We don’t play Iowa at home again until 2025

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on October 6th, 2019 at 2:32 AM

Michigan-Iowa won’t happen again (in the regular season at least) until 2022 and that game is on the road. 

We next face them at home in 2025. That means will have been the home team in the 3 of the last 4 matchups when 2022 rolls around. 

It also means Michigan will have faced Iowa at Michigan Stadium just FIVE TIMES IN A 20 YEAR SPAN when 2025 rolls around. 

But think of the cable subscribers! 

MichAtl85

October 6th, 2019 at 2:58 AM ^

After viewing our offense the Big 10 decided to put a 6 year hold on the Iowa game?

i don’t blame them. I’m sure viewers were hospitalized after and you just can’t take that kind of risk. 

/s

Id say I’m upset we play Rutger yearly but at it’s the only game the team ever dominates so it’s worth keeping. 

BlueinLansing

October 6th, 2019 at 3:01 AM ^

We hosted Minnesota in 2017, they do not appear in Ann Arbor until at least 2026 with two games in between in Minneapolis.

 

We host Northwestern in 2021, last hosted in 2015, which means by 2025 in 10 seasons Northwestern played in Ann Arbor once.

 

But we get a 4 year string of Wisconsin which we're in the middle of, followed by a 4 year string of Nebraska.  So thats nice.

snarling wolverine

October 6th, 2019 at 10:57 AM ^

Before the current Wisconsin streak started (2016), we had not played them at all since 2010.

How is the league office this incompetent?  Is it really that hard to evenly rotate the cross-division games each year?  

If the answer is "Yes," then don't have divisions.  Go back to the old way of two protected rivalries and a rotation of everyone else.

A Lot of Milk

October 6th, 2019 at 3:06 AM ^

Any scheduling system where one team has to play OSU every year and another team has to play them twice a decade seems pretty jank, especially to have the audacity to say those teams are all in the same conference 

uofmfan_13

October 6th, 2019 at 5:20 AM ^

This. Michigan has been absolutely rocked by this division crap.

We are used to being 1b or 1c to Ohio's alpha. Was it perfect? No. But we consistently claimed big ten title shares or won the conference. The schedules were balanced. 

Now, we can't ever represent our division. So the division garbage along with the dumb scheduling means we'll pretty much never get to the title game. Galling.

bronxblue

October 6th, 2019 at 9:11 AM ^

All of these big conferences have similar problems.  What they need to do is get rid of the divisions and keep a couple of protected rivalries for each team and then just schedule the rest of the teams in a more sustainable manner.  Sure, there will be years where a Wisconsin or a NW don't play anyone of note and win 11+ games, but so be it.  

BlueInWisconsin

October 6th, 2019 at 9:58 AM ^

the Big Ten West is a joke and by extension Wisconsin is a fraud.  They get more or less a free pass to the B1G championship every year.  There are 4 teams in the East every year their are as good or better than the one decent team that Wisconsin has to beat to be the West champion. 

BlueInWisconsin

October 6th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^

how many B1G championship game appearances would M and W each have on their resume if W was in the East and M was in the west.   This has nothing to do with this years game.  Remember when W “won” the B1G with a conference record of 4-4 in 2012?  Michigan’s conference recorded was 6-2 that year  

 

You Only Live Twice

October 6th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^

People predicted at the time, that Maryland/Rutgers, not a good idea, and that the divisions were a putrid idea.

well they were right.

turtleboy

October 6th, 2019 at 10:58 AM ^

Come on, we all know how important it is we schedule Washington, Texas, and Oklahoma to start the season, (WTF really who's idea was that?!) and Maryland and Rutgers every year. 

Ecky Pting

October 6th, 2019 at 11:07 AM ^

It’s even more ridiculous in the SEC Conference conference. The SEC plays only 8 conference games, including one perpetual cross-divisional opponent/rival for each team (e.g. LSU vs. Florida, Auburn vs. UGA). That way, each team plays the other 6 cross-divisional teams once every 6 years (every 12 years at home). Players will have 2 teams they’ll have never seen over 4 years of eligibility, and 4 others only once.

snarling wolverine

October 6th, 2019 at 11:23 AM ^

We next face them at home in 2025. That means will have been the home team in the 3 of the last 4 matchups when 2022 rolls around.

That's not right.

2011 - road

2012 - home

2013 - road

2016 - road

2019 - home

2022 - road

Brodie

October 6th, 2019 at 11:44 AM ^

We have never played Iowa regularly. They joined the Big Ten in 1899 and we have only played them 60 times in 120 years.

I would also like to get rid of divisions and play traditional Big Ten teams more often. But at the same time, many of the teams in the Big Ten West are not teams that we were playing annually at any point in our history. Our relationship with Iowa is very similar to that episode of Seinfeld where George and Elaine realize that they aren't close enough individual friends to hang out without the rest of their group.

jmblue

October 6th, 2019 at 12:45 PM ^

We should clarify this.

It's true that there are only four teams - OSU, MSU, Minnesota and Illinois (yes, them) that we've played around 100 times.  Back when you'd play only seven conference games, those four were on the schedule and the rest rotated.

That said, from about 1970-1992 we played nearly every fellow Big Ten team every year.  There were ten teams in the league, and we played eight conference games (even nine for a couple of years in the '80s).  And then from 1993 (when PSU joined) to 2011 we still played all but two opponents every year, and the teams we missed were a random assortment (everyone but OSU/MSU), not just the teams in the west.

If you're older than about 20, you probably do remember us playing Iowa, Wisconsin and the other Big Ten West schools (save Nebraska) pretty much annually.  You'd have to be quite old to remember the time when they weren't consistently on the schedule.

Now, though, we miss four teams per year, and those four are always in the West division.  We suddenly have six protected games every year instead of two.  That's a huge change.  

WolverineBoy310

October 6th, 2019 at 2:25 PM ^

Divisions suck but they were needed for a conference championship game which is extra money for the conference and gives a better shot at the playoff (which is more extra money). Ideally we could ship Maryland and Rutger somewhere else and use a Big 12 model where the top 2 teams play for the title. Then we wouldn't get the States and us beating each other up for a chance to play a decent Wisconsin/Iowa team with an inflated record.