Am I the only one who sees Nebraska & WIsconsin on our schedule this year?
Yeah, we have the toughest schedule in the BIG and maybe the nation.
Part of this is Harbaugh's fault for letting ND back on the schedule.
Part of this is the BIG screwing us, like they love to do.
And part of this is Brandon for letting the BIG blatantly screw us on the MSU switch.
The BIG could stop the madness by evening up the conferences, but we all know that would make too much sense. It makes much more sense to have 4 out of the best 5 teams on one side. Just because...
...as soon as the B1G went to nine conference games. UM will never have a season in which they only play six home games.
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But the payout from Jerryworld was $6 million.
Are you talking about? Did I miss an obvious but unwritten "/s" or do you not know that Michigan football contributes a surplus of many tens of millions into the AD budget.
Unless the year is 2012 and your athletic director sacrifices a non conference home game in order to go to Texas to play against a coach who has all the best players money can buy.
OSU AD set up the crossover schedule. We play Wisconsin 6 years in a row while they're good, and then get Nebraska for the next 6 years (after Scott Frost makes them good).
Just the part about the shifting of tides around 2018-2019; but that doesn't start until like 2022, so who the hell knows what will happen by then.
Personally, I just hope that I am alive and lucid in 2022. I am only 44 so the % are on my side but you can't take these things for granted.
That's the first time I've heard that claim. Where did you hear that?
The 2016-2017 B1G schedules (and the beginning of the 6-year-cycle for OSU/Nebraska, Michigan/Wisconsin and PSU/Iowa) were announced on July 11, 2013.
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/071113aab.html
If you look at the conference records of those 6 teams from the previous season:
Ohio State 8-0, Michigan 6-2, Penn State 6-2 (PSU also thought to be trending down in the intermediate-term with NCAA sanctions).
Nebraska 6-2, Wisconsin 4-4, Iowa 2-6.
From that perspective, the crossovers look like the B1G just paired them off based on their strength at that time. I don't think the crossover schedule was any sort of conspiracy, or a plot by the OSU AD. I think it was an honest attempt at balance. Nebraska started to stink, however, so it looks differently when viewing from a 2018 POV.
Frost has been a head coach two years. I think the jury's still out.
a 13-0 team in two seasons. I think he is literallly the ultimate douchebag but you have to give him some credit.
That's misleading. UCF was a good program under George O'Leary, until that crazy 2015 season when the team totally quit on him. They went 12-1 in 2013 and 9-4 in 2014 before that.
It's like saying Meyer inherited a 6-7 team. Yes, that was their record the year before, but their program was better than that.
But he took a team that had quit on GOL and with no recruiting for 2 years and was a top 10 team.
I get what you are saying but you are exaggerating to say that it was a big nothing.
That in the new 14 team East-West, Indiana and Purdue is a protected rivalry, so they will always play. Then they went down the list and gave each school a six-year "always play" rotation, which allows them to then do a three year set of two schools, one home, one away. Then in years 4-6, they invert it, same rotation, one away, one home. At the end of the six year period, they will reassess and assign new dance partners. Do not be surprised if Michigan gets Nebraska as its new always play partner when this set is done.
Even though I think that PJ Fleck will make them much more competative in the future, I'd rather have Minnesota when this 6 year cycle ends. Honestly, as long as there is a new set crossover and it's not Iowa, I'm fine. I don't want anymore games at Kinnick!
Bill or Dave.
Yeah, you don't sound like every other paranoid homer sport fan.
It is kind of funny. MSU has UM/OSU both home or both away every year. Basically the same thing people are saying Delaney screwed UM about. MSU also went to UM and OSU and won to get to playoff...road games are tough, but you gotta step up.
That's four questions. Fortunately we have reasons from the Bacon book and other public sources that have been on the front page here or talked about ad infinitum on WTKA.
1 .Why is Michigan playing Notre Dame on the road this year?
Harbaugh wanted Notre Dame back on the schedule and that was one of the priorities for Jim Hackett before he stepped down. For their part, Notre Dame was meh on resumin the rivalry--they have a new ACC schedule that limits how many rivals they can play in a year, and not to put too fine a point on it but their AD, Jack Swarbrick, is a dick. Swarbrick is the kind of guy who only makes deals where he can say he screwed the other side. And he made it clear right from the get-go that if Michigan wanted to play Notre Dame again that Michigan had to bend over and take it. Schedule-wise it would have been easier for ND to put Michigan on the same home/road split as USC but that would have put them opposite Michigan State and Ohio State for Michigan, and Swarbrick was adamant that Michigan can't have that. It was take it or leave it, and Michigan took it.
2. Why is Michigan playing Wisconsin this year?
In previous schedulings Michigan avoided Wisconsin way more than some other schools; that was part of how the Wolverines got 11 wins in 2011. Now it has come back around, and in the latest-released schedules Michigan plays Wisconsin more than any other Big Ten East program (by two). Such is the cycle when you have "conferences" that you can go years without two schools playing each other.
3. Why are Michigan State and Ohio State both on the road?
Because Dave Brandon pissed off the rest of the conference ADs/presidents by his peacock behavior that they decided to screw him when they redid the schedules with the additions of Rutgers and Maryland. So they made Michigan play at MSU two years in a row (2013 and 2014) to make sure Michigan would have both rivals at home and away the same years. They knew this would be a problem for Michigan's ticket sales in even years, and that was the point. Again, it really was done for no other reason but to screw Michigan. Warde recently tried to get this reversed but to no avail so we're stuck with it.
