New Division Names (football)
New Division names are East and West per ESPN starting in 2014
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9191768/big-ten-conferen…
I want to see them have success in the Hoke/Meyer era.
And ND just went to the NC game so add Kelly to that as well.
So I don't discredit their success, I just think it was a hell of a lot easier when Michigan sucked (damn near everyone was taking 4 of 5 from us), Michigan had a coach who liked to recruit elsewhere, Michigan didn't have it's "Michigan" identity, Michigan had the whole practicegate snafu, Ohio had sanctions, Ohio had a fired coach, Ohio had an interim coach, Weis was making a mess of ND, etc.
Again, a win is a win...but if we step back and take everything into account, it's easier to see how they got those wins.
Everyone is "full strength" now...so let's let our nuts hang and see who can man up and compete. MSU isn't getting the recruits they were getting, Drake Harris could very well be a Sparty 3-5 years ago. We're even taking their pipelines (Funchess, Ojemudia, etc.) Ohio isn't giving up the midwest. ND is going hard.
They did well over the past 5 years, but I think they're 6-6 to 8-4 for the next 5 and beyond...until something changes in their favor.
April 21st, 2013 at 10:43 AM ^
Since Dantonio's been there they've had two really good seasons, with 11 wins in 2010 and 2011. The rest of his years at MSU the Spartans have gone 7-6 twice (including last season), 6-7, and 9-4 (a pretty decent year), so, yeah 6-6 to 8-4 seems to be a pretty good bet. I guess we'll find out, but I also think MSU is more likely to win 6-8 games per year in the next few years than 11. Which were the aberration? The 6 and 7 win seasons or the 11 win seasons?
April 19th, 2013 at 10:40 PM ^
April 19th, 2013 at 10:43 PM ^
Sparty fans have to be shitting their pants.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:55 PM ^
you mean more than usual. And this time, related to sports.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:45 PM ^
April 19th, 2013 at 10:51 PM ^
I am literally more concerned with Indiana. They're actually recruiting pretty well (i.e. amazing for Indiana) under whoever their coach is now. Rutgers is going to be a 6-7 win football team forever and ever, amen
April 19th, 2013 at 10:54 PM ^
Rutgers is going to look even worse when they have to play a B1G schedule (East OR West division)...no longer are the playing in the crappy B1G where they could barely get 7-8 wins.
April 20th, 2013 at 10:30 AM ^
Rutgers has more upside than IU. They're the only school in a large, talent-rich state. They could put together a solid program just by keeping local guys nome.
IU on the other hand has to share the state with ND and PU, and it's not even a very good state for football recruiting anyway.
April 20th, 2013 at 12:50 PM ^
Agree on upside. Some kids who want to play in a power conference but want to stay close to home will now gravitate to Rutgers.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:49 PM ^
Indiana fans have to be on suicide watch.
April 20th, 2013 at 12:20 PM ^
From what I understand, most of them root for ND in football, so they probably don't care.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^
The Good: Michigan
The Bad: OSU, MSU, UW, PSU, NE
The Ugly: IA, IU, IL, MN, PU, NW, MD, RU
Big Championship: Winner Good vs. Winner Bad/Ugly.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:38 PM ^
April 19th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^
I'm not sure how long they'll be willing to keep Dantonio if he can't rebound from last year. If he has another 6-6 season, he may be on the hot seat.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:03 PM ^
April 20th, 2013 at 12:07 AM ^
But how do you see them (whether the divisions change or not) in the future now that Ohio has Meyer and Hoke is recruiting Michigan like Carr in his BEST years?
The Drake Harris situation should tell you everything you need to know about MSU...they're going back to where they came from. Michigan and Ohio are DOMINATING the region in recruiting.
There's also that school named Notre Dame that hurts MSU in terms of recruiting.
You ALSO have more and more SEC teams looking for recruits in the north.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:59 PM ^
This is a much better solution than trying to balance it out. Programs rise and fall, but we'll be on the same level of difficulty as Ohio regardless. All we wanted was an even chance, and this is it.
Leaders and Legends, we hardly knew ye. Actually, I didn't know ye at all. I deliberately forced myself from remembering which was which, and my stubborn obstinancy has been validated.
Cheers, obstinancy!
April 19th, 2013 at 11:02 PM ^
Sure, just like some weirdos get a perverse enjoyment out of hemorrhoids.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:10 PM ^
Unbalanced but good for the traditional rivalries.
I was thinking Majors & Minors, but I like your's better
April 19th, 2013 at 11:11 PM ^
It's like that every year. It's a very hard game because they are so amped up for it. However, they will suffer the losses of Bell and Sims greatly. They're already putting their best LB at RB. That's how bad their situation is. Maxwell and the receivers will have to step up big time. We'll see this fall.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:37 PM ^
I think Connor Cook starts.
