Big Ten divisions revisited

I remember when the new B1G East and West divisions were announced in April 2013 a lot of MSU fans were upset by it. The common thought was that the West would be better for MSU to avoid some of the powers in the East.

If you felt that way, did last season change your perspective when we beat every conference member by double digits? Or do you still think the West would be the best place for MSU long-term?

Big Ten East: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers
Big Ten West: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin

It's just going to change in 2 years when we add Kansas and Marshall anyway. So whatever.

But, still and always will be a proponent of regular division rebalancing rather than geographical splits to maintain competitive balance. It'll never happen though.

As long as the rivalry against Indiana is preserved I'm happy.

I always liked the way it was set up, even though the East will be a tougher division 90% of the time.

My thought was that to win the conference, you're going to have to beat some very good teams anyway. Assuming that OSU, PSU and UM will be the hardest division games every year, I like getting 2 out of 3 of them at home every other year.

Not to mention that with the playoff system in place now, we'll always have a better SOS than most teams. With our OOC teams (Oregon, ND, Miami, Boise), there is just no argument for keeping us out of the playoffs if we can get through it with 1 loss or less.

Besides, I'm not a "national title or bust" kind of guy. I enjoy seeing good games against tough teams.

Do not like. Granted it has to help greatly with crootin

I want to play the best. We got jobbed, but f it, let's beat em all.

I'd still rather be in the West. I think it would be easier to stay near the top of that division. I'd prefer playing Iowa, Nebraska and Wiscy over PSU, and O$U. Not that I think it is ducking the competition, but I think that those 3 teams could actually be stronger than eastern teams. That being said, we are where we are, may as well sell it nad deal with it.

InTenSity wrote:I'd still rather be in the West. I think it would be easier to stay near the top of that division. I'd prefer playing Iowa, Nebraska and Wiscy over PSU, and O$U. Not that I think it is ducking the competition, but I think that those 3 teams could actually be stronger than eastern teams. That being said, we are where we are, may as well sell it nad deal with it.

I would much rather play Ohio State than Nebraska, but I will definitely miss the mini-rivalries we had with Wisconsin and Iowa. Those games always seemed to be competitive and balanced. Not to mention, I've never been to either school and was looking forward to future road trips there. Probably won't happen for 5+ years now but what can you do?

Maybe TV revenue will help with balance but I still think they will ultimately regret placing the 3 schools with 100k stadiums in the same division.

Another reason I like the East is that we get to play the new schools every year. It seems it would help recruit a kid from those states to MSU if he knows we'll be playing the home town team every year.

Being in Michigan, we need to import talent to field a team anyway. In the west, the only states you visit other than Illinois are states that also need to import talent due to small numbers of athletes.

I'd much rather play in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. Those states are loaded with talent.

WBill wrote:Maybe TV revenue will help with balance but I still think they will ultimately regret placing the 3 schools with 100k stadiums in the same division.

They had to put PSU and Ohio State in the East. Logically, they should have put Michigan in the West (swapped with Purdue) to balance out things a bit, but the conference had to put tOSU and scUM in the same division because of how much those schools realized it was hurting their faux-rivalry to be apart.

Giant Moose wrote:
They had to put PSU and Ohio State in the East. Logically, they should have put Michigan in the West (swapped with Purdue) to balance out things a bit, but the conference had to put tOSU and scUM in the same division because of how much those schools realized it was hurting their faux-rivalry to be apart.

They could still play each other every year, they were going to do it Legends-Leaders setup. The league should be doing everything to make the real title game include the best possible match-up. Not subordinate it to the 1970's version of the title game.

The thing I think is going to be funny is when the conferences default back to themselves. So in another 5-10 years, when the B1G has 20 members in it and then the conference will be split into 2 divisions. The Big 10 division (original members) and the Big East division or B12. The SEC will gobble up the ACC and go back to the SEC and ACC and the Pac12 and B12 will merge to become a super conference.

Giant Moose wrote:
They had to put PSU and Ohio State in the East. Logically, they should have put Michigan in the West (swapped with Purdue) to balance out things a bit, but the conference had to put tOSU and scUM in the same division because of how much those schools realized it was hurting their faux-rivalry to be apart.

Swapping Michigan and purdue seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other

Ted Brogan wrote:As long as the rivalry against Indiana is preserved I'm happy.

I hate those guys more than Evil Frank Clark