Dear NCAA,
As college football fans look at our calendars and see that the date is currently Nov. 27 (Happy Thanksgiving everyone, by the way), we realize that there is still a lot to be decided in college football.
For instance, Alabama and Florida are already all set to meet in the SEC Championship game, and it will more than likely decide who represents the conference in the national title game, and who will go to the Sugar Bowl instead.
Also, you have an ACC race that is still completely up in the air, and a Big 12 South that is rife with controversy over who should represent it in the conference title game against Missouri.
Finally, you have Notre Dame, who is just looking to coast into the Sun Bowl, but they have an enormous roadblock called USC in their way.
These issues, for the most part, will take two weeks to sort out. What are these two weeks lacking? The answer is Big Ten football, and I don’t like it.
This conference is one of the Elite Six that comprise the BCS, the system that you have chosen to determine our national champion. This conference has not only sent Ohio State to the slaughter two years running against Florida and LSU, but it also sent Illinois to get pulverized by a USC team that some people thought should have been in the National Title Game last year.
The reason I point out these facts is that they don't jibe with the notion that the Big Ten is one of those Elite Six. There are many things that stand in the way of this recognition amongst the American sports-loving public, but one of them is something that should be rectified immediately: The Big Ten should have a Conference Title Game.
This discrepancy creates an unfair advantage for the Big Ten that most other conferences would kill for. Their top team is merely the one that has finished the season with the best in-conference record, not the one that had to go to a neutral site and fend off a team hell-bent on destroying them.
This creates champions who perhaps aren’t as battle-tested as those in other conferences, and the previous two seasons’ BCS performances help back up my point on that.
I am of the opinion that the Big Ten could do itself a big favor in helping restore some of its national splendor if they adhered to the following plan.
First off, let me say that I feel that a conference title game will not work if there are an odd number of teams in the conference. Therefore, part one involves attracting a 12th team.
Now, I know that they currently stand at 11, and that if they have 12 teams they might as well be called the Big 12 Part Deux. However, if they can attract another team to join from the MAC or from Conference USA, they could split into two divisions: an East and a West.
For the sake of my hypothetical arrangement, let’s say that Northern Illinois decided to join the Big Ten. You could split the conference down the following lines.
Big Ten East
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Indiana
Big Ten West
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Northern Illinois
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Obviously, the champion from each division would compete in this conference title game, similarly to all the other ones throughout the nation. This game could be played in many places, including Ford Field in Detroit or at Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis.
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about 1 month ago
A championship game would not necessarily be profitable for all BCS conferences. Remember the ACC Championship game last year. The stadium was half full because partly because the game match up BC and VT playing in Jacksonville. I think the Pac-10 has a fine system in that everybody plays every other team in the conference and the championship is decided during the year. I really don't think that if you have a scenario where a Washington school played a Oregon school in a championship game LA the stadium would be very full and the game would not be profitable to the Pac-10. Just cause it works for the SEC doesn't mean it would be good for all other conferences.
about 1 month ago
Perhaps the Big Ten should add a football only school in lieu of finding a 12th full member. And divisions may not be the way to go. Keep the current scheduling format of 2 annual rivals and rotate through the others.
Look what divisions has done to the Big 12. An Oklahoma-Texas Big 12 Championship Game would go a long way toward improving the BCS. That is one of the points of this article, yes.
The idea of a Big Ten Championship Game a week before other such games is interesting. Notre Dame (if the twelfth team) might even play USC the week after the Big Ten Championship week. That'd be an interesting scheduling situation. I think it'd eventually be played on the same week.
The Pac-10 and Big East are doing pretty good without a championship game. Calls for fairness fall mostly on deaf ears when it comes to analyzing the pros and cons of expanding either conference.
about 1 month ago
Great point, Jim. Also, Illinois State could even fit into the "Big Ten West" instead of Northern Illinois.
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