I think you mean removed from athletic department websites, removing from the internet is well beyond the B1Gs power.
I assume that discussions are underway regarding either expansion, removing divisions, screwing Michigan's home/away split again or all 3.
I think you need to add that UM's three "guaranteed rivalry games" will be OSU, MSU, and Penn St.
OSU's will be UM, Rutgers, and Illinois
We will 100% not have Penn State as a protected game. It's not a rivalry, that's recency bias.
I see every team getting 2 rivalries from their current division and 1 former rivalry/trophy game from the other current division.
We'll get OSU, MSU, NW or Minnesota
OSU will get UM, PSU, Purdue (?)
MSU will get UM, PSU, maybe Nebraska
PSU will get OSU, MSU, Iowa (?)
Michigan wins in your scenario. I'd say that they have best relative path of those teams. MSU has the easiest path (no OSU).....but it would be tough for them to have UM, PSU and Nebraska every year (assuming Nebraska gets decent again....strong assumption, I know).
It's a little interesting in your scenario that none of the Top 4 teams in the (current) East would have protected games against Wisconsin.
Wisconsin should get a bottom-feeder from the East.
They'd likely get 2 of the next best 3 in the West, Iowa and Minnesota. So they should get a Rutgers/Maryland.
Strongly agree re: PSU, and think there would be some benefit in de-emphasizing them. Let's concentrate on beating MSU and OSU every year, and keep our sights firmly fixed on getting out of the B1G in good shape for the playoff, and a potential expanded playoff.
i thought illinois was a big rival. just ask them.
I would think that Iowa or Wisconsin, has more of a claim to rivalry, than PSU, which was a recent BIG addition.
Say it again louder for those in the back!
I would think that Iowa or Wisconsin, has more of a claim to rivalry, than PSU, which was a recent BIG addition.
Why Iowa or Wisconsin over Minnesota? There's history with Minnesota and it's a trophy game.
I'd love to have our 3 permanent games be OSU, MSU, and Minnesota. But I think they'll keep the round robin of the West's Big 4 (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska), so there wouldn't be room for us on Minnesota's rotation.
I think the East's Big 4 will each get 2 of each other (we will drop Penn State), and then we each take one bottom tier team. OSU gets Illinois (Illibuck), Penn State gets Maryland. Either us or MSU gets stuck with Rutgers. I think it'll be MSU, because they'll be bitching about something no matter what (and nobody cares when they do). So we get Indiana.
Northwestern also gets stuck with Rutgers, because somebody has to take them. Also I've always thought the BIG should play up the NYC-Chicago rivalry, just to have something to talk about for these teams.
My expectation:
If it isn't OSU, MSU and Minnesota then someone fucked up somewhere.
If it's three, I will be shocked if it's not OSU, MSU, and Rutgers. Someone has to take Rutgers and Michigan and its east coast alumni base makes the most sense (not to mention competitive balance).
Be careful why you wish for, Rutgers is well on their way to being a decent team with Schiano back at the helm.
And their fanbase is really excited about it.....
Obligatory pic, I hope Rutgers never leaves the B1G as I would miss posting these two.
I wonder how that would play out with locked rival games?
Make way for the B1G Showcase!
Go get'em, Seth.
I think Sam is wrong on this one. The future schedules got removed last year when they had to re-do everything after Covid. Once the schedule was released for this year, it was alone. There were no 2023+ schedules listed that I remember ever seeing. Umich used to have a bunch of games listed against Oklahoma and Texas and those stopped being listed on the website at that point, along with all the B10 schedules.
They may very well be making huge changes but I don't think there's any connection to schedules being "taken down".
The Oklahoma and Texas games are still there, they're just on the "future schedules" page. It used to have the B1G opponents on there as well.
I don't think you'll find any history of a 2023 schedule being announced post covid. They just didn't, and don't, exist.
This is exactly right, the conference games used to be listed before Covid. They were removed during the schedule realignments, not recently. I saw a picture further down the thread of what it used to look like, but I looked last fall and there were no conference opponents.
A link to the future schedules page on mgoblue which has in fact been scrubbed of any B1G games, only non-con still on there.
https://mgoblue.com/news/2009/8/18/Future_Michigan_Football_Schedules.aspx
That shows the edit date.
5/10/2019 12:00:00 PM
It was posted two years ago.
Updated 7/1/2021 (Added Washington in 2028)
Updated 4/7/2021 (Added New Mexico and Central Michigan in 2025)
Updated 12/18/2020 (Added UNLV in 2023)
The conference games 100% used to be on here. A coworker and I used it as reference for various conversations about football. Just because the edit isn't documented doesn't mean it didn't happen.
For reference here is that same page from last year, and it shows conference games all the way to 2025.
