Jim Delany says College Football Playoff doesn't define Big Ten:
Big 10 teams sticking with nine league games.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/25460556/big-ten-commissioner-jim-delany-there-no-plans-reduce-number-league-games-nine-eight
I'd have to agree with their decision. With 6 teams not above .500 there really isn't any need to schedule weaker teams. They already have them. And it's an easier way for them to keep all of the money for that game in the Big Ten.
If they played 8 conference games like God's Conference they would have more teams over .500.
Technically you're right. One more.
The rest would need more than one win to get above .500
Your math is off.
I stand corrected. The Fightin Gophers would have a shot too. And my math was off on the number of teams the Big 10 has that isn't over .500. I said six but it is actually 7. That's HALF the conference. Which emphasizes my point even more that the Big Ten already has enough weak teams already without the need to try and go find more to play. So, they of course could prefer to keep the money in the conference without a major amount of fear that the outcome would be much different than the alternative. So as I inferred insidiously crafty smart on their part.
But to get back to your assertion that the Big Ten would have more teams. Purdue lost to Eastern Michigan. So there is no guarantee that they or Minny would have won their extra cupcake game.
So I would agree to an amendment of your statement to read, "If they played 8 conference games like God's Conference they would might have more teams over .500.
Fair enough?
Yep. 2018 was a down year for the West. If Nietzsche is right, 2018 will be a down year for the West when it recurs.
Hopefully it isn't a trend.
But it's one reason what I thought it would be better to have PSU and Michigan State in the West and OSU and Michigan in the East. You'd have to rename the Divisions to something else because Directional names wouldn't fit.
Personally as I've tried to explain before, I think with the conference's history OSU, their traditionally strongest school, would be most capable of standing alone. Add in Michigan because of the last game of the year rivalry thing. I don't think the Big can depend on Wisconsin alone to carry the flag for the other Division every year. Iowa has managed to hop in there to pick up the slack but sporadically IMO. This year attests to that downyear happenstance you mention I think. But also the happenstance that the division in question need another ringer in it.
So make the West stronger with three potential good teams in Wisconsin, MSU and PSU. It's possible the powers behind the scenes, for whatever reason/s I'm sure there is a lot of internal politicking going on, want nothing to do with PSU 'not' being in the same division as OSU. Or, I suppose I could just be seeing something that isn't there although I'm not really inclined to believe that. It's possible that the Big Ten is/was trying to emulate the SEC West by putting all of their eggs in one basket and thus the glut of OSU, PSU, Michigan and Mich St. All four traditional and actual powers in the past, recent or otherwise, on one side of the ledger. That may be the subtlety you might have missed when I was trying to talk about it earlier.
It's possible that Nebraska is exerting some sort of pressure to actually
be in a weak division in hopes of somehow resurrecting their program. A program whose glory is as dead and gone as the Roman Empire and probably never to be seen again for several reasons. Both for traditional population demographic reasons as well as being for lack of a better term 'a flashy chic or voguish' location. So they are completely happy with only vying with the likes of Wisconsin and Iowa.
Poll
