RIP Michigan-Minnesota rivalry

The Little Brown Jug game has always been special to me because it seemed to happen around my birthday a lot when I was a kid. So this is pretty disappointing.

That really sucks. Yes, that rivalry was lopsided but the little brown jug has so much history. The B1G and college football care about money, nothing else.

It's the trophy game that spawned hundreds of lame as hell copycats in college football, where other schools picked fairy tale characters or objects at random to play for (Illinois and OSU play for a freaking turtle) that are beyond embarrassing.  

The jug has such a great story and was part of an actual Michigan/Minnesota game over 100 years ago.  Even with the lopsided history, it's a travesty that this game will be played so rarely in the coming years because Maryland and Rutgers had to be added to the conference. 

I really don't like this.  

Convinced wife to move to Minnesota to get kids a good education. Secretly wanted to move to a location I could watch Michigan play football every other year. Wife happy with great schools. Trueblueintexas not so happy with B1G scheduling. 

Our largest comeback ever - down 28-7 in 2003 at Minnesota at start of 4th Qtr (shown here), we score 31 points and beat them in regulation 38-35.  Still can't believe we did that.  

Going to miss playing the Gophers - we pretty much have had their number.  If my math is correct, over the last 50 years, starting in 1968, we are 41-4 against them.  That Brown Jug must get homesick when it has traveled to Minnesota...

In a big conference there are going to be some broken eggs like this.

This stinks because of the Jug's tradition. It stinks for me personally because Michigan at Minnesota is my best chance to see Michigan play in person. I've been here for nine years and Michigan has visited twice. Two more times, I guess. 

It would stink if this were Iowa or Wisconsin, too. It's the "new Big Ten." With a lot of downsides.

Need to mix things up.   The other division is like the participation division.  

I don't understand why these crossover series have to go on year after year? Couldn't they rotate the opponents each year? Or have one dedicated crossover game and rotate the other two? In our case, having Minnesota as the dedicated crossover opponent would make perfect sense. But this is the B1G and we don't have time for rational solutions.

I hate Jim Delany more than I hate ISIS.

I'd rather play B1G West teams than OOC teams, or half the B1G East teams for that matter.

I hope we ditch the divisions soon and just go with 2-3 permanent rivals while cycling everyone else through as quickly as possible.

The current media rights expire around 2023, so if the conferences realign in response, these schedules might not be permanent.

Silver lining: the jug's not going anywhere for a while?

Yes, this sucks.

So does the flip in the schedule that has us on the same home/away schedule for MSU and OSU.

And while I agree that the Little Brown Jug ought to have more significance than what the schedule dictates, think of how shitty it must be, to be a history-devoted fan of Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue or Iowa, all of whom have been in the Big Ten Conference since before the year 1900, and yet they all play in a different division from Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State. 

It sucks, and I don't care what it means to the conference in terms of revenue, or cable tv packages or anything else.

Your grandfather's rivalry, really.

Well, at least we got a New Jersey recruiting pipeline out of the deal.

The BIG needs to implement the roommate switch!

The pods would be: Mich-OSU-MSU, PSU-Rut-Maryland, Ill-NW-IU-PU, and Neb-Iowa-Minn-Wisc

At least Minnesota will be able to say "We only lost to Michigan twice in the last 8 seasons"

I really like this rivalry, because it's 

a) organic,

b) good natured on both sides (except when Minn. is coached to headhunt, but nvm), and

c) enduring

Anyone else get REALLY nervous every time an adrenaline-and-endorphines-wracked football player grabs The Little Brown Jug?? That thing has to be getting fragile...

New students are going to be walking down South University, see The Little Brown Jug, and think, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

To fix, why can't we:

1.  Schedule an extra conference game every year?

2.  Schedule them as a "non-conference" game.

It's a game that must happen....

They may care. I don’t. 

That sucks. The B1G conference sucks. We added two shitty schools it Rutgers and Maryland just so the conference footprint could reach the east coast. It’s all about the $$$ at this point. 

Who's dick did PSU suck to get Illinois 4 strait years?

The B1G under Delany just totally sucks.  We get shit on at every turn.  The Little Brown Jug is like one of the best traditions in college sports.  I don't get the B1G's future for protecting the schools as it is just all about TV money and Delany's $20MM annual bonus.

What a Shame....

Great pics.

I would be in favor of adding them to the non-conference schedule over some random MACrifice.

This saddens me.

If we didn't have a 9 game conference schedule already I would be fine with scheduling Minnesota as an OOC opponent to keep the Little Brown Jug tradition.

That's capitalism for ya.

I haven't paid for cable since 2008. I built a cheap linux box and hook it up to my TV. I control it with a wireless media keyboard w/ built-in trackpad. I find streams from reddit. The sooner these cable companies go under, the better.

Nobody gives a shit about playing Minnesota.