Pac10 - Big10 Challenge

Submitted by wildbackdunesman on

Basketball has the BigTen - ACC challenge pitting the conferences against each other.

I would love to see a PacTen - BigTen challenge in football. The rivalry from the Rose Bowl is already there and it could encourage better OOC schedules potentially...not to mention a weekend that could generate a lot of excitement and talk.

Here is how I would set it up:
1) All of the games played the same weekend, perhaps the 3rd week of the season.
2) You would play your opponent for 2 years, once at home and on the road...then they reseed the PacTen - BigTen challenge and give you a new opponent to play again for 2 years.
3) The #1 team in each conference faces each other for 2 years in a row, with the #2's playing each other and so on, all the way down to the #10 teams facing off.
4) Every year the BigTen gets 5 home games and the PacTen gets 5 home games in the challenge.

Just a day dream, won't ever happen.

Tater

October 20th, 2009 at 10:33 PM ^

Not until there is a playoff system. Besides, the teams involved would all lose money by having one less home game every two years unless TV kicked in the difference. They might, but it would definitely have to wait until none of the teams would risk losing a berth in THE game at the end of the year.

blacknblue

October 20th, 2009 at 11:14 PM ^

If it's gonna happen I say we go after the SEC.

Why, because I hate them and nothing would give me more joy then watching the Big Ten win at least 7 of the 11 matchups on any given year.

And honestly if any conference dominates a majority of the games, I think they deserve the bragging rights they will get for the rest of the season.

ameed

October 20th, 2009 at 11:30 PM ^

If the current conference standings (with a little fudging for match ups) were used you would have:

Oregon v Iowa (P10 win)
USC v OSU (P10)
Arizona v MSU (P10)
ASU v PSU (B11)
Oregon State v Wisconsin (B11)
Stanford v Minnesota (P10)
Washington v Northwestern (P10)
Cal v Michigan (B11)
UCLA v Purdue (B11)
WSU v Indiana (B11)

The guesses I made are debatable but, 5-5 for either conference? This could be fun...

TomW09

October 20th, 2009 at 11:49 PM ^

As mentioned, wouldn't happen. HOWEVA, I think the way to do it would be have the #1 seeds play the #10 seeds, #2 seeds play #9 seeds, etc.

That makes it less likely for the top tier teams to balk at the idea of a potential early season loss. Would probably make for much less interesting football, though.

BlueinLansing

October 21st, 2009 at 1:06 AM ^

them into two groups

1-5 and 6-10

Pac 1 vs Big 5
Pac 2 vs B10 4
Pac 3 vs B10 3
Pac 4 vs B10 2
Pac 5 vs B10 1

Pac 6 vs B10 10
pac 7 vs B10 9
pac 8 vs B10 8
pac 9 vs b10 7
pac 10 vs b10 6

Using last years final standings, you would have had

USC vs Northwestern
Oregon vs Iowa
Oregon State vs Michigan State
California vs Ohio State
Arizona vs Penn State

Arizona State vs Michigan
Stanford vs Purdue
UCLA vs Illinois
Washington State vs Wisconsin
Washington vs Minnesota

The proper way to seed would be to use two years worth of conference standings. (didn't do that here)

Interesting idea anyway.

wildbackdunesman

October 21st, 2009 at 6:17 AM ^

"Would probably make for much less interesting football, though."

I think it would make the season more exciting. The media would be abuzz all week over which conference would win.

Furthermore, if the BigTen was up 5 games to 4, you can bet a lot of Penn State, Oregon, Michigan, USC, Ohio State and etc fans would be tuning in to that final game to see if Indiana could beat Washington State and secure the conference win...a match up that would normally get no attention.

wildbackdunesman

October 21st, 2009 at 6:20 AM ^

I don't think it will ever happen either. However, Michigan would lose the opportunity for a home game every other year...not that big of a loss. We probably should play no more than 7 home games a year anyways.

Plus we might generate more interest in our conference with this challenge that could lead to better recruits and more money. I am sure ABC/ESPN would pay a little more to get the rights to covering the Challenge.

TESOE

October 21st, 2009 at 1:02 AM ^

comish Jim Delaney, how could it fail...oh Jim Delaney...uh nevermind. It will never happen.

The state of the union is weak I'm afraid wrt football. Unless it comes to honoring ND coaching requests to suspend B10 players.

VictorsValiant09

October 21st, 2009 at 5:07 AM ^

I would love to see this happen.

I've been griping the past week about our lack of a non-conference schedule lately (and in the future), and who better to take our shot at than USC? They've had our number, and we're due for a win. (Yes, maybe we need need a year and another recruiting class to even have a shot at challenging them.)

Plus, I can't stand all these USC fans out here giving me crap about our non-conference schedule.

We're Michigan, let's start playing quality competition like we used to do.

willywill9

October 21st, 2009 at 8:26 AM ^

Actually, if this happened, I'd prefer ACC action. Avenge their domination in the basketball challenge. Plus my girlfriend went to Georgia Tech, so I'd love to see Michigan play in Atlanta.