Slow States

It’s time to wrap this off-season reorg stuff up.  It’s football week and we’ve got football to talk about.  I’ll intro one last recurring topic with a pull from Brian’s apparent last stand against the suits.  One of the smaller reasons he’s in a state of discontent:

In the future you can expect [OSU-UM CCG rematches] to be far less frequent. Michigan will be guaranteed that 1) they play an outstanding Ohio State team and 2) three of the other five teams in their division do not. If the matchup is going to occur it’s going to be the same for Ohio State. The loser of that game is going to have to overcome that deficit against teams that have a much easier schedule.

This was my second and final complaint about the once-popular “West+PSU” divisional split. (The first being that OSU-UM on one side and PSU-Neb-Wiscy-Iowa on the other is not—in this century or the next—anything approaching competitively balanced).

Penn State, if shipped to the Great Plains, would have without question had a locked-in game with Ohio State. They are the only bordering school for the Nittany Lions, and more importantly an enormous television draw.  You need no reminders about the importance of television draw.

That game was going to happen no matter what, and Penn State was going to have to play Ohio State annually, probably lose more often than not in at least the near future, and then compete with a brutal in-division group that got to play their guarantee against Northwestern or something. This was not a fair way to crown a division champion. I completely empathize with Brian here.

Apparently that’s not a problem anymore, though:

Per WTKA, Dave Brandon says cross-divisional games wouldn’t count in the standings except for tie breakers.

The very end of that tweet, offered here separately:

Damnable. #savethegame

11W retweets with comment: “#WTF.”  But pick your point, unfortunately. That’s life and that’s hammering out the details of an expanding Big Ten that we all effectively endorsed (fan and suits alike).

If we move past the (certainly outrageous) (even considering the context) decision to split up OSU and UM, you have to pick between:

1. The game counts in the first set of standings.  Everyone is compared based on record but the schedules are not even.  You get punished for having a guaranteed game against a traditionally powerful program (like OSU, for example).
2. The game doesn’t count in the first set of standings, but does come into play in what I’ll guess is the second round of tiebreakers, after head-to-head.  The game must stand on its own merits, but does still impact your national rank and any 3+team tiebreakers.

I understand both sides, frankly.  Shouldn’t the game be able to “stand alone”? But how long can it stand along when it’s effectively a guaranteed out of conference game? But the Michigan-Notre Dame series has been played early and without an impact on standings, yet that functions as a worthwhile rivalry game.  But Ohio State-Michigan was built on its Rose Bowl impact, on it counting, that’s where the hate started.  But look-back simulations suggest that, in an expanded Big Ten, that’s not a reality anymore.

I lean towards keeping thing competitively equal for fairness’ sake, and that means not counting cross-divisional games in the standings.  There are side effects, though, that I understand.  It’s certainly convoluted.

In the previous post, we noted that after letting Michigan fans take the Global Thermonuclear Freakout lead, Ohio State fans have roared back in front.

The hilarity started with a member of Ohio State’s Scout.com site posing a simple question.

Can Ohio State leave the Big 10?

Would anyone else be in favor of Ohio State leaving the Big 10 if they tried to kill the rivalry by placing Ohio State and Michigan in separate divisions? Would Michigan be interested in leaving with us?

I’m sure every conference would bend over backwards to score Ohio State. I’m sure Ohio State would do just fine as an independent as well. But, truthfully, Ohio State in a new conference would make much more sense than going alone. We’d make any conference rich. And if the Big 10 doesn’t think enough of our status than it’s time to say good riddance.

Imagine the egg on Delany’s face if Ohio State and Michigan said screwed you and joined the Big 12. I’m sure the Big 12 would do somersaults if they replaced Nebraska and Colorado with OHIO STATE/MICHIGAN.

A million times, yes. And a million and one times what Jesse (okay, jesse.) wrote in response. Have fun fighting Texas for bigger slices of pie, and those fancy Big 12 bowl invites. Still, Ohio State could be raking in Beebe Bucks by the boatload. That’s something.

Naturally, such a ridiculous question was met with disdain, ridicule, and scorn by the level-headed Bucke…oh, forget it:

Lets both leave and join the Big 12 North. THE GAME > Big Ten

Let me be clear, I AM ALL FOR THIS. Look out, Cyclones. Subcommandante Wayne is coming to poop in your styrofoam cooler.

Ohio State ought to put feelers out to Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Penn State to form a football superconference. We can stay in the BigTen for all other sports. If the BigTen says no, then so be it. Ohio State can join the Big12 or BigEast in all those other sports and not really skip a beat.
…
In fact, I wouldn’t mind Ohio State approaching the SEC.

The SEC! Dastardly! They’d fit right in with their World’s Largest NCAA Compliance Department.

Oh, let’s just end this.

Ohio State has carried the BigTen’s water most of the last 50 years…..and MIchigan too. I feel pretty damned unappreciated for it. The threat of OSU seriously considering leaving the B10 is the only we can do to stop our ride here.

for football only, I think a move to the SEC would be a coup. As much crap as OSU gets about its SEC record, it would certainly have the chance to set the record straight by playing and competing and hopefully winning the conference.

Personally, I”m not afraid of OSU playing in the SEC.

And why would you be?

Individual Game Results of Ohio State (vs SEC)

Caught part of a Gerry DiNardo interview on Fox Sports Radio this morning on the way to work, and he was hard-selling the Michigan / Ohio State split.  No surprise there, he’s a Big Ten Network personality and is no doubt being dispatched to give the company line.  When asked about the concept of essentially setting up the division splits to promote a possible conference championship game between the Wolverines and Buckeyes, DiNardo was surprisingly candid: “Arrogance is part of it.”

He was also hard-selling the playing of tGame as the first game of the conference season. So, look for that, perhaps? Essentially, the Big Ten is confirming the Little Nine’s fears of (partially, at least) paving the way for an Ohio State vs. Michigan championship game, only they seem bent on doing it in the dumbest way possible.

In today’s podcast discussion of Big Ten division, Kevin mentioned that he didn’t see as much in-fighting among the Ohio State populace as he saw in Michigan’s.  Maybe this will cheer you up, sir.

Elsewhere, Adam Rittenberg is reporting that Barry Alvarez has stated that Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in opposite divisions.

Well, perhaps that’s slightly overstating things, but we assembled the full Slow States team and blitzed our way through a full Big Ten preview. And by “blitzed”, I mean we lazily sauntered through all eleven Big Ten teams and an extended discussion of the ongoing saga of Michigan, tOSU, and tGame.

It’s the only Big Ten preview you’ll need, assuming you don’t need anything factually accurate, entertaining, or informative.

Hype Machine listening links: Deer Tick, The Tallest Man On Earth, download the entire The Choosy Beggars album from the band here.

Albums on Amazon: The Wild Hunt [+Digital Booklet] ($5), at least check out the cover of this one, and The Black Dirt Sessions (full album available for listening on MySpace).

Right click to download the podcast here.  And won’t you join 21 of your closest friends by following Slow States on Twitter?  Don’t cost nothin’.

Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon, workin’ the room:

“The reality is that we, as a fan base, are going to have to prepare ourselves for some changes. There are going to be some compromises in how this works. On the Ohio State-Michigan thing specifically, one of the things that made that game so magical is, so many times, that game came down to being the game that decided who won the Big Ten championship and who went to the Rose Bowl. That’s what made that game very special. That can’t happen anymore. The game to determine who wins the Big Ten championship and who represents the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl will be the Big Ten championship game. So you immediately are confronted with some choices. If you put Michigan and Ohio State in the same division, whoever wins that division will go on to play somebody else.”

Yes, “whoever wins.” Not presumptuous AT ALL for a Michigan program that went 1-7 in the Big Ten last season.

There’s also a mention of “What Would Bo Do?” that includes Schembechler’s dislike for expansion in 1993.

Dear Anybody In The Big Ten Offices,

If it will put a halt to nonsensical tripe like this, just put Ohio State and Michigan in the same division for our collective sanity.  Let them play their game.  And then, let’s agree to stop pretending that time stands still throughout the rest of nation (and conference) during that game.

It was mostly a unofficial rule in the great divisional alignment speculation debate of 2010: Ohio State and Michigan were to play in the same division. Then this happened:

Recommendations and ideas are many, but the preservation of rivalry games has been the most intriguing angle to watch, especially now. Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon told The Detroit News he expects the Wolverines to be in a separate division from rival Ohio State.

According to Brandon, Michigan is “in a situation where one of the best things that could happen in my opinion in a given season would be the opportunity to play Ohio State twice, once during the regular season and once for the championship of the Big Ten.”

The Wolverines and Buckeyes will still play their annual rivalry game, but division alignment will dictate when they play it.

In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State AD Gene Smith confirmed both facts: that the U-M-OSU rivalry wasn’t in any danger, but there is a likelihood of it being played earlier in the season.

Predictable and fair reactions: Michigan and Ohio State fans are not impressed with the surrender to the money grab. (Although I guess to be fair, this whole expansion thing was all a money grab to begin with, and every school has signed off on the process.)

But if you want to be a selfish Penn State fan, there is some good news:

• Most importantly, it eliminates the West+PSU division alignment, which was stupid.
• It keeps Penn State and Ohio State together annually since they are now almost certainly in the same division.
• It softens the focus on the OSU-UM game. I don’t want less attention on the game, of course, but I can see the benefit from the other schools’ perspective—especially with a new round of Nebraska games on the slate.  There’s going to be a lot of good stuff to go around regardless of the split.
• With league games being moved back into the winter, having the rivalries in Octoberish eliminates the WEATHER DEATH that changes the strategic nature of the game and generally levels out talent. This should keep all the people crying about an outdoor CCG content (although I was certainly not one of these people).

So what seemed like the  frontrunner—West+PSU—is dead and I shed no tears.  This still seems like a harmful way to solve that model’s problems, though.