Comparison of B1G East vs West permanent cross overs at the end of the first six year cycle
This season marks the end of the first six year scheduling cycle in the Big Ten since the East and West Divisions were formed. As a reminder, the scheduling formula is that each team plays nine conference games per season made up of the other six teams in their division, one consistent cross division team, and two games against a rotation of the other six teams from the other division. So, at the end of the six years, each team will have played six games against the teams in their division and their constant cross division opponent, and two games each against the other six teams from the other division (one home, one away). The table below shows the matchups for the "permanent" cross over games.
West (record) East
Wisconsin (3-3) Michigan
Nebraska (0-6) Ohio State
Northwestern (3-3) Michigan State
Illinois (4-2) Rutgers
Minnesota (3-3) Maryland
Purdue (2-2) Indiana
Iowa (2-4) Penn State
Total West (17-23) Total East
Indiana and Purdue have only played 4 times because their 2020 game was COVID canceled and 2021 is the last week of the season.
I found it interesting that other than the OSU / Nebraska series, the rest of the games completely equal out. I also didn't expect to see Illinois as the only west team that won its matchup, but it did get to play Rutgers, so maybe that is understandable. I feel like anyone with eyes knows that Ohio State has been on another level compared to the rest of the B1G East over the last 6 years, but it definitely helped that they got a yearly game against a struggling Nebraska program where Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State got tougher matchups. I don't have any grand conclusions, but I thought this was interesting.
If anyone is interested, the next set of matchups for 2022 - 2027 are below. (Assuming the whole model doesn't get blown up)
Michigan - Nebraska
Ohio State - Wisconsin
Michigan State - Minnesota
Maryland - Northwestern
Rutgers - Iowa
Penn State - Illinois
Indiana - Purdue
November 8th, 2021 at 11:27 AM ^
Fitz has won two division titles recently. Frost … not so much.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:29 AM ^
Definitely some subjectivity to that, but over the five completed years of this rotation, here are the numbers.
Nebraska - 0.417 winning percentage, 1 bowl game, 0 B1G West titles
Northwestern - 0.590 winning percentage, 4 bowl games, 2 B1G West titles
Hard to make a numbers based argument that Nebraska was a tougher matchup.
November 8th, 2021 at 12:13 PM ^
In fairness, part of that is Nebraska having to play OSU six times. But yeah, they've not been as good as Northwestern over that span. This current awful version of Northwestern is making people forget how they've been pretty good the past decade or so.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:09 AM ^
Ah, Rutgers-Iowa, Penn State-Illinois & Maryland-Northwestern: matchups that absolutely have to happen every year for the next six. I can feel the excitement already!
The B1G, if it had any brains, could kill two birds with one stone by 1) getting rid of the East and West divisions (as being in the East right now means you automatically play a tougher schedule) and 2) shifting to a "3 game fixed rivals, 6 game rotate" schedule (as that would improve schedule balance & league-wide cohesion)
So for Michigan in 2022 & 2023 it would be:
- MSU, OSU, Minnesota (home and away)
- 6 other teams (home and away)
...then two years later in 2024 & 2025
- MSU, OSU, Minnesota (home and away)
- 6 other teams (home and away)...with 4 of these teams being new, and 2 as carryover from 2022 & 2023 (these 2 teams would not be on the schedule for 2026 & 2027)
Rinse and repeat.
That way, every Big Ten school would play every other Big Ten school at least twice (home & away) every 4 years. It would balance the schedules out more, while also making it so you don't have to wait 7 years until you play certain schools who are in your league. Who's going to give a shit about the Brown Jug or even our world's biggest rival Illinois if we rarely play these teams? We haven't played Purdue since 2017 and they're not on our schedule again until 2023!
For the championship game, it would be the top 2 finishers (with tie breakers, lead by head to head). If that means UM and OSU or MSU and PSU or Iowa and Wisconsin play twice in a row and/or in the same year, so be it. It happens all the time between West and East teams, so no reason it shouldn't happen within certain rivalries.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:29 AM ^
This would be a huge improvement.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:33 AM ^
^^^THIS would be a big improvement over playing Rutgers, Maryland and Indiana every damn year while rarely playing Purdue, Minnesota (for the Brown Jug), and our epic rival Illinois.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:38 AM ^
I think think this is the way to go, but would suggest one change. Instead of 6 non permanent games, make it 5 with an 8 game regular season. Then, in the 9th game, do a "position round" where 1 plays 4, 2 plays 3, 5 plays 6, 7 plays 8 and so on. Use the 1/4 and 2/3 games as semifinals for the B1G title game. I think this decreases the chances of schedule imbalance keeping someone out of the title game.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:51 AM ^
Damn. I like that a lot. B1G should hire you folks.
November 8th, 2021 at 1:08 PM ^
Hmmm...I'd have to see how that would work. If 1 played 4, and 4 won, that might move 4 up to 1 spot in the final standings, and (the formerly) 1 team might only drop to 2. Then you could conceivably have teams play each other 3 times in a season, which would be too much.
Regardless, we need to get rid of the stupid scheduling we have now, so all ideas are good.
