Future Football Schedules

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#2      
217sports
I think I would like this. It has benefited us but the divisions are too imbalanced right now and will be for the foreseeable future. The current rotations are too long as well. Adding more p5 matchups outside of conference as well adds travel opportunities for us and is better for the sport long term
 
#4      
BZuppke
So if divisions are eliminated no championship game?
 
#7      
Shief
I may be wrong but I bet this 8 game, no division system will work something like this. X team will have 3 guaranteed opponents each year and will split the 5 games against the other 10 teams. Team X will play 5 teams home and home in years 1 and 2 and then the other 5 teams home and home in years 3 and 4. This will allow a 4 year player to play against every B1G team during their time at home and away.

As for Illinois' guaranteed 3 teams, I am betting it will be Northwestern (Rivalry Week/Thanksgiving), Purdue, and Ohio State, with Indiana potentially taking Purdue's place. These games are all traditional rivalry games and playing Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. 2 times in 4 years would be relatively easy to schedule around.

If the B1G expands to 16 team, the process can be repeated with a 9 game schedule with 3 being annual opponents and having the 6 rotating games.
 
#8      
mhuml32
Mr. Roberts said:
14 B1G teams, you play 8 of them in a season and miss 5. How can you have 14 teams in one standings when their schedules will have minimal similarity - you may only have 3 or 4 common opponents?
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This is my concern. It works great for Big XII (current model) when you play everyone. Not as practical when contenders will have obvious advantages based on schedule randomness.

Guessing the extra available game in the schedule would be a guaranteed alliance game. Goes into a pot and you play a random PAC-12/ACC game. This way you can wait to schedule these games to maximize matchup balance. Also wonder if Big Ten would roll back their FCS rule.
 
#9      
NJJ871
mhuml32 said:
This is my concern. It works great for Big XII (current model) when you play everyone. Not as practical when contenders will have obvious advantages based on schedule randomness.

Guessing the extra available game in the schedule would be a guaranteed alliance game. Goes into a pot and you play a random PAC-12/ACC game. This way you can wait to schedule these games to maximize matchup balance. Also wonder if Big Ten would roll back their FCS rule.
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Nothing to worry about, there’s no way that a Kevin Warren type would arrange the schedule so that it would benefit an OSU or Michigan (just to pick 2 random programs). /s
 
#11      
Frontierman
It's not that imbalanced outside of Ohio St. With that being said I've really enjoyed the B1G west. The only team from the east I wish we played more often is Indiana.
 
#12      
Illiniguy74
Shief said:
I may be wrong but I bet this 8 game, no division system will work something like this. X team will have 3 guaranteed opponents each year and will split the 5 games against the other 10 teams. Team X will play 5 teams home and home in years 1 and 2 and then the other 5 teams home and home in years 3 and 4. This will allow a 4 year player to play against every B1G team during their time at home and away.

As for Illinois' guaranteed 3 teams, I am betting it will be Northwestern (Rivalry Week/Thanksgiving), Purdue, and Ohio State, with Indiana potentially taking Purdue's place. These games are all traditional rivalry games and playing Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. 2 times in 4 years would be relatively easy to schedule around.

If the B1G expands to 16 team, the process can be repeated with a 9 game schedule with 3 being annual opponents and having the 6 rotating games.
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I'd prefer Iowa rather than Purdue/indiana.
 
#17      
Shane Walsh
MoCoMdIllini said:
"Which are the Big 10?" Could become a meaningful question.

Or would relegation be to the MAC?
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Illini Football

Thought I heard one of the announcers during the NW game saying Art was going to be out until December. Did I mishear that or is he essentially out all next year? His recovery will take several months. He will miss spring practices, and will try to be healthy by summer workouts. Showed too many...
www.illinoisloyalty.com www.illinoisloyalty.com
 
#18      
illini80
The only thing I’m confident about at this point is that they will screw it up. If only we could add a few more teams, and then not play each other, except some teams every year and others once a decade, then we could crown a true champion and not have to worry about parity of scheduling by divisions. Honest to god, you can’t fix stupid.

Just come out and say all we care about is the money. At least that would be logical and truthful.
 
#19      
Ransom Stoddard
illini80 said:
The only thing I’m confident about at this point is that they will screw it up. If only we could add a few more teams, and then not play each other, except some teams every year and others once a decade, then we could crown a true champion and not have to worry about parity of scheduling by divisions. Honest to god, you can’t fix stupid.

Just come out and say all we care about is the money. At least that would be logical and truthful.
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I'm not sure what this does for the money side of it. Better non-con matchups is better for the money part, but I don't see any additional $$ getting rid of divisions. What I do see is that the teams currently in the East may get "better" schedules by having more games with West teams. It's kind of fun watching the meat grinder of the East with tO$U, scUM, and PedSU all thinking they're superpowers.
 
