Going Off on a Tangent

There have been many rumors flying around over the last few months about possible Big Ten expansion.  Figures such as Penn State’s Joe Paterno have openly expressed support for the idea, and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany has expressed guarded interest in adding a twelfth team, or even three to five, making itself a “super-conference.”  While I think this super-conference premise is entirely impractical at the current time, the possibility of adding a twelfth team is a distinct possibility. 

The Good

Adding a twelfth team makes sense on two fronts.  First, adding a major school in a new media market with a significant population would flood the Big Ten Network with new revenue, and make Big Ten television contracts more valuable.  Furthermore, any expansion into a different conference’s geographic footprint would increase Big Ten interest on a regional scale. This is why, if a twelfth team is added, it makes sense to snatch up a Big Twelve or Big East team geographically distant from the Big Ten’s Great Lakes base.

Second, it would allow the Big Ten to have a conference championship game for football.  This would not only increase revenue, but would allow the Big Ten more exposure at a national stage later in the season.  A conference championship game would help avoid the all too common scenario where a team from a conference with a championship game overtakes a Big Ten team in the BCS standings after the Big Ten season has finished. 

The Bad and the Ugly

To the Michigan fan, the most pertinent reason to oppose expansion is the impact it would have on the Michigan-Ohio State football game.  No other fans in the conference, our little brothers in East Lansing included, can truly understand what this game means to this school in its current form.

A divisional set up would create one of two scenarios.  In scenario one, Michigan and Ohio State are put in the same division.  Suddenly, the rivalry that has determined the Big Ten champion for much of the past century is replaced by another game.  This scenario, however, further decreases the importance of the rivalry by making it so that the rivalry game can never determine the Big Ten champion. 

In scenario two, Michigan and Ohio State are put in different divisions.  While this would generate the occasional conference title game between Michigan and Ohio State, a conference title game between the two schools would still dilute the rivalry, forcing the two schools to play each other two weeks in a row—and that’s only if the schedule is rigged so that the two schools play each year.

We’ve seen a similar scenario play out before, with the creation of the Big Twelve and the desecration of the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry. From 1962 through 1988, one of those two teams won at least a piece of the Big 8 conference title every single year.  Since the creation of the Big Twelve placed the two schools in separate divisions, however, it is now extremely rare for the two schools to square off for their traditional late-November game with the title on the line. 

In fact, the rivalry is now contested only two out of every four years, and near the middle of each season.  Even if the Big Ten protected the Ohio State game so that it would be played every year, the loss of conference title implications for the (regular season) winner would be too much for Wolverines fans to bear.  Imagine, if you will, that the 2006 “game of the century” had gone our way.  After a hard fought win over the #1 team in the nation, Michigan would have had to play a one-loss Wisconsin or three-loss Penn State for the conference title. 

For this reason alone, it behooves Michigan fans to oppose Big Ten expansion.  At this point, the most likely additions appear to be either the Missouri Tigers or Pitt Panthers.  Both schools have rising football programs, natural in-conference rivals, and—in Pitt’s case—a nationally renowned basketball program.  Still, the desecration of the most hallowed rivalry in college football is reason enough for U-M President Mary Sue Coleman to veto any expansion plans, unless the current conference format was kept, without any divisional alignment or a conference title game.

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