Pod-casting the Big Ten

This is the blog post that I was planning to write, before Bud Selig interrupted my progress with his musings about expanding the MLB playoffs…

My spring fancy was for an expanded, 16-team Big Ten conference that included Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Texas:

Western Quad

Minnesota

Iowa

Northwestern

Nebraska

Midwestern Quad

Wisconsin

Indiana

Illinois

Texas

Mideastern Quad

Michigan

Purdue

Michigan State

Notre Dame

Eastern Quad

Ohio State

Maryland

Penn State

Rutgers

Protected, interquad match-ups would make this make sense, to the inquisitive.  But, lest I waste your time…

Reality Check

Now, I acknowledge that there might be something like a less than 1% chance of this coming to fruition for two big reasons:  Texas and Notre Dame.  I’d put 2:1 odds on Notre Dame joining the Big Ten in the next decade.  But, Vegas odds makers might’ve done the same, ten years ago.  Maryland and Rutgers would come, if asked.  And, if they didn’t, would anyone in flyover country really care if they were replaced by Virginia and Syracuse, or Georgia Tech and Missouri, or Vanderbilt and Boston College?  Nope, the Longhorns and their quasi-freedom (see: item #2, if following that link) are the reason for the one-in-a-hundred probability.  Alas, my spring optimism for a Big Ten that included Nebraska, Texas, and Notre Dame has been squelched by Texas bluster and 12 million reasons per annum, courtesy of the robber barons from Bristol.

But, that is not the point of this blog post.  I have a happier story to tell: one of the finer points of the integration and operation of a 16-team, mega-college-football-conference!

First, there will be no 16-team Big Ten, without Texas or Notre Dame.  (Take a few minutes to skim through Frank the Tank’s Big Ten posts over the past year, if you doubt that statement.)  Second, Texas isn’t coming north.  So, none of this happens without the two virtues that two thousand years of Catholicism hath bestowed upon us:  The Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus, ye of my most despised of college football institutions.  But, this is about money and power–I trust that the Catholic Church will understand.  The Big Ten has both, and Jim Delany has positioned his conference to wait until it gets what it wants, yet again.  So, we’re stuck with Big Ten Tic-Tac-Toe, if Notre Dame puts independence ahead of relevance and Texas does what Texas should do.  Here’s an amended alignment, sans that school from the national capital of Texas:

Western Quad

Minnesota

Iowa

Nebraska

Missouri

Midwestern Quad

Wisconsin

Illinois

Indiana

Northwestern

Mideastern Quad

Michigan

Michigan State

Purdue

Notre Dame

Eastern Quad

Ohio State

Maryland

Penn State

Rutgers

…and, my geographical sensibilities have been satisfied.

Let Me Explain

As you might’ve guessed from my previous work, there’s more to my quad structure than meets the eye, all of which requires some explanation.  And, in the off chance that someone with rooting interests outside of Big Ten Country is reading this, the point is to explain the virtues of my system for running a 16-team college football conference–Big Ten or otherwise:

• Each team will play the other 3 teams in its quad, each and every year.
• The quads will be paired-up, in an annual rotation, which will effectively produce two, dynamic, 8-team divisions.  In other words, the Western Quad will be paired with the Midwestern Quad, one year; the Mideastern Quad, another year; and the Eastern Quad, a third year.  Teams will play the four teams in their paired quad, each year, in addition to the 3 teams in their own quad, as described above.  As such, each team will play every other team in the conference at least once every three years.  [Warning:  That was an important paragraph; read it again.]
• The eighth game will consist of either a “protected rivalry,” or an at-large match-up.  Here are the protected, inter-quad games:
  • Minnesota vs. Wisconsin
  • Indiana vs. Purdue
  • Michigan vs. Ohio State
  • Michigan State vs. Penn State (optional, if both schools agree to continue to play for the Land Grant Trophy)
  • Notre Dame vs. Rutgers (optional, if both schools agree, which they’ve previously failed to do)
  • Missouri vs. Illinois (optional, if both schools agree to continue what they started, in 2007)
• The first two teams listed above, per quad, would be combined into one, 8-team group, while the bottom two would be combined into a second, 8-team group, within which teams would play a ninth conference game, if approved.  [Warning: That sentence was important, too, but perhaps unnecessary…carry on.]  The Big Ten has hinted at a 9-game schedule.  I suspect that this will not happen, if Notre Dame joins, and may not happen, regardless of what that most-famous-of-mediocre-teams decides to do.  A 9th-game would mean 5 conference road games every other year, which would make it more difficult to schedule enough non-conference home games to pay the bills.  This complicates the matter of signing multi-year agreements to play home-and-home series with other, non-cupcake schools.  My guess is that a 9-game Big Ten schedule would be a deal-breaker, for the Irish, as it would make it more difficult to preserve what is worth preserving from their days of independence–namely, their rivalry with USC.
• The champions of the two, dynamic divisions will compete in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Placating the Irish

