Is Delany Just Smarter than Everyone Else?
DELANY VS. THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL WORLD
“As Big Ten officials shake up their conference to look more like the ACC, they are flirting with an idea so bad it is borderline laughable.”
“Just leave it alone."
"‘It’, of course, is the Michigan vs. Ohio State football game.”
Michael Rothstein, AnnArbor.com (Aug 22, 2010)
“‘One of the best things that could happen, in my opinion in a given season, would be the opportunity to play Ohio State twice,’ Brandon told Ann Arbor radio station WTKA.”
“No, it wouldn’t be the best thing that could happen. It might be fun the first time. It might be unique. It might be new. And then soon enough, it wouldn’t be.”
“Everything else about it diminishes an event built and maintained for five generations. When you control a 100-plus-year-old tradition, you don’t make decisions based on a four-year television contract.”
“To do so is symbolic of the NCAA run by MBAs, where a projected spreadsheet means more than a history book. It is about selling out a century plus for an overnight rating and then trying to explain it away with specious and short-sited reasoning.”
Dan Wetzel, Rivals.com (Aug 23, 2010)
“No Michigan-Ohio State on a late-November Saturday? Say it ain’t so.”
Dave Miller, National Football Post (Aug 24, 2010)
“Ohio State and Michigan fans don’t agree on much but one thing that they do agree is that the Big Ten should leave their rivalry game alone.”
Matt Murschel, Orlando Sentinel (Aug 25, 2010)
“... I’m extremely wary of gerrymandering divisions in a way that could reduce the juice of a lot of natural rivalries. The main argument … is for ‘competitive balance’, yet trying to guess what would be the most ‘balanced’ divisional alignment is a losing cause. The ACC attempted to do this by putting Florida State and Miami into separate division and then blindly drawing the names of the other schools out of a hat. The football gods voiced their disapproval by not allowing a Florida State-Miami ACC championship game occur even once so far even though the conference clearly jerry-rigged its divisions to do exactly that. The much-aligned and soon-to-be-defunct Big 12 North was actually the much stronger division in the Big 12 for the first several years of that conference’s existence. Meanwhile, the SEC was perfectly fine with having Florida, Tennessee and Georgia in national title contention at the same time while in the same division. With football play on the field being so cyclical, a divisional alignment that creates strong natural geographic rivalries is better in the long-term than trying to force an alignment that looks like a TV executive searching for short-term ad dollars put it together.”
Frank the Tank, Frank the Tank’s Slant (Jul 27, 2010)
“Depending on your perspective, moving the traditional hate-fest up to facilitate a more palatable, profitable OSU-Michigan rematch in the new Big Ten Championship Game, is either a) The inevitable march of progress, or b) Armageddon, facilitated by whores.”
“It's a stark divide: On one side, 75 years of tradition – the Gold Pants, swimming (and peeing) in Mirror Lake, the Ten-Year War, Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson – squares off against, essentially, a straight money grab.”
“Because I have a soul, I've already firmly aligned myself with the ‘Armageddon’ crowd made up of those of us who can’t stand the thought of one side telling the other in mid-October, ‘We'll see you again when it really matters.’”
Matt Hinton, Dr. Saturday (Aug 25, 2010)
“I think they’re absolutely insane if they move The Game and they don’t put them in the same division. I think it’s insane!”
Beano Cook, ESPN (Aug 25, 2010)
August 26th, 2010 at 5:36 AM ^
Not at this. And it's not like they can just change it back unless they use more big ten additions as a chance to shake up the divisions and re-introduce The Game as The Game Classic, Coca Cola Style. Would it even bounce back? Hinton makes the best case that it wouldn't benefit anyone, ever, and the only reason to put it up is to make it so some years The Game has really high stakes and the other years it has practically none. It'd just be nice if it didn't seem like it had already been pretty much decided, the way they're slowly giving hints at the alignment, and it'd be nice if they'd notice the seeming uniformity of every outlet there is, no matter how stupid, that this is going to be a disaster. No such thing as bad PR? As if The Game needs it to begin with. They don't have to take off the business suit for this decision, the return (clearly, historically marginal to negative) is not worth the risk (sizeable, permanent) to the conference or any of the individual teams. Delaney has had a slam dunk or two, but this does not make sporting sense or business sense. Maybe they give him the benefit of the doubt? They shouldn't.
August 26th, 2010 at 6:25 AM ^
What I find more interesting are Delany's actual quotes on the matter. He repeatedly uses the word "late" to describe where he thinks The Game should be and specifically mentioned debating whether it should be the last game or "second to last, third to last?". He also described the alignment as being "80% complete", which suggests to me that they're still unsure of exactly what to do with Michigan-OSU aside from placing them in separate divisions.
The point is that this is still an ongoing debate and we likely won't know exactly what's going on for a month. Delany has, in public, been non-committal toward any proposal and it's entirely possible that this backlash will totally alter their plans. Let's continue to make our opinions known while also letting the process play out before we start crucifying people.August 26th, 2010 at 6:49 AM ^
...Delaney told Teddy Greenstein about the decision timeline in an Aug 25 interview:
• Delany said the 30-45 day timetable he gave Aug. 2 for announcing divisions still stands. Day 30 is Sept. 1, the eve of the Big Ten's first games: Marshall-Ohio State and Minnesota-Middle Tennessee State. Delany said it's unlikely the announcement will be made that day.
