Illinois to move to B1G Legends Division in 2014? (Delany denies report)

[chiefilliniwek09]

Originally Posted by Illinifn79

Just glad to have Iowa on the books again

Agreed. Having lived in the Quad Cities for a while, this rivalry is important.

[AutoPoster 3000]

Wait ... the alignment of


Michigan + Nebraska + Iowa + Michigan State + Northwestern + Minnesota + Illinois


and


Ohio State + Penn State + Wisconsin + Rutgers + Purdue + Maryland + Indiana


is precisely a North and South division split, other than Wisconsin and Illinois. Swap those two and you could draw a stright line between them that would pass roughly through Peoria. What am I missing?

[FeelYourPaign]

This seems like a good time to write to the league office and demand that they get division names that mean something.

I honestly cannot remember a single team in either group, as the names are totally meaningless. Two "L" words. Both laudable words, but with no contrast. That's all I get out of it.

N-S or E-W
Obvious contrast. And you get a picture.
Leaders. blehh.
Legends. blehh (notice they are EXACTLY the same?)

Let's do it. Let's be Leaders. Improve this post and send it to all 13 other schools boards. Have the league office besieged by 50,000 letters. Let them know just how much we hate these stupid names !!

The office location is:
1500 West Higgins Road
Park Ridge, IL 60068-6300

[AHSIllini32]

Originally Posted by Groundhogday

Yes, I expect Iowa to be improved, but I still like having them on the schedule. In my mind, they are our main conference rival.

Agreed and Iowa tends to go through cycles. They'll probably have a string of 2-3 good years coming up and then a couple years like this one. Ferentz may be gone by then anyways.

[DrewD007]

Iowa's like a roller coaster. They do well for a couple years and recruiting picks up, but the juniors and seniors are mediocre so they play mediocre and recruiting is mediocre, but then the good recruits are upperclassmen and they do well for a couple years and recruiting picks up, but then the mediocre recruits are then juniors and seniors... and rinse and repeat.

[Sure Shot]

So are we now legendary for our lack of leadership?

[IllinEye]

As an Iowa student from Champaign this makes me very, very happy. Too bad I'll have graduated by the time they make the move over

[Groundhogday]

Originally Posted by DrewD007

Iowa's like a roller coaster. They do well for a couple years and recruiting picks up, but the juniors and seniors are mediocre so they play mediocre and recruiting is mediocre, but then the good recruits are upperclassmen and they do well for a couple years and recruiting picks up, but then the mediocre recruits are then juniors and seniors... and rinse and repeat.

Ferentz' recruiting has been kept alive in large measure because we go into the tank every 4-5 years.

[Dan]

MAP- The New B1G Divisional Alignment in 2014!

Leaders
Indiana
Maryland
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Wisconsin

Legends
Illinois
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern

[Cool Hand Luke]

Just. Win. Games.

It's not the B1G's fault we are terrible at football.

We'll never get past denial and into acceptance.

[THECHIEF11]

New B1G Divisions

[skamin7]

If I was Wisconsin I would be pissed that they would have to travel so much to the east coast. They should just swap Wisconsin and Michigan St. They are pretty much equal and then we can do the East vs. West. I hate losing that boarder battle.

[illinifan4249]

This would make us lose one of our trophy games right? I mean we would only have 2 crossovers on a 8 game schedule and we wouldn't play Purdont and Ohio State everyyear so we would have to drop one of them. The only way I could possibly be happy with this would be 9 league games and even then we only play the other teams once every 5 years.

[kgwasmyfavorite]

Originally Posted by Dan

MAP- The New B1G Divisional Alignment in 2014!

Leaders
Indiana
Maryland
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
Wisconsin

Legends
Illinois
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern

Why wouldn't they just switch us and Wisky for a clear geographic line? Making conferences based on who is hot this minute is short sighted. These "balances of power" are surely going to ebb and flow. Shoot, if MD ever starts to recruit D.C. or Rutgers starts to out recruit PedSU in N.J...watch out!