I make light of Notre Dame’s plight, but their potential overall schedule is an important factor in this.  Assume an 8-game Big Ten schedule, which would leave 4 non-conference games per school.  Then, assume that Notre Dame seeks to preserve the most-played rivalries that are on its 2010 schedule.  This system would allow them to preserve their top-7 rivalries, including non-conference games versus Navy (84 games played), USC (82), Pitt (66), and Army (50), and annual conference games versus Purdue (82), Michigan State (74), and Michigan (38).  Lost would be Stanford (25), Boston College (20), Western Michigan (3), Tulsa (1), and Utah (1), to be replaced by 5 Big Ten schools.  That is a coast-to-coast schedule that would allow a rejuvenated Notre Dame to contend for a national championship every year.  Notwithstanding the Irish’s recent struggles, there are 3 winnable non-conference games in there: Navy (.851 all-time winning percentage against), Army (.796), and Pitt (.689).  Then, 2 of Notre Dame’s 5 Big Ten games are going to be either Minnesota+Missouri, Indiana+Illinois, or Rutgers+Maryland, if the Irish decline the optional, annual match-up with Rutgers, as described above–it gets easier, if Notre Dame opts to keep Rutgers on the schedule.  And, Notre Dame has had success against Purdue (.671 all-time) and Michigan State (.615).  [Michigan (.408) is the third of their 3 intrapod rivals, all of whom Notre Dame would play every year.]  That would give Notre Dame a minimum of 7 winnable games per season.  Alas, this has little to do with scheduling and on-field competitiveness, when it comes to Notre Dame–think money; think power…heck, think independence; think arrogance.

The Reasons Why

The Big Ten made a big deal out of competitive balance, this summer.  My previous work showed that pursuing competitive balance is a fool’s errand.  Sensibly, I have placed geography and historic rivalries above competitive balance.  However, in light of the Big Ten’s insistence on balance over tradition, let’s pull the curtain up on the whole operation:

• You can’t have two, 8-team divisions; permanent rivalries; trophy games every weekend; milk-and-honey; and fat-and-contented alumni.  Do the math: Two, 8-team divisions, in which all eight teams play the other seven teams in the division, annually, results in one spare game [or two, in the event of a 9-game conference schedule].  Such an alignment requires 8 [or 4] years to play the 8 schools in the other division…and 16 [or 8] years to visit each campus.  And, that’s only if the Big Ten does not allow permanent, interdivision match-ups.  In other words, some significant rivalries – perhaps Ohio State vs. Michigan, or your favorite rivalry – would be reduced to a once-in-8-years walk down memory lane.
• A reprise of the first bullet: There are 16 teams in your conference.  There are 8 [or 9]  conference games on your schedule.  Things ain’t gonna be like they used to be, Bo & Woody.

• Small pods are the anecdote for bullets #1 and #2, while preserving geographic sensibilities and historic rivalries.  This does come at a cost:

The data shown above are the average Sagarin ratings (1998-2009), per each team’s opponents, per alignment.  The “Difference” is between the team with the most difficult schedule and the team with the easiest schedule.  The “Variance” is the statistical variance among all teams’ schedules.  A variance closer to zero means that the alignment has less variation among the teams’ degree of difficulty of their schedules (i.e. is more balanced).

• • The Big Ten’s current alignment (1993-2010) is the fairest of them all.  However, it is important to realize that competitive balance becomes increasing difficult to maintain, as a conference grows beyond a number that allows each team to play all other teams in the conference, annually.  Additionally, adding teams that are better (i.e. Nebraska) or worse (i.e. Rutgers) than the conference’s “average,” exacerbates the problem.   Adding Nebraska increased the Big Ten’s average, historic Sagarin rating, per team, from 76.68 to 77.26, and adding Notre Dame, Missouri, Maryland, and Rutgers would increase it further, to 77.32.  More importantly, the standard deviation of the average, historic Sagarin ratings, per team, increased from 6.37 to 6.40, with Nebraska, and to 6.99, with my four, hypothetical additions.  This increase in the variability of the team’s relative strength partly explains the increase in “Variