U of M thread (in the Lions Forum) :)

[FVD]

I'm pretty sure they'll do what the SEC does, same divisions. You play a home and home with each team in your division, plus one game against each team in the other division for a 16 game conference schedule. As for the conference tournament, the top 2 teams in each division get a bye in the first round.

[Rocky Bleier]

Basketball? Isn't that played during hockey season?

[SeattleLionsFan]

It's the same weekend, but now it means nothing as far as Big Ten implications. They still fucked it up, for the hopes that they will get a rematch the following week once every few years. It's all about the money.

It won't determine the big ten champ, but that was guaranteed as soon as they went to a championship game.

But the conference record is the primary determinant in who makes the championship game.

[gjdodger]

My experience is far from detracting from the traditional matchup, the championship game is just something new to look forward to. Everybody still will care just as much who wins the M/OSU game; the title game is just a whole separate set of history and statistics. Here they still look forward to the big game every year with LSU.

[FVD]

Personally I think they should of been in the same division, with The Game being the usual decider of who goes to the B10 Championship, but its whatever I suppose. Penn St vs Nebraska and Michigan vs Nebraska every year should be great new rivalries.

[chemiclord]

"The Game" has always been a big deal, whether a conference title was on the line or not.

I'm even skeptical that moving it to earlier in the year would have dampened that. The Red River Shootout hasn't exactly suffered from being early in the year, for example.

At the very least, the Big 10 had to guarantee "The Game" would still happen... and fortunately they did that. Keeping it at the end of the season was an added bonus. They're not entirely brain-dead, it seems.

[Cody_Russell]

I think the divisions should have been:
Michigan, MSU, osu, Penn St, iu, *PURDUE!!!!!*
vs
Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota.

Geographically, it makes sense...
Go Purdue, Boiler Up! lol

[nhwbrooklyn]

I think they did a pretty good job dividing the 12 teams into two 6 team divisions myself.

The rivalry "protected" games should get reworked a bit.. there are only like 2, maybe 3, of them that mean anything at all. The majority of teams having random rivalry protected games is goofy.

[chemiclord]

What? How can you be against the FIERCE RIVALRY shared between MSU and Indiana?

[nhwbrooklyn]

That game is also known as the Old Brass Spittoon trophy game.

[SeattleLionsFan]

What would have been a better rivalry game for msu?

[nhwbrooklyn]

What would have been a better rivalry game for msu?

none really.. UofM is the only legit one. They have a nice history with lots of teams (penn st, iowa, northwestern, etc..) but nothing that stands out from the pack. The biggest rivalry MSU has after UofM is not even a big ten school (ND).

I don't see why every team needs a rivalry protected game in the first place.

Let OSU and UofM have thiers... if any other two teems needs one, let them have theirs too, but why have forced irrelevant odd ones for the rest of the schools?

It looks like each school will play 3 cross division games a year... teams without an obvious cross division rivalry game should just have that game scheduled in the same fashion as the other two. If you want to get cute with it they could assign it by the previous years records or something like that.

[chemiclord]

That game is also known as the Old Brass Spittoon trophy game.

Here's a crazy thought... maybe they were considering it more from a Basketball standpoint? Did they mention how the basketball schedule would be arranged?

[nhwbrooklyn]

Here's a crazy thought... maybe they were considering it more from a Basketball standpoint? Did they mention how the basketball schedule would be arranged?

I have since found out the divisions will not be used for basketball. Plus wisconsin is a much better rival right now (though not historically).

[chemiclord]

Eh, so much for that thought.