[illinihawk16]

Originally Posted by IllinEye

As an Iowa student from Champaign this makes me very, very happy. Too bad I'll have graduated by the time they make the move over

As an Illinois student born in Iowa City, I share your thoughts

[illinichick]

Originally Posted by AutoPoster 3000

Wait ... the alignment of


Michigan + Nebraska + Iowa + Michigan State + Northwestern + Minnesota + Illinois


and


Ohio State + Penn State + Wisconsin + Rutgers + Purdue + Maryland + Indiana


is precisely a North and South division split, other than Wisconsin and Illinois. Swap those two and you could draw a stright line between them that would pass roughly through Peoria. What am I missing?

This makes sense to me too. Why not do it that way? Then at least there's some geographical logic. I do not like being the school that gets juggled around.

[troyk]

This move is just awful. Just awful. This is the death of traditional Illinois football.

I'm trying not to be dramatic about this, but I don't see how we came out anywhere but behind here. And we are already playing with half a deck. Wisky just drew an Ace and we drew a deuce.



We lose the game against tOSU (which is a loss but draws people to the stands) and we lose other traditional games. Now, we face off against a much tougher slate and we'll likely never come up for air but maybe once every 20 years. This is awful all the way around. How does Rutgers and Maryland get a better deal here?

[brosox]

i am guessing that we will get Purdue as our "rivalry" game since we do play them for a trophy every year and OSU, whom we also play for a trophy, will keep Michigan as its rivalry game.

[trevdv]

FWIW, for those of you who didn't like the Terps and Knights move to the B1G, we won't hardly ever face them since we are in the other division now.

[ILL_INI]

Well, if Kevin Plank does to Maryland football what Phil Knight did to Oregon, we'll be happy for the move.

[dgcrow]

Originally Posted by AutoPoster 3000

Wait ... the alignment of


Michigan + Nebraska + Iowa + Michigan State + Northwestern + Minnesota + Illinois


and


Ohio State + Penn State + Wisconsin + Rutgers + Purdue + Maryland + Indiana


is precisely a North and South division split, other than Wisconsin and Illinois. Swap those two and you could draw a stright line between them that would pass roughly through Peoria. What am I missing?

Agree with the "swap" between Illinois and Wisconsin. Wisconsin should be in the same division with Minnesota and Iowa.

Is the alignment now being talked about now official or is there still a possibility that it could be modified?

[deadpool81]

Originally Posted by troyk

This move is just awful. Just awful. This is the death of traditional Illinois football.

I'm trying not to be dramatic about this, but I don't see how we came out anywhere but behind here. And we are already playing with half a deck. Wisky just drew an Ace and we drew a deuce.



We lose the game against tOSU (which is a loss but draws people to the stands) and we lose other traditional games. Now, we face off against a much tougher slate and we'll likely never come up for air but maybe once every 20 years. This is awful all the way around. How does Rutgers and Maryland get a better deal here?

i dunno... we lose the OSU fan draw, but Nebraska, Mich and Iowa all travel well.

i don't see how anyone in either division is going to beat tOSU on a regular basis. Maybe Mich, but they would never put those two in the same division and lose that as a potential match up for the title game.

[AutoPoster 3000]

One could make the argument that the legends gives us a 5:1 ratio of traditional rivals vs. interlopers, whereas the leaders would give us 3:3 (assuming PSU is still considered an interloper after 22 years). I think that makes some difference in ticket sales, present on-the-field performance and competition levels notwithstanding, because people (alumni especially) are going to want to see games against Iowa, Minny, MSU, etc., rather than the new schools. But the loss of the Illibuck hurts. Ultimately, individual program strength is so fluid, its hard to figure out how that factors in the long term.

[CardiacIllini3]

Originally Posted by ILL_INI

Well, if Kevin Plank does to Maryland football what Phil Knight did to Oregon, we'll be happy for the move.

I think UA has the potential to come close to Nike's uni's at Oregon. The new black ops uni from Saturday are better than what UA has come up with in the past. Great uni's can only benefit the BIG.

[carmelillini]

Works for me. Lets play ball.