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How a 20 Team Big Ten Conference Could Work

-1 HS
macdaddybuckeyesupreme's picture
May 18, 2023 at 11:11am
43 Comments

It is going to be inevitable, and with inevitability you need to look at how a conference champion will be determined. First you would need to get rid of divisions, this is fine and already being talked about. Ok so now you have 20 teams, how do you determine who plays for a conference title. This is where pods will be needed and instead of a single game to determine a conference champion, you will need a big ten football conference playoff.

SO hypothetically youre going to have 4 pods of 5 teams each . Now to break them down geographically depends on who you add, right now with USC and UCLA you stand with 16, add in Oregon and Washington or Utah and thats 18, and add in two Atlantic coast teams  This is how it could possibly look as while not perfect makes the most geographical sense although Nebraska kinda gets the short end of the stick with travel

Atlantic Pod 

Michigan St, Rutgers, Maryland, *GT *UNC *Virginia *Virginia Tech. * indicates possible additions

Midwest pod

Iowa, Penn St, Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin

Central pod

Ohio St, Michigan, Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota

Pacific Pod

Nebraska, USC, UCLA, *Oregon *Washington *Utah. *indicates possible additions Nebraksa is the closest to the pacific coast so it would be a natural addition to that pod

These could vary depending on who all the big ten decides to add. So now how do you determine scheduling and a conference champion. FIrst you play everybody in your pod so you would have a scheduling model that would give you your 4 pod games every year and then could do a 2-2-3 model where you would be playing every other team within a 3 year period (Dont shoot me if my math is slightly off, this is all hypothetical anyways). 

Now to determine a conference champion, this would be a 2 week tournament with the best teams of each pod, you could use the CFP poll to determine who is 1-4 and then have home games for the first week and then use a neutral site for the championship. This may mean starting the season a week earlier since the CFP will be starting sooner.

Now this gets into the bigger question of well with that scheduling model thats 11 conference games per year, and you would be correct so that means 1 OOC game. Do you then schedule a tune up game or a big boy. Well with the expanded CFP you could schedule a big boy and use it as a measuring stick game or to get higher playoff seeding position. Or just drop the 12th game have it be an 11 game regular season where you would still hit 13 games if you make the conference championship.

Or the likely scenario is none of this happens because it makes too much sense as a model

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