgers/MD and more against Minny/Iowa/Wisconsin sounds like a good thing from a fan and competition perspective. 

We'd still have the protected OSU game every year and be fucked in the ass playing essentially a SEC team with no rules or academic care for their athletes....while MSU plays Illinois.

Long overdue for the health of the league. Not sure it's good for Michigan, because it basically means Michigan has to beat Ohio State twice to have a season like they had this year and that kinda sucks whereas most of the league will only have to beat them once.

But it's just not tenable to continue to have a league where one division is constantly 1-2 toughest to win and the other is by far the worst in the power 5. 

No one has mentioned the big reason to dump the divisions: two divisions makes expansion hard because you need 2 more to get to 16 and do pods or whatever. No divisions, and an odd number of teams works out a little better. And what team is in the middle of the Big Ten footprint and is going to need a conference when it's basically necessary for playoff inclusion/success?

Notre Dame

Add them to get to 15, do the kind of schedule the ACC did in 2020, and make Notre Dame-Michigan, ND-OSU, ND-PSU, even ND-Wisconsin a regular part of the rotation, and you'll get the biggest TV contract in the country. Ultimately, that's what this is all about.

BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR HUMONGOUS INCREDIBLY MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE EVER IN THE UNIVERSE RIVALRY WITH ILLINOIS???

Eliminating divisions will likely backfire for UofM.  Our opponents will be OSU, MSU, and PSU or Minnesota. 

Basically the biggest game for 2 of our opponents and the biggest or 2nd biggest for the 3rd.  It is hard to get up for that.  Meanwhile MSU will get something stupid like UofM, Indiana, and Northwestern. 

We'll beat OSU in the last regular season game and then be forced to play them in the championship game, reducing the meaning of the game from a week prior.

Ditch the Championship Game while they're at it

divisions and expansion are the worst things to ever happen to the conference.  can’t unwind the expansion, so let’s at least kill the other.

Doesn’t the NCAA require divisions for conferences of 12 or more? Presumably that would be altered?

If we drop divisional format, The Game would almost certainly have to move earlier in the season (RRS style perhaps). It’s not my favorite, but we’ve already completely upended college football in the past few years, so not sure a bit more moves the needle for me.

WRT football, it isn't realistic for most of the B1G East teams to be forced to be in business with the B1G West teams going forward.  The BiG East should be (for lack a working title) called the SEC North and join up, and the B1G West be called the Big XII North (or whatever).  

If (when?) what is called the SEC as of today wants to expand northwards, right now, I see Michigan, tOSU, PSU, Cow, and Wisky being able to belly up to that table.  Those are the facts as I see them.

There has only ever been one division.

I understand the concept but if the B1G were to do away with Divisions, I would much rather see the B1G drop back to 8 conference games with no protected games and go follow a home/away schedule and then rotate two teams. 

As soon as you put Michigan into a protected rivalry with Ohio State, that is a competitive disadvantage not to mention that there could be a possibility of a rematch in the B1G Championship game. 

In terms of the CFP, the number of losses are important. Who was the last SEC Champion to come out of the East? Florida maybe? Georgia has just now risen up but are people wanting to break up the SEC because the SEC West almost always wins the SEC? 

UM - OSU, MSU, NW

OSU - UM, PSU, PUR

PSU - MSU, OSU, UMD

MSU - PSU, UM, IND

WIS - MIN, IOW, RUT

MIN - WIS, PUR, IOW

IOW - NEB, WIS, MIN

NEB - IOW, UMD, ILL

NW - ILL, IND, UM

ILL - NW, RUT, NEB

IND - PUR, NW, MSU

PUR - IND, MIN, OSU

UMD - RUT, NEB, PSU

RUT - UMD, ILL, WIS