Due to COVID this year the B1G season has been delayed and now that it is starting back, it has been decided there will be an 8 game season after which they will play a championship game. With 7 teams in each division that means they will play 6 divisional opponents and 2 cross-division opponents. This is not too different than usual.
What will be different is what happens in the 9th game. It's going to be December 9th and usually, this would be the league championship game. Because of the shortened schedule, they've decided to let every team play that weekend with the 1st place team in each division playing each other, then the 2nd place team, and so on down to the 7th place teams.
This is such a good idea that it's something I really think they should consider doing on a permanent basis. Ostensibly you'd get some really good matchups but the best game might be watching the 7th place teams play each other. It would be a bowl of sorts for teams who haven't qualified for a bowl and a way to end a season on a positive note.
Last season would have had 2-10 (0-9) Rutgers facing 3-9 (1-8) Northwestern. I'm pretty sure I would have watched this instead of the 2nd place game of Penn State vs Minnesota.
This got me to thinking as definitive crowning a league 'cellar dweller' could add a bit of excitement to the league with the addition of relegation. I've seen people joking that the B1G would trade their 14th place team for the MAC champ but that's fantasyland. There's too much money passing hands in the conference and they can't just boot someone to a league that makes $50million less a year.
What you could do is create two divisions that relegate back and forth but if you do that then 14 teams aren't enough. Seven teams would play each other one time and leave you with another six games to fill out a schedule. Of course, teams will want to 3-4 out of conference games and you might want to protect an interdivisional game in case Michigan gets relegated but they are Ohio State's traditional rival. :P
I'd see it like this:
3 - Out of conference games
2 - Protected Rivals
7 - Conference Games
* Note - If your protected rival hasn't been relegated then the league scheduler will match you up against a team in the other division based on league finish the previous season.
What this would mean is the B1G would need to add 2 teams to give them two divisions of 8 for a total of 16 teams.
Who might be good candidates? Virginia has always been a school I'd like to get academically, Virginia Tech is a better fit football-wise. Missouri is a good fit geographically. Texas/Oklahoma would be great but I doubt they'd leave the Big 12. Notre Dame probably won't come either but we should ask. Two other schools that fit into the footprint as research institutions would be Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh.
Let's assume we get Missouri and Virginia. These aren't perfect fits but they should be representative.
Both newcomers would be added to the bottom league as part of their 'initiation' (this clearly wouldn't be the case for Texas, Oklahoma, or Notre Dame).
Based on last years results we'd have a league that looks like this
Upper
Ohio State
Penn State
Michigan
Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Indiana
Michigan State
Lower
Nebraska
Illinois
Rutgers
Northwestern
Maryland
Illinois
Purdue
Missouri
Virginia
The beautiful part of this is the best teams in the league get more matchups meaning games that ESPN, Fox, etc, and up the value of the league's media rights. A side benefit is the teams in the lower league aren't stuck in purgatory forever with annual losses to perennial powers. A traditional school like Nebraska could really turn around the program with a year in the Lower Division. A school like Rutgers is facing lesser competition and allowing the program a chance to gain some pride.
Of course, increasing the difficulty of the schedule means you wouldn't do something like this without an automatic bid to the college football playoffs for the B1G. After all, Alabama has Arkansas on their schedule every year and this league would have no padding which will make it harder to get into the playoffs.
There's another catch too. If the top teams in the B1G play each other every year then that will mean more losses and a possibility of fewer bowl appearances for teams better than their record might appear. This is where the league needs to flex its TV muscle and insist teams from the Upper-Division that finish in the top 6 get a bowl bid. The teams in the lower division that finish in the top 4 get a bowl bid. That would give the league a guarantee of 10 bowl bids. They got 9 in 2019.
Assuming all this happens, this is where things get fun. Can you imagine the matchups? Every week of the season would be a battle. There'd be no ducking good teams from the other division to pad your record. That would happen in the lower division by design and that's ok. It breaks up the monotony and gives every team a chance to shine while giving increased competition in the upper-division that should be attractive to any recruit hoping to get to the NFL.
We'd still have the matchup games during championship week. Using last year as a guide, Indiana would have played Michigan State to see who would get relegated. Nebraska would have played Illinois. Can you imagine the tension in Lincoln during that game? A win by Indiana to stay in the upper-division would be talked about for generations.
The tension and interest in those games would almost surely outstrip the championship games and fetch a pretty good payday.
It will probably never happen but it would be amazing.
