How Big Ten, Michigan Football could be impacted by division changes
College football could be moving away from divisions and here’s what it could mean for Michigan football, as well as the Big Ten.
It seems at this point almost weekly that some big college football news comes out or is in the works. This time, it has to do with possible division realignments and potentially eliminating restrictions for the conference championship games.
The NCAA Football Oversight Committee formally recommended late last month to remove restrictions on staging a conference championship game. The non-controversial legislation is expected to be passed by the NCAA Council later this month. https://t.co/Or29ptBT9p
— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) May 9, 2022
As we all know by now, in college football, there are certain rules and thresholds that have to be met for a team to qualify for the Big Ten conference championship game. Things like head-to-head, tiebreakers, winning percentage in your division (the East or West), etc.
What does this have to do with Michigan football?
Virtually every conference is considering eliminating divisions. The conversations in many leagues have been going on for more than a year. https://t.co/0MATsOQnU0
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 9, 2022
By now, everybody who follows Big Ten football knows how unbalanced the Big Ten divisions are. It’s pretty much a guarantee at this point that some team out of the East division will win the Big Ten championship game as Michigan football did last season.
If you’ll recall, prior to 2014, there used to be no East and West division from 2011-2013, and 2011 was when Nebraska and Rutgers joined the Big Ten.
It used to be called the Legends Division and the Leaders Division. Then, the divisions were realigned, and 2014 was the first year the divisions were called East and West, and up until now, they are still called the East and West division.
Well, if these conference championship game requirements are tossed (the NCAA set a precedent with rules) the Big Ten (and all other conferences) will be completely free to set up divisions as they see fit, possibly realigning and giving the Big Ten a better sense of balance of power.
Since 2011, which was the first year of the Big Ten championship game, a team out of the West division has won the conference championship only two times, and that was the very first two games played in 2011 and 2012, both won by the Wisconsin Badgers.
Just look at the East Division every year. It is very top-heavy, but it is loaded with at least four teams every year that win 9-12 games in Ohio State, Michigan football, Penn State, and Michigan State.
The West Division maybe has two teams that are consistent every year, with those being Wisconsin and Iowa, and even then, those teams have a down season now and then.
The Big Ten East at least has Ohio State, who, even in a slight down season (like last year) would still win the East Division 80-90% of the time and probably would destroy the West opponent in the Big Ten Championship game.
How this impacts Michigan football is it allows for the Wolverines to not be in as big of a gauntlet of a division with three other potential top-ten teams annually all competing to win the East.
Now, there may be downsides to this as well. Ohio State needs to be held in check, and the conference will still need to find a way to keep the annual rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State going, same for Michigan and Sparty.
Also, in terms of the Big Ten championship game, if the vote gets approved, the Big Ten will make the two best teams in the conference face off every year. This would be more of a BCS-type of system, as a season with Michigan and Ohio State facing off twice a year would be possible. Can you imagine that?!
Overall, the change is absolutely needed, and if all goes as planned, the Big Ten be will free to realign the divisions however it sees fit. Honestly, the only opponent that needs to be sent over to the West is Penn State.
If Michigan football doesn’t play Penn State every year, no Michigan fan or myself would be mad. That might be the only possible way to get the conference kind of balanced because as we all know, Ohio State is a beast in and of itself, so the division will never truly be balanced.
It will still be trickier than people think in regards to getting the division realigned because of relativity, rivalries, balance of power, etc. It won’t be easy, but as long as Michigan still plays Ohio State and Little Brother every year, that’s all we can ask for.
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Michigan fans, how would you like to see the Big Ten realign the divisions? What teams do you want to see sent to the West and/or to the East? Sound off in the comments below!