4. Why is Penn State on the schedule too when Wisconsin can walk to the Big Ten championship game every year?
Rutgers and Maryland were adamant that the divisions be split by geography, not competitive balance, when they joined. The Legends/Leaders split was made for competitive balance, only really screwing Michigan and Ohio State because of their protected cross-divisional rivalry. The geographic split however put four of the strongest historical schools in the East and two in the West, and we're in a period when one of those West programs is in the dumps and all of the East programs aren't.
A tough schedule can be a mixed blessing; if Michigan goes 12-0 and then loses to an 10-2 Wisconsin, that's still plenty to get into the playoffs in all but a crazy year. Also Michigan will be playing marquee TV games all year, and will have tested themselves against some great units on the road long before going to Ohio State.
than your answer (actually quoting Bacon's answer) to the same question in a post from 3-December-2015 (link below).
The 2015 answer was more "Brandon was weak and had no power", today's answer is more "the rest of the B1G ADs were evil and screwed Michigan."
I love how Dave Brandon is the scapegoat for the conference adding teams in 2014 and therefore having the same matchups from 2013-2014. That was unavoidable. Minnesota had to play at Michigna twice in a row and I'm not sure they bitched about it. GA Tech had to play twice in a row at Clemson, we knew that was part of it. Georgia had to play twice in a row at Auburn, now they have Auburn and GA Tech on the same rotation and Auburn has Alabama and Georgia on the same rotation. Are all those AD's incompetent like Dave Brandon, then?
This isn't 20-20 hindsight --- I was able to find a viable solution at the time and it took me about 2 minutes to find. You take these games from 2014 and flip them:
Michigan @ MSU (play instead at U-M. This match-up was at MSU in 2013).
MSU @ PSU (play this game instead at MSU. 2014 was the first match-up between the schools since 2010. The 2010 game was at PSU).
PSU @ Indiana (play instead at PSU. This match-up was at Indiana in 2013).
Indiana @ Michigan (play instead at Indiana. This match-up was at Michigan in 2013).
The valid criticism of Brandon is that he was unable to find this viable solution. If he proposed it, I don't think anybody would have objected. U-M/MSU was NOT the only re-match scheduled between 2013 & 2014 - this solution would have gotten rid of 2 more re-matches.
just some are more equal than others.
tOSU fan here, first time poster, long time lurker. Love the board.
Ten years ago when the Big Ten was not strong, TPTB decided they had to ramp up the OOC scheduling so the conference champion, and others, had a better shot at the BCS championship and best bowl games. At the time, the SEC was top to bottom the strongest conference. Obviously, that is no longer the case. The OOC scheduling (and nine game conf schedule) is a distinct disadvantage for the Big Ten.
I hear the college football media "cognescenti" in 2017 talking about Wisconsin's schedule as "weak" or the 2015 Ohio State schedule as "weak," Yet, Alabama's and Georgia's 2018 schedules are "manageable". Big Ten schools play no FCS teams, yet Alabama will again play an FCS team, the Citadel, the weekend prior to its rivalry game with Auburn. Wouldn't it be nice for you guys if Michigan played Eastern Michigan (at least a G5 team) the week before The Game. It would have been nice if Youngstown State came to Columbus last November after an emotional, come-from-behind win over top 5 Penn State instead of having to go on the road to Iowa City What if Alabama had to go to Columbia, SC last year after it's tough game againt Miss State and before the Auburn game? .
The Big Ten East is a meat grinder and the West is coming along. The "cognescenti" crown Bama, UGA, and Clemson as 1, 2, 3 and they not only have that distinct advantage ("the Committee" is human after all), but they also only play an eight game conf schedule. The "congnescenti" tell us a team can't have two losses and use the last two Big Ten champions as the example. But saying that and crowning 8 game conf teams who schedule FCS opponents 1, 2, 3 is comparing apples to oranges. Let's compare the games teams could lose. I consider games against conference opponents and P5 OOC as games a team could lose. Of course, Michigan isn't going to lose to Rutgers, but stranger things have happened in conf games. Of course, Ohio State isn't going to lose to Oregon State, but when that game was probably scheduled 5, 6, 7 years ago, Oregon State was a bowl team. I give Alabama credit for scheduling FSU last year. They had no control over the fact that FSC sucked or that L'ville will suck this year, but Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, and The Citadel on top of an eight game SEC schedule? Give me a break. UGA plays Austin Peay (FCS), MTSU, and UMass.
I don't think there's any upside to up-scheduling anymore. It's all about the "eye test" now right. I predict UM will dominate Notre Dame. ND lost two of their best O linemen in a generation, a strong RB, their D coord, and how many Brian Kelly QBs have ever been good the second season with that guy (and the QB was average at best last year). You win big, but who gets injured or nicked up in that game that hurts against conference opponents? And the film it provides opposing OCs and DCs to game plan. The same can be said for OSU's game against TCU or PSU against Pitt. There's only downside to these games anymore. We let the SEC embarrass us into up-scheduling as their conference went into decline. If Penn State had scheduled Villanova instead of Pitt in 2016, they would have been in the CFP. If Ohio State had scheduled Youngstown State instead of Oklahoma in 2017, they would have been in the CFP. If Michigan had been allowed to play Eastern Michigan instead of Iowa in 2016, who knows what would have happened.