Future_Michigan_Football_Schedules.aspx
The change occurred sometime in January of 2022 with this note added.
Schedules subject to change; Home games in CAPS
* The Big Ten Conference is currently readjusting future schedules; this page will be updated with solidified conference schedules once they are finalized by the Big Ten.
Right. Those are the old schedules prior to having to re-do them because of covid. You'll note -- Michigan State and Ohio State aren't alternating.
Have there ever been two worse consecutive non-conference schedules than the next two years? Just awful.
Good. No incentive to play anyone.
Other than providing a product that even comes close to being worth the obscene amount they charge to attend.
Don’t quote me on this, but I assumed the conference realignment was loosely tied to the new TV deal in 2025. I don’t think anyone in the B1G is looking at doing it in 2023.
Should be 4 pods to create the protected games:
East Top: OSU, UM, PSU, MSU
East Bottom: Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana
West Top: Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota
West Bottom: Illinois, NW, Purdue, Nebraska
In the pods of 4, each team plays 2 of the others within their pod, plus one of the other from the opposing East/West and opposite Top/Bottom.
In this case, I think UM gets NW with the new rivalry trophy instead of Minnesota and the Jug, but we'll get to play Minnesota every other year anyways without being stuck with Rutgers/Maryland.
I'd rather have Iowa protected, than PSU...but thats me.
I'd rather have Iowa protected, than PSU...but thats me.
We wouldn't have PSU, we'd have OSU and MSU. Only get 2 of the other 3 in the 4 team pods.
That sounds a lot like the NFL divisions. Lets just add two more teams to make four nice even "pods" of four. Each team plays everyone in their pod once, they play all teams in one other division (the assigned divisions rotate each year) and then they play team from the remaining two divisions that corresponds to their finish last year (ie. the second place teams play each other). There is plenty of predictability in the schedule because only two of your teams are unknown until the end of the season. This means that you go two years max before you play a team in the third year and you still get three games to schedule against whoever you want.
Bonus is that the B1G can have a mini playoff where the top teams in each division play for a chance for the championship game.
I actually like divisions, but ours are imbalanced. The B1G West is 0-8 in the B1G Championship Game, losing by a 35.4 to 12.8 margin. I would have Michigan, Staee, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern and Wisky in one division. Ohio, Penn St., Iowa, Rutgers, Indiana, Purdue and Illinois in the other.
So we should’ve just kept the leaders/legends division, got it! Just keep them as is, it is not broke and just because the Pac-12 is making moves to eliminate divisions shouldn’t mean the B1G is ready to jump off that bridge too.
Do you enjoy playing Maryland and Rutgers every year? Even if we trade them out for a Illinois/NW, it's more fun to play someone different.
One of my bucket list items is to see UM play in every B1G stadium. I'd rather that not take 30 years to cross off because I happen to miss the 1 time in 10 years we play @Nebraska.
I might be alone on this, but yes, I enjoy playing MD and Rutgers every year. It's a reward for the OSU, PSU, MSU gauntlet.
It is broken because the West Division is rarely competitive, let alone win the B1G Title Game. I like divisions but I would change the makeup of both divisions.
I've never understood why the B1G announces conference schedules more than 6 months ahead of time anyway. Conferences like the Pac-12 and ACC announce their conference schedules in Jan/Feb prior to the season. The B1G should do the same.
What value is there to knowing now that Michigan (is/was) scheduled to play at Illinois on October 18, 2025? It's not like anyone can currently book flights or hotels that far out anyway. Even weddings aren't planned that far out.
Nebraska, the N is for Knowledge.
Divisions are stupid and eliminating divisions but protecting three games is almost as stupid, even if we stick with nine conference games - that is just too much of the conference schedule set in stone
This is a terrible idea that will make our path to a Big Ten Championship significantly more difficult (likely having to beat Ohio State in consecutive weeks), and I predict we will all hate it within a couple years
It seems like it would have been so much easier to just trade Ohio State to the West for a team to be named later or something simple like that, because I foresee a lot of way where eliminating divisions of any variety could make our path to Indianapolis an even steeper climb in some years than it already is every year thanks to The Game.
I mean, what do you do here? Protect three games and then try to create a rotating slate among the other six to ensure at least some variety (because, for example, I really don't like having to play Rutgers and Maryland at some point every fall)?
I was trying to create a generic schedule earlier (X1 to X3 are protected games, X4 to X9 were the initial six "other" conference games that first year, X10 to X14 are the teams you don't play that year but must rotate in somehow in the future). I am still trying to find a good pattern between meetings.
Somehow we’ll lose Maryland and Rutgers and pick up Iowa at Kinnick every year. They’ll find a way to screw us somehow…