Recall that Dantonio played Cook over Maxwell at the end of the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. (Sport!)
| Michigan State Passing | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C/ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | INT | |
| C. Cook | 4/11 | 47 | 4.3 | 1 | 0 |
| L. Bell | 1/1 | 29 | 29.0 | 0 | 0 |
| A. Maxwell | 6/15 | 28 | 1.9 | 0 | 0 |
| Team | 11/27 | 104 | 3.9 | 1 | 0 |
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=323640127
I expect Cook to be servicable, which is a significant upgrade from the completely impotent Andrew Maxwell.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:12 PM ^
April 20th, 2013 at 12:39 AM ^
No. They won't be in our division.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:20 PM ^
It will be Michigan or OSU winning the B1G championship. I don't see NE or WI keeping up with the UM's and OSU's!
At least the game will mean something now! I hope Hoke can win more than Urban. If he can you will see Urban get Ill and retire!
April 19th, 2013 at 11:49 PM ^
I think it's either Max Bullough or Riley Bullough that were called MSU's number 1 RB after spring practice. Both are LBs. Edit here it is http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20130412/GW01/304130006/LB-Riley-Bullough-gets-shot-RB
but really, if we were trying out say James Ross or Joe Bolden at RB right now, I would be 100% certain that the position was going to be a tire fire this year. I expect MSU's RB position to be a lot of people running into the backs of their own linemen 2 yards in the backfield
GB. People running into the backs of their own linemen 2 yards in the backfield is called "Play # 1" in Bollman's 1-page offensive playbook.
April 19th, 2013 at 11:49 PM ^
I refuse to recognize these adopted stepchildren from the east coast as legitimate members of our conference.
April 20th, 2013 at 12:01 AM ^
As an Iowa native, in a few ways this sucks. Good for the Hawks getting to play Wisconsin again (that was stupid as can be) but now Michigan only plays Iowa once a decade*...awesome. I've been to the Iowa-Michigan game @ Kinnick dating back to the 90's and even though there were a few breaks from the every other year cycle, once every 14 years* @ Kinnick is loose butthole. Welcome aboard Rutgers, Maryland, and Indiana (which, okay, true BigTen at least). Saying this is analagous to just finding out baseball was on steroids but this college football game is turning into a heaping pile of crap; I love it, but man she ain't what she used to be. "Fear the Turtle" is now a part of the Big Ten mottos.
*Hyperbole, but I'm sure I'm really not far off.
April 20th, 2013 at 12:43 AM ^
April 20th, 2013 at 12:49 AM ^
I'm happy that the divisional alignments don't completely screw Michigan and make Ohio's life as easy as possible, but I'm upset that we still have fucking Rutgers and Maryland in the conference.
Au revoir, Legends and Leaders.
April 20th, 2013 at 12:48 AM ^
April 20th, 2013 at 12:57 AM ^
Ignoring the vacations, of course. Eastern division teams in bold.
- Ohio State 63-17
- Nebraska 12-4
- Wisconsin 52-28
- Michigan 50-30
- Penn State 48-32
- Iowa 45-35
- Michigan State 42-38
- Northwestern 40-40
- Purdue 36-44
- Minnesota 27-53
- Illinois 19-61
- Indiana 14-66
If you give Nebraska that winning percentage through the entire decade (which might be a little high since they had a couple of bad years in the decade), you get total winning percentages of .543 for the east and .498 for the west.
So whether you think this is balanced probably depends on where you think Maryland and Rutgers would slot in. If they averaged 31-49 for the decade, it would be dead even.
Michigan 50-30...
RR error had about 20 of those conference losses.
6-18 in B1G play in three years under RR to be precise. Ugh.
44-12 in seven non-RR years.
Not the most scientific way to do this, but I took a slightly different path - I took the overall records since 2000 and calculated the "average record" and put those into the proposed divisions to get some vague (key word) sense of competitive partiy for these. It turns out that, in this scenario, the East would have a 0.588 winning percentage and the West would have a 0.576 winning percentage in that snapshot. Each division would then have only one team whose average performance was sub-.400 since 2000, which seems fair on the surface.
If they had done the other thing that was considered as well and put Purdue in the East and Indiana in the West, then the divisions, using the same method, are skewed by a good 8% when it comes to winning percentage and the West would have the two worst performing Big Ten teams since 2000. For parity on a broad level, I think these divisions that will be voted on by the presidents and chancellors might be about as fair as it gets from a team performance standpoint if geography is the driver.
Bummer for Sparty. Mark Hollis just negotiated his program to lying in the weeds for several more years. Until such time as hell freezes over, the Rose Bowl will remain a figment of Sparty's imagination.
Im in the minority but I dont think PSU will be down long....yes they have a scholie ding and sanctions...but they have a good HC, tons of resources and a deep pool of HS talent from that region who will still consider playing for PSU... after 2 seasons they will be back competing imo.
ever winning the Big Ten again just went so far down.
Number of times they've beaten both UM and OSU in the same season = 5 (twice in the fifties)
Number of times they've beaten UM, OSU and PSU in the same season= 1 in 13 tries
to play Penn St every year. We have had some classics