UCLA & USC to the Big Ten

[jay68802]

At least Oregon is not invited. A school that proudly displays the number of National Championships they have won in the middle of their field.

[mostpost]

Adding USC and UCLA plus Notre Dame would make a 17 team Conference.
Three Divisions aligned as follows.
East.
Maryland
Penn State
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Michigan
Ohio State

Midwest or Central
Indiana
Rutgers
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern
Wisconsin

West
USC
UCLA
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota
Plus add another school from the west, perhaps Colorado or Oklahoma or BYU.


You play one game against each team in your division. (5 games)

You play one game against two teams in each of the other two divisions. (4 games)

The rest are non conference games.
Example:
Maryland plays Penn State, Michigan State Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan every year. In year one, they play Indiana, Ritgers, USC and UCLA. In year two they play Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa and in year three Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota and team 18 whoever that might be.

If they never add an 18th team that can be another non conference game.

This alignment preserves most traditional rivalries, such as Michigan v Ohio State, Michigan v Michigan State, Notre Dame v Michigan, Indiana v Purdue, USC v UCLA., Iowa v Minnesota and Illinois v Northwestern.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by Bustin Stones

If you liked watching war protesters chased down Neil Ave, yeah, those were the days. It was an unusual time to be on a college campus.

I forgot about that ……..during that period

I used to watch the protestors walk by my house from the front porch. I was 11-12 yrs old or so. They would be carrying signs and many were dressed like hippies. They would catch the COTA bus (public bus service) about 2 blocks from my house, and head downtown and then transfer to the north high bus at Broad and High. In the evenings they would come back …….

You brought back one weird memory……….

[Bustin Stones]

As an example of how times have changed since then........

Back then, it was considered un American to demonstrate and now it's considered un American if you won't demonstrate.
Interesting story-if you recall the 4 murdered students at Kent State in 1970, my Guard unit was packed up and ready to travel there when the AG told us to go back to patrolling bridges (Teamster strike) and sent an Akron unit over. Now that was a dark day Ohio will never live down.

[geroge.burns99]

I'm not sure but I've read that PAC Teams were getting in the teens of millions...and move to Big 10 is in the 40's....

so yes, it is the money....

[Marshall Bennett]

Originally Posted by mostpost

Adding USC and UCLA plus Notre Dame would make a 17 team Conference.
Three Divisions aligned as follows.
East.
Maryland
Penn State
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Michigan
Ohio State

Midwest or Central
Indiana
Rutgers
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern
Wisconsin

West
USC
UCLA
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota
Plus add another school from the west, perhaps Colorado or Oklahoma or BYU.


You play one game against each team in your division. (5 games)

You play one game against two teams in each of the other two divisions. (4 games)

The rest are non conference games.
Example:
Maryland plays Penn State, Michigan State Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan every year. In year one, they play Indiana, Ritgers, USC and UCLA. In year two they play Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa and in year three Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota and team 18 whoever that might be.

If they never add an 18th team that can be another non conference game.

This alignment preserves most traditional rivalries, such as Michigan v Ohio State, Michigan v Michigan State, Notre Dame v Michigan, Indiana v Purdue, USC v UCLA., Iowa v Minnesota and Illinois v Northwestern.

When you shelve politics, you make a lot more sense.
I like your alignment. I'd like to see a 14 game schedule that would include 2 additional games elsewhere in the same conference, but different division Add a couple more bye weeks and the playoffs (or whatever) would coincide with the NFL playoff time period
I see college ball surpassing the NFL in public interest and viewership. If they'd only harness the dollar greed and allow talent and prestige more the determining factor in how the sport evolves forward.

[Bustin Stones]

The challenge with an odd number of divisions is the playing of a conference championship and limiting that to a single game.
I imagine they'll have no divisions and have the top 2 teams play for the championship.

[Elkchester Road]

Originally Posted by jay68802

At least Oregon is not invited. A school that proudly displays the number of National Championships they have won in the middle of their field.

[zico20]

Originally Posted by mostpost

Adding USC and UCLA plus Notre Dame would make a 17 team Conference.
Three Divisions aligned as follows.
East.
Maryland
Penn State
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Michigan
Ohio State

Midwest or Central
Indiana
Rutgers
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern
Wisconsin

West
USC
UCLA
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota
Plus add another school from the west, perhaps Colorado or Oklahoma or BYU.


