Divisional Balance in 2017

It is what it is.  The geographical format keeps pretty much all the rivalries contained within divisions (IU-PU have a protected game).  

From our standpoint this is better than the Leaders/Legends setup, where we had a guaranteed crossover against OSU while other teams' crossovers were against Illinois and such.    

 

Is that M and OSU are the big 2; the next tier consists of Wiscy, PSU, MSU, Iowa, and Nebraska; and in the occasional year Northwestern and/or Minnesota show up.  The rest are irrelevant.

 

I think we are reverting back to the natural order.  Next year will be a futher step in that direction.

Some of those QB's leaving may make their team better. Thinking of Minnesota and Illinois. Losing Leidner and Lunt may be addition by subtraction.

That was a long post to not mention Rutgers

"Division balance" is so greatly forged by the incredibly *unbalanced* schedules. Even shitty Minnesota was in the running for division, having not played UM or Ohio and, of course, Pedo got to skip Wisconsin and only 4 road games

Look for this to again determine at least one of the teams in the "CCG"

 

I think the Big 10 should scrap divisions altogether.  Every team has maybe three protected rivalry games, and cycles through everyone else.  The championship game matches up the top two teams, period.

No worry about geographical imbalance, no worry about the 4th or 5th best team getting into the title game, no worry about not playing a conference opponent for six years at a time.

I mean yeah next year might not be great but I wouldn't call it an abomination yet...

Unless you are a national brand like Notre Dame and can recruit nationally the west division will always have trouble competing with the east in the modern era.  The internet, recruiting websites, etc. has only made the rich richer and made it even harder for schools from less talent-rich states to keep the few stars they have.  Iowa, Nebraska, Wiscy, etc. just don't have a lot of talent and so far these schools haven't done a great job at recruiting 4 and 5-star talent from outside of their home states.  Assuming that trend continues and UM, OSU, ND, and PSU continue to recruit well, there just isn't enough talent to go around.

If you want divisional balance expand with OU and UT. The end.

You want to go back to Dave Brandon's and Jim Delany's "Competitive Balance"??  

Leaders and Legends 2.0??

That's a total fool's errand.

We are better off with the set up we have now.  It ain't broke.

If MSU wants to flee to the West in exchange for Purdue, I could live with that.  But don't expect a crossover game with us every single year, MSU.  We'll get to you when we get to you.

 

Divisions are the dumbest thing ever to happen to college football.  And that's saying something.

I feel if Nebraska can return to the Osborne days, they can be a balance to Michigan/OSU in the East. Wisconsin has not really been elite (NC contender) in my lifetime. Same for Iowa. I also think that the best solution is to scrap divisions altogether.

Beat Florida.

Right, WD?

Wisconsin re loads with OL, imo won't matter who their RB is, will be good as a product of the system. I love seeing us get linemen with Wisconsin offers more than any other school sans bama and osu (to keep them away from osu)

It's going to be like this for the foreseeable future. The West has about 2 semi competitive teams a year, three if you think Riley can actually make it work in Nebraska and isn't just a nice guy. The east is going to have something like 4 or 5 teams who can recruit and compete (sorry Rutgers) and just a gauntlet for the year.

Who cares?