Conference Schedule to Grow
It makes perfect sense that a conference with 14 members ought to play more than just eight in-league games in a twelve-game season. The cost of extending the season to nine or ten games is fewer home games, and probably also fewer wins for conference teams (since so many easy games are typically scheduled during the non-conference portion of the season). Couple that with the statements by Barry Alvarez that the Big Ten will cease scheduling FCS schools and you should see noticeably tougher schedules all around.
If the nine or ten game schedule were to take effect any time soon (say as early as 2014), Nebraska would be in the position of having to back out of scheduled games. The Huskers have four nonconference games set for 2014 (the "Pelini bowl" against Florida Atlantic, McNeese State, Fresno State, and Miami), 2015 ( BYU, South Alabama, Miami, and Southern Miss), and 2016 (Fresno State, Tennessee, Wyoming, Northern Illinois). The Huskers also scheduled three games in 2019 (South Alabama, Colorado, Northern Illinois).
There was some talk that Miami might back out of their scheduled games with Nebraska anyway, which could help in the event of a nine-game schedule. Going to ten games in the near term seems downright impractical considering all of the reshuffling that would have to take place up and down the conference. The upshot of ten games is you'd actually have a genuine basis for calling your league the Big Ten.
The impact of more games is that fans won't have to wait quite so long to see each league opponent visit their town. With an eight-game schedule and a designated cross-division rival, you would wait 12 years between home dates against a team from the other division. A nine or ten-game slate would reduce the wait considerably. Truthfully though, cross-division rivalries make little sense in such a big league. They create an unfair advantage for teams matched up against perennially weak opponents and keep teams waiting longer to face everyone in the conference.
Still, without designated cross-division rivalries it's hard to come up with a sensible plan for dividing teams into divisions that both preserves valued rivalries and maintains competitive balance. An East-West split might put Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State on the same side, while perhaps ending the Purdue/Indiana game that someone in the Hoosier state might actually care about. Meanwhile, Nebraska and Wisconsin might slug it out in the other division with everyone else playing for third place. Making the teams face say Ohio State and Michigan every year might at least make the Huskers and Badgers work a bit harder to earn a division title.
Change appears to be the constant in college football. Stay tuned.
Austin, TX
2/13/2013
I think 10 conference games is a horrible idea…I’m not even sold on the idea of 9. I get that with 14 teams you don’t play everyone but once in awhile from the other division, but that’s what happens when you expand. That’s the sacrifice. If you can’t handle it, or have the ability to post good match-ups with the new schools, then don’t do it.
2/13/2013
So with 14/16 teams split into two divisions, 6/7 games are the same each year. If you are playing each of the other division teams once every several years, that’s really no different than if they were in another conference, except you have the conference title game available. With the pods idea for a 16-team conference, 3 games are the same each year, and there’s more flexibility on rotation. In the big picture, it makes no difference to me.
Wakita, Oklahoma
2/14/2013
I am in favor of cutting the cupcakes out of your schedule. The more teams you play within your own conference is a great way to find out your true conference strength against all other conferences. It also will tell us which coaches will have their kids ready from the starting gate.
I hope the Big 12 adopts this philosophy, and it should be an NCAA wide policy, in my opinion.
Time to take the training wheels off and ride with the big boys.
2/14/2013
Playing within your own conference does not help a lot in measuring strength against other conferences. I think the UCLA game last season was a good indicator of what to expect - strong offense making a few mistakes, and a defense that couldn’t hold together well for 60 minutes (although the D did a little better the second half of that game, they were still exposed). The final score was pretty close. UCLA ended up pretty good, but not good enough to beat Stanford, and that’s kind of where NU ended up, pretty good but not good enough. But, do remove the cupcakes if possible. So. Miss and Ark St. showed us nothing, really. Good thing we didn’t play North Dakota State.