November 8th, 2021 at 1:18 PM ^
In my mind, the 1vs4 game is a true semifinal so whoever wins goes to Indy, regardless of standings. (For what it's worth, I would have those semis be home games for the 1 and 2 teams). I hadn't really thought about just counting them as games in the standings. I'll have to dwell on that. Either way, seems like most people agree that a better system is out there.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:44 AM ^
Im good with all that - but i DONT mind not playing Purdue at the moment. Theyre probably at their ceiling, but lets let them come down and then we can play them while Illinois is cooking with Berty poo
November 8th, 2021 at 1:36 PM ^
The problem is that you can't have a continued Michigan v. Ohio State rivalry game. If you are making Michigan play Ohio State every year then that is a competitive disadvantage in regards to the rest of the B1G. It wouldn't matter if the 10 year results of the rivalry were 5-5 or 4-6 but when everyone in the B1G is losing to Ohio State that is just to big of a competitive disadvantage for a small window for the second B1G playoff spot. For example look at this season. Suppose that MSU would not have to play Ohio State this season instead they would play Illinois.
If you are going to do away with the divisions, you cannot have protected rivalry games.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:10 AM ^
Why in the heck wouldn't they put Iowa and PSU together instead of having both of them play the dregs of the other division? It's like they don't even care about having good matchups.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:30 AM ^
They were paired in the first iteration, so they were avoiding repeats.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:22 AM ^
With potential playoff expansion coming I would think the Big 10 would go to an 8 game conference schedule. Zero reason to put your conference at a disadvantage of making the playoff.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:22 AM ^
Iowa and PSU appear to the big winners next go around.
November 8th, 2021 at 11:42 AM ^
Rutgers and Iowa. Penn State and Illinois. Gimme a f-ing break.
Fleck - get to rowin!
November 8th, 2021 at 12:33 PM ^
I hope they blow up the whole thing. Get rid of divisions. Top 2 teams play in the Big Ten Championship game, and everyone who finished with the best record before that gets the Big Ten Regular Season Championship. (if you win the Regular Season outright AND the Championship Game, you should get to be the Undisputed Big Ten Champ)
Scheduling would have a couple of set rivals - say 2, maybe 3 for Iowa's triad of hate. Every team gets 2-3 additional "annual" opponents for four years, such that for a four year span, you'll see 5 schools every year. Then everyone rotates a home and home against the other 8 schools (4 for the first 2 years, 4 for the next 2 years), so that in 4 years you'll be at every campus in the Big Ten once. After four, scramble the annual games that aren't the permanent rivals.
Divisions are the worst. I am surprised the West has hung as tough as they have, but it's still something that the best team in the West over this period is 3-3 with the 2nd or 3rd best team in the East.
November 8th, 2021 at 12:59 PM ^
Yeah I agree. Give everyone like 2 every-year rivals, maybe 2-3 more that you play a few times every 5 years, and rotate through everyone else. Then just have the top 2 play in the title game. It feels like we don't see half the teams in the west anymore
November 8th, 2021 at 2:01 PM ^
We definitely don't - i think it's once every 3 years, twice over six. and the COVID year means that Purdue we only saw once in the six years. We've seen Florida 3 times under Harbaugh - which is more than every Big Ten West team except Wisconsin, Minnesota and Northwestern (and those last two are even).
November 8th, 2021 at 2:09 PM ^
Agree except that I’d like to see all the conference title games eliminated. That weekend should be the opening round of the playoff, played on campus.
November 8th, 2021 at 12:37 PM ^
Great content.
Obviously, OSU gets a big break with Nebraska being so bad. But it's not like one could have predicted that it would be this imbalanced: Imagine being told at the end of the 20th century that Nebraska would join the B1G, that they would be assigned to a separate division from Michigan and OSU to balance the conference, that OSU would draw the straw to play them every year anyway... no one would think that it would be a good break for OSU.
But here we are.
I agree with the "three rival" concept posted above. That, or some of the other potential "pod" concepts that have been floated, would be an improvement over what we have and still allow conference teams to see each other regularly enough to feel like we're in a conference. It would be fair to the dregs, so they'd have no reason to object, and schools like Michigan can still tell recruits in Jersey or the DC area that they'll get to play there while they're at Michigan.
Make the change now.
November 8th, 2021 at 1:16 PM ^
That is a fair point about Nebraska not living up to expectation. In theory, they are the big brand of the west so matching them with OSU made sense, it just didn't work out. The other part that people might not remember is that with the final rotation of the 11 team Big Ten and the couple years of the Leaders and Legends, Michigan didn't play Wisconsin from 2011 to 2015. All of that to say that it makes sense how we got the first set of pairings looking back in time, it just really didn't work out for Michigan.
November 8th, 2021 at 1:27 PM ^
I can understand them thinking that Nebraska would be better than they have been, but I still don’t understand why we drew Wisconsin, who has been the West’s best program. This was true in 2014 when they set up the divisions. We should have drawn Nebraska then.
November 8th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
Cool that they kept the Purdue - Indiana yearly match up.
November 8th, 2021 at 1:22 PM ^
How does Iowa get Rutgers?
November 8th, 2021 at 1:42 PM ^
I just wish we'd get rid of divisions and protected rivalry games and go to a rotating conference schedule so it's fair to everyone and the two best teams play in the conference championship instead of being stuck in the same division. That is what's best for the conference to get the best teams in the best bowls and/or playoffs.
November 8th, 2021 at 3:31 PM ^
I hope Nebraska is elite the whole time and that we still kill them.
It would be wonderful justice to be the one thing that prevented Frost from multiple B1G championships and/or CFP berths.
November 8th, 2021 at 4:23 PM ^
Penn State and Iowa seem to be lucky.