We've all assumed that a nine-game conference schedule is on the Big Ten horizon because, well, commissioner Jim Delany wants it.
And considering Delany spearheaded the universally applauded addition of Nebraska and has poured cash into the coffers by creating the Big Ten Network, the guy has some political muscle.
But a Big Ten insider warned against assuming that the nine-game slate will become a reality in 2015.
That insider was Delany himself.
"I know our fans want to see more Big Ten games," Delany told the Tribune. "Our TV partners want to see more Big Ten games. But if we can't finance our programs, it's not going to happen."
The way schools finance their programs is by having home football games. Only Northwestern is playing more than one true non-conference road game this season. Ohio State won't leave the Horseshoe a single time.
With a nine-game conference slate, teams would play five road games every other year. So to get to seven, they'd have to schedule every non-league game at home.
And that can be challenging for Iowa, whose home-and-home series with Iowa State goes through 2017, and traditional Notre Dame foes Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue.
Delany did say there's an "excellent chance" that the nine-game schedule
would be approved, though not for a while.
It's a hot subject this week because of the Big Ten's horrific slate of games. The ABC/ESPN family will televise two: Bowling Green at Michigan and Eastern Michigan at Ohio State. Bowling Green and Eastern Michigan aren't just obscure; they've combined for one victory this season.
And yet you'd have a better chance Saturday at Ohio Stadium of spotting Joe Paterno than an empty seat. Same for Camp Randall Stadium, where Wisconsin will host FCS foe Austin Peay.
"It will be a difficult challenge for us," Badgers coach Bret Bielema said, "with Austin Peay."
Considering the Badgers are favored by 43 points, it might actually be more challenging to beat a collection of writers from the AP.
So why the soft schedules? For one, fans don't demand good games, so they don't get them. More than 100,000 turned out for Kent State-Penn State, and the Big Ten actually set an attendance record by averaging 78,444 at its eight home games last Saturday.
"There's been no rebellion by the fans," Delany said. "They're not happy, but they're not in rebellion."
Two more reasons: It's cheaper to uh, hire, Austin Peay for a Saturday shellacking than to bring in, say, a Big 12 school. Ohio State will pay Colorado $1.4 million to visit Columbus on Sept. 24, in 2011 without having to return the favor with a trip to Boulder.
Delany said Big Ten teams are not afraid of playing upper-echelon opponents, as Ohio State (vs. Miami) and Penn State (at Alabama) have proved: "It's about home games. You can bring down the price (of a guarantee) by expanding the pool of opponents."
The final reason: There's simply not enough incentive to schedule tough teams, especially one week before the conference slate begins.
Delany is the guy who helped create the Big Ten-ACC Challenge in hoops. A year after the ACC waxed his league with seven victories in nine games, he extended the deal.
"You know me," he said. "I want to play the SEC in Florida, the Big 12 in Texas and the ACC every year (in basketball). But I don't have any authority or control over nonconference football or basketball games."
Delany also helped to create the formula used for the first BCS title game. After analyzing the schedules of past champions, he concluded that some one-loss teams had been more deserving of the title than certain undefeated teams. He pushed for significant input from unbiased computers.
"And we got pummeled for that," he said. "As much as the public and writers dislike polls, they couldn't conceive of a computer jumping a team with a stronger SOS (Strength of Schedule) over a consensus No. 2-ranked team."
So the Strength of Schedule component got scrapped and is merely a part of the formula that BCS computers now use in evaluating teams.
"People talk about strength of schedule," Delany said, "but they're really into undefeated teams."
That's why the pro-playoff crowd howled last year when Boise State, TCU and Cincinnati didn't get a shot at the title.
And it's part of why this week's Big Ten's marquee TV game features Ohio State and Eastern Michigan, whose coach, Ron English, said of his team's goal: "Hopefully our focus is on playing every snap as hard as we can."
The line on the game is 44 points.
Asked if the situation makes him cringe, Delany replied: "If I say yes, you'll write that I used that word. So you can go ahead and use your own quote."
OK, schedules like this are bad for fans, bad for the perception of the Big Ten and bad for recruiting.
Yup, makes me cringe.
Rather then do what the SEC has done, that is, move SEC games in weeks 1 to 4, so that when the SEC teams play 4 Sun Belt, MAC and lower division teams in the OUT of Conference all at home, they are not all in weeks 1 to 4, so that ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS are willing to televise them. It is sad that people complain about the LOWER Bowls, when 6-6 MSU plays 6-6 Texas Tech in the .. bowl, but DO NOT COMPLAIN about the ABC televising Ohio State and Eastern Michigan in their Big 10 game of the week.
It use to be ABC would carry:
Michigan and Michigan State in the AM and then USC and Washington in the afternoon game.
Now Ohio State and Eastern Michigan in the AM and Stanford and Notre Dame or USC and Washington State in the afternoon game. The Big 10 needs to FIRE all of the ADs and University Presidents who have allowed such games to be scheduled and play their coaches 7 figure salaries, while having to cut departments, furlough professors like they have had to do at UCLA and Berkley, ...
And we know our economy is stuffed, when the largest DEBT in the country, is no longer HOME loans, but STUDENT LOANS!! Sad state of affair, which neither the Democratic or Republican Party are talking about. The Tea Party is not the big news.
The Big News is Student Loans of students matching the salaries of the football and basektball coaches salaries at Big 10, SEC, ACC and Big 12 conferences.
The reporter is RIGHT. The ONLY WAY the Big 10 teams will Change their ATTITUDES is if the FANS speak by staying home. Growing up in the Big 10 country and then going to Grad School at SC, I noticed the differnce in FAN ATTITUDES. The fans WOULD NOT SHOW UP FOR a Utah State - USC game, since the scores were usually lopsided and if they did show, they would leave at HALF Time after SC was up 28-3 or so.
In the Big 10 the Big House is filled to see Appl. St. which actually BEAT the Wolverines. Same with South Dakota BEATING Minnesota!! and North Dakota almost doing the same to Wisconsin!! So while the Pac 10, at least USC and UCLA, fans demand that their teams play BCS OR TOP MWC or WAC teams in the out of conference, the Big 10, SEC and Big 12 FANS do NOT. But when the SEC, Big 12, ACC and Big 10 teams LOSE consistently to LOWER Division teams, like Mississippi did to Jacksonville St, Virginia Tech did to James Madison, and Minnesota did to South Dakota, then I guess these TEAMS and Conferences ARE RIGHT in scheduling these games!!
Clearly the top BCS teams like USC, UCLA, Texas and Notre Dame HAVE not gone down a division to play nonconference games, and do not even schedule Sun Belt and MAC teams.
The Big 10, Big 12, SEC and ACC are NOT in the same league as these teams. Time for the TOP teams to leave the BCS Conferences and form a CHAMPIONS League. No team which HAS EVER scheduled a Lower Division Team should be allowed. But then that means NO FLorida (Citadel, Charleston Southern), Oklahoma (Chattanooga), Michigan (Appl St, ..), Ohio State (Youngstown St), Penn St (Costal Carolina), ...
The BCS and large salaries of coaches have destroyed college football and given us the Big 10, ACC, Big 12 and SEC networks to cover: Florida and the Citadel, Oklahoma and Chattanooga, Michigan and Appl. St, Virginia Tech and James Madison, Mississippi and Jacksonville St.
On the otherhand NBC, ABC carry USC-Notre Dame, UCLA-BYU, Texas-TCU, Boise State-TCU, ...
The reporter is RIGHT. The ONLY WAY the Big 10 teams will Change their ATTITUDES is if the FANS speak by staying home. Growing up in the Big 10 country and then going to Grad School at SC, I noticed the differnce in FAN ATTITUDES. The fans WOULD NOT SHOW UP FOR a Utah State - USC game, since the scores were usually lopsided and if they did show, they would leave at HALF Time after SC was up 28-3 or so.
In the Big 10 the Big House is filled to see Appl. St. which actually BEAT the Wolverines. Same with South Dakota BEATING Minnesota!! and North Dakota almost doing the same to Wisconsin!! So while the Pac 10, at least USC and UCLA, fans demand that their teams play BCS OR TOP MWC or WAC teams in the out of conference, the Big 10, SEC and Big 12 FANS do NOT. But when the SEC, Big 12, ACC and Big 10 teams LOSE consistently to LOWER Division teams, like Mississippi did to Jacksonville St, Virginia Tech did to James Madison, and Minnesota did to South Dakota, then I guess these TEAMS and Conferences ARE RIGHT in scheduling these games!!
Clearly the top BCS teams like USC, UCLA, Texas and Notre Dame HAVE not gone down a division to play nonconference games, and do not even schedule Sun Belt and MAC teams.
The Big 10, Big 12, SEC and ACC are NOT in the same league as these teams. Time for the TOP teams to leave the BCS Conferences and form a CHAMPIONS League. No team which HAS EVER scheduled a Lower Division Team should be allowed. But then that means NO FLorida (Citadel, Charleston Southern), Oklahoma (Chattanooga), Michigan (Appl St, ..), Ohio State (Youngstown St), Penn St (Costal Carolina), ...
The BCS and large salaries of coaches have destroyed college football and given us the Big 10, ACC, Big 12 and SEC networks to cover: Florida and the Citadel, Oklahoma and Chattanooga, Michigan and Appl. St, Virginia Tech and James Madison, Mississippi and Jacksonville St.
On the otherhand NBC, ABC carry USC-Notre Dame, UCLA-BYU, Texas-TCU, Boise State-TCU, ...
The reporter is RIGHT. The ONLY WAY the Big 10 teams will Change their ATTITUDES is if the FANS speak by staying home. Growing up in the Big 10 country and then going to Grad School at SC, I noticed the differnce in FAN ATTITUDES. The fans WOULD NOT SHOW UP FOR a Utah State - USC game, since the scores were usually lopsided and if they did show, they would leave at HALF Time after SC was up 28-3 or so.
In the Big 10 the Big House is filled to see Appl. St. which actually BEAT the Wolverines. Same with South Dakota BEATING Minnesota!! and North Dakota almost doing the same to Wisconsin!! So while the Pac 10, at least USC and UCLA, fans demand that their teams play BCS OR TOP MWC or WAC teams in the out of conference, the Big 10, SEC and Big 12 FANS do NOT. But when the SEC, Big 12, ACC and Big 10 teams LOSE consistently to LOWER Division teams, like Mississippi did to Jacksonville St, Virginia Tech did to James Madison, and Minnesota did to South Dakota, then I guess these TEAMS and Conferences ARE RIGHT in scheduling these games!!
Clearly the top BCS teams like USC, UCLA, Texas and Notre Dame HAVE not gone down a division to play nonconference games, and do not even schedule Sun Belt and MAC teams.
The Big 10, Big 12, SEC and ACC are NOT in the same league as these teams. Time for the TOP teams to leave the BCS Conferences and form a CHAMPIONS League. No team which HAS EVER scheduled a Lower Division Team should be allowed. But then that means NO FLorida (Citadel, Charleston Southern), Oklahoma (Chattanooga), Michigan (Appl St, ..), Ohio State (Youngstown St), Penn St (Costal Carolina), ...
The BCS and large salaries of coaches have destroyed college football and given us the Big 10, ACC, Big 12 and SEC networks to cover: Florida and the Citadel, Oklahoma and Chattanooga, Michigan and Appl. St, Virginia Tech and James Madison, Mississippi and Jacksonville St.
On the otherhand NBC, ABC carry USC-Notre Dame, UCLA-BYU, Texas-TCU, Boise State-TCU, ...
The Big 10 could satisfy its TV partners by doing what the SEC does. Move some Conference games up a few weeks. The SEC TV partner get the SEC vs ACC Chick-Fil-la classic in week 1. They got Auburn vs Miss State and Georgia vs Sout Carolina in week 2. They got Tenn vs Florida in week 3.