• While the league is close to announcing the breakdown of divisions, it's months away from naming them. Delany said the league might solicit advice from fans. How about the Bo and Woody divisions? Said Delany: "We need a new logo, divisional names and a name for the championship game."
And here's some additional context for the 80% complete quote:
Delany cautioned that no final decision has been made, saying the process is "80 percent" complete after university presidents and athletic directors have analyzed a dozen models.
So, if you take him at his word, the decison on divisional structure will be announced sometime between Sep 1 - 16. If that's the case, outrage campaigns may be under a severe time crunch.
August 26th, 2010 at 7:16 AM ^
of the customer, us the fans. Not a good practice in any business.
August 26th, 2010 at 7:44 AM ^
That's the first thing I've heard Beano Cook say in a decade that I whole-heartedly agree with.
August 26th, 2010 at 10:06 AM ^
Maybe that's a hint that they should be in separate divisions.
August 26th, 2010 at 11:57 AM ^
that you agree with Beano Cooke probably means you're missing somthing -- time for the board to reevaluate.
August 26th, 2010 at 7:56 AM ^
But here he's outsmarting himself. Even smart people do dumb things.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:22 AM ^
It's called hubris.
The BIg Ten is changing -- the addition of Penn State and now Nebraska along with a championship game make it more competitive than ever before. The conference will never again be dominated by two programs. That's true. So why not give M and OSU something to play for in the regular season?
Unless M and OSU are in the same division, the regular-season Game will never have more than a secondary (if that, depending on how tie-breaks are handled) impact either team's chances for the Big Ten title. Even if they meet again in the title game, it will rarely (if ever) be because of anything that happened in the regular-season game. Don't pretend like putting M and OSU in separate divisions is some kind of genius vision of the future. It's not.
August 26th, 2010 at 2:44 PM ^
x2
This is exactly how I feel about them messing with the rivalry.
August 26th, 2010 at 10:01 AM ^
In fact, I think Delany kind of got duped here. He had big dreams of adding Texas, which undoubtedly would have earned the Big Ten a lot more money than Nebraska. Then Texas decided to stay put, and Delany was stuck with Nebraska.
As a result of our championship game, we'll probably not be getting two BCS teams like we have in the past. And we have to deal with headaches like what to do about UM v. OSU.
Just so we could add Nebraska?
August 26th, 2010 at 10:04 AM ^
Delany has to deal with Penn State, whereas those commentators do not. Penn State is undoubtedly insisting on being in the same division as Michigan or Ohio State, and with good reason.
Delany's options are:
1. Put PSU, OSU, and Michigan in the same division.
2. Split Michigan and OSU. Bet on The Game keeping it's appeal even if they are not in the same division.
3. Throw PSU in a predominately Western division, likely causing irreparable harm with Penn State's relationship with the rest of the Big Ten.
When you look at those 3 options from a non-UM/OSU perspective, it's easy to conclude that #2 is the best way to go. For all our whining, we're not going to get nearly as fucked as Wisconsin when this shakes out (they're going to get thrown in the East, separating them from their two rivals, and a potential one in Nebraska).
August 26th, 2010 at 10:11 AM ^
In terms of historical programs, #1 might be bad, but if we are talking about the strength of the divisions, it has been shown multiple times on here that the two divisions would be even.
August 26th, 2010 at 10:20 AM ^
Do you have a link to where it is shown that a Michigan/OSU/PSU division is not significantly stronger than the other division? I do not read that many threads on this board. Hopefully they do not take Minnesota's pre-WWII national titles into account ;)
My other concern would be that Penn State's Big Ten history is skewed by the fact that they have been handicapped in recruiting for the last decade by their zombie head coach. In the long run, their football program should be on par with OSU.
August 26th, 2010 at 10:44 AM ^
If Alvarez is correct when he says Iowa and Wisconsin won't be in the same division, then option 1 certainly won't fly from a competitive balance perspective. You either get PSU, OSU, U-M, and Iowa or PSU, OSU, U-M, and Wisconsin in one division.
One point about Frank the Tank's comments in the OP: If the ACC or Big 12 discovered at some point that their divisional alignment wasn't working, why didn't they (or don't they in the case of the ACC) come up with a different plan and implement a realignment?
Also, one way to solve the PSU dilemma is to add a couple more teams from the east. And if the Big Ten does expand again, all of this current consternation over divisions and the Michigan-OSU game may have been much ado about what--two or three seasons of Big Ten play?
August 26th, 2010 at 10:19 AM ^
Every time I read these headlines I can't contain my frustration. I don't understand how Delany believes it to be wise to water down the conference's only nationally relevant rivalry. It is the only rivalry that means anything to anyone outside of the conference and I think that has a lot to do with the "think how much money we could make if they played twice" line of thinking. People on the outside looking in may not understand but it makes me sick to think about playing The Game in October.
August 26th, 2010 at 11:10 AM ^
Until something happens, it is all rumors. Just wait for god sakes instead of bashing what could potentially be simply a shadow
August 26th, 2010 at 2:40 PM ^
Michigan and Ohio st players should boycott the game if it's moved from the last game of the regular season. I hate Jim Delaney. If it's not broke don't fix it.