#20      
illini80
Ransom Stoddard said:
I'm not sure what this does for the money side of it. Better non-con matchups is better for the money part, but I don't see any additional $$ getting rid of divisions. What I do see is that the teams currently in the East may get "better" schedules by having more games with West teams. It's kind of fun watching the meat grinder of the East with tO$U, scUM, and PedSU all thinking they're superpowers.
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I agree and don’t forget MSU thinks they are a super power too. The added games that come at the expense of conference matchups I’m sure are expected to draw a bigger national audience. There is no way 8 conference games in a 14 team league will ever come up with a fair schedule. The divisions with a championship game was as close as it ever would come imo and gives more possible outcomes for the most teams. What’s being talked about is a path to irrelevance for the majority of schools. Of course we’ve been irrelevant for a long time now, but the divisions give us a possible path. I don’t see it with what’s being talked about now. And change for the sake of change is a real pet peeve of mine. Plus I’m old, so I’ve got that going for me too. 😅
 
#21      
NJJ871
illini80 said:
I agree and don’t forget MSU thinks they are a super power too. The added games that come at the expense of conference matchups I’m sure are expected to draw a bigger national audience. There is no way 8 conference games in a 14 team league will ever come up with a fair schedule. The divisions with a championship game was as close as it ever would come imo and gives more possible outcomes for the most teams. What’s being talked about is a path to irrelevance for the majority of schools. Of course we’ve been irrelevant for a long time now, but the divisions give us a possible path. I don’t see it with what’s being talked about now. And change for the sake of change is a real pet peeve of mine. Plus I’m old, so I’ve got that going for me too. 😅
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Kevin Warren: "Well, my job here is done. You're welcome OSU and Michigan."
 
#22      
DaChief4ever
I think it could work ,, similar to the AFC/NFC pro football type schedule. One thing we dont need is another conference formation or another poacher.... ( Univ of Hawaii to become Big East newest member)?
 
#23      
redwingillini11
Played around with the options, but I came up with this for a slightly different 3 protected rivalry option, that has a good amount of geographic, historic rivalry, and SOS logic behind it:

Illinois - 1. Northwestern 2. Purdue 3. Nebraska
Indiana - 1. Purdue 2. Michigan State 3. Maryland
Iowa - 1. Wisconsin 2. Minnesota 3. Nebraska
Maryland - 1. Rutgers 2. Penn State 3. Indiana
Michigan - 1. Ohio State 2. Michigan State 3. Rutgers
Michigan State - 1. Michigan 2. Penn State 3. Indiana
Minnesota - 1. Wisconsin 2. Iowa 3. Nebraska
Nebraska - 1. Iowa 2. Minnesota 3. Illinois
Northwestern - 1. Illinois 2. Wisconsin 3. Purdue
Ohio State - 1. Michigan 2. Penn State 3. Rutgers
Penn State - 1. Ohio State 2. Michigan State 3. Maryland
Purdue - 1. Indiana 2. Illinois 3. Northwestern
Rutgers - 1. Maryland 2. Ohio State 3. Rutgers
Wisconsin - 1. Minnesota 2. Iowa 3. Northwestern

This arrangement keeps the Upper Midwest together, has excellent SOS balance between the four powers in the east, sends Michigan and OSU to the "New York market", and brings the schools with the largest alumni base in the Chicagoland area to play Northwestern. While Wisconsin-Northwestern isn't really a historic rivalry, the regional proximity / fan overlap and recent divisional games between the two make it a good match for now. Illinois-Nebraska might feel strange to some, but its actually been a fairly competitive game in recent years. As an alternative they could match Nebraska with Wisconsin or OSU, but Nebraska has only beaten them once each, and hasn't since 2011 & 2012. So I bet they'd consider matching us with them to make things a bit more balanced. The only rivalry that doesn't make sense is Indiana-Maryland, but this is what you get when you add schools like Maryland and Rutgers to the conference.

If I had to rank our likely protected rivalries:

Certain
1. Northwestern

Very Likely
2. Purdue

One of these
3. Indiana (I imagine they prefer to tie IU to a school on the East Coast)
4. OSU (Illibuck; They may want to make us OSU's "easy" rivalry after UM and PSU)
5. Nebraska (Like I discussed before, its been a good game and they may want to "throw Nebraska a bone")
6. Maryland / Rutgers (Maybe we get stuck with a dumb rivalry with the red-headed step-children)

Very small chance
7. Wisconsin (I'd be shocked if Wisconsin's third rival isn't Nebraska or Northwestern. If it isn't I'd next expect someone like MSU)
8. Minnesota (We could get paired with them if they pair Nebraska-Wisconsin instead of Nebraska-Minnesota)
9. Michigan State (I guess they could pair with us instead of Indiana or Purdue)

Guaranteed not to happen
10. Iowa (I know it makes sense from our perspective, but Iowa has to be locked in with all of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska)
11. Michigan / Penn State (They will be paired up with East Coast schools for their "easy" rivalry games)
 
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#25      
ILL_INI
"One of the issues that has been challenging for a number of our schools is a student-athlete can go through four years and never play at a certain place, so I want to see if there's a way to fix that."

Gene Smith, OSU AD

www.si.com

Ohio State's Gene Smith Expects Big Ten To Stick With Nine Conference Games Rather Than Schedule ACC, Pac-12 Matchups

The Buckeyes already have several marquee non-conference games scheduled, including future series with Notre Dame, Washington, Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Oregon.
www.si.com www.si.com

The alliance scheduling is dead as far as the Big Ten is concerned and probably getting rid of divisions sooner rather than later.
 
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