You play one game against each team in your division. (5 games)

You play one game against two teams in each of the other two divisions. (4 games)

The rest are non conference games.
Example:
Maryland plays Penn State, Michigan State Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan every year. In year one, they play Indiana, Ritgers, USC and UCLA. In year two they play Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa and in year three Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota and team 18 whoever that might be.

If they never add an 18th team that can be another non conference game.

This alignment preserves most traditional rivalries, such as Michigan v Ohio State, Michigan v Michigan State, Notre Dame v Michigan, Indiana v Purdue, USC v UCLA., Iowa v Minnesota and Illinois v Northwestern.

If there is another school from out west it will be Stanford, no question about it. They have everything except a current winning football team. They would never touch BYU for obvious reasons, just like the PAC 12 didn't. Colorado has sucked ever since they left the Big 12, no way would they ever be considered. Oklahoma isn't leaving the SEC, the B1G should have learned their lesson when they added Nebraska. I could see Oklahoma becoming irrelevant in the SEC. Texas will always be popular even if they have non stop losing seasons.

[zico20]

Originally Posted by Bustin Stones

The challenge with an odd number of divisions is the playing of a conference championship and limiting that to a single game.
I imagine they'll have no divisions and have the top 2 teams play for the championship.

If they get to 20 teams then they will have four pods of five teams. Then it will simply be the best two teams out of the 20 that play for the championship.

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by zico20

If there is another school from out west it will be Stanford, no question about it. They have everything except a current winning football team. They would never touch BYU for obvious reasons, just like the PAC 12 didn't. Colorado has sucked ever since they left the Big 12, no way would they ever be considered. Oklahoma isn't leaving the SEC, the B1G should have learned their lesson when they added Nebraska. I could see Oklahoma becoming irrelevant in the SEC. Texas will always be popular even if they have non stop losing seasons.

Hate to say it but ou runs the risk of being the next nebraska. NIL $ are now the big player in cfb,..Ou has always been the smartest guy in the room when it came to paying football players. That advantage no longer exists ...and the players Lincoln riley stole from ou kind of sends a message on the new world order when it comes to cfb. It's just a different day.

Nebraska... I think Osborne knew his / their days were over by expanding the conference to include texas programs (along with the limiting of partial qualifiers). In their awesome heyday they recruited very well out of California and Texas. The quality of recruits dropped immediately after 1996 IIRC

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by Marshall Bennett

Mega-conferences are a bad idea. Sixteen teams should be the limit. Consider for a moment the number of Division 1 teams that compete for a national title. Many obviously would never be considered, but there exist the possibility none the less. Putting dollar value aside, which I realize is huge, there would be dozens of legitimate contenders with zero chance of getting to the quarterfinals.
College football is probably my favorite sport, and they're on the verge of wrecking it.

Was by far my favorite sport, but I've pretty much given it up. Between the athlete's political stances of 2020 to now these conference alignments that make zero sense geographically, I have lost all interest. I'll still spend a couple of weekends at disch faulk to watch baseball, but the money grab going on for cfb has me turned off.

Cfb no longer has conferences. It has alliances. It's not the same for a lot of folks now

[myohmyjustify]

Instead of the Big 10 looking for another team to add and make it an even 18 team conference, ship off that brainiac school, Northwestern, to the Ivy League instead. That's where they really belong.

[Bustin Stones]

Universities will always look for the greatest funding because cfb and men's basketball fund all the other activities, like fencing and women's field hockey.
The greatest funding stems from tv contracts. Regionalizing conference divisions would be like returning to what we've had. The max money is collected when you have Penn St playing USC because you have both coasts and everyone in between watching the tv. You don't get as many when Wisconsin plays UCLA or Penn St because you lose half the country. But, you might pick up interested viewers if it's a conference match up. That's why I doubt they'll have regional conference division. And if that plays out, you'll have the north vs the south when it comes to the playoffs.
That's my best guess.

[zico20]

Originally Posted by myohmyjustify

Instead of the Big 10 looking for another team to add and make it an even 18 team conference, ship off that brainiac school, Northwestern, to the Ivy League instead. That's where they really belong.

Good idea, but will never happen. There have only been a couple examples of schools getting booted out. Temple from the Big East and Idaho and New Mexico St. from the Sun Belt. If ever a team needed to go it would be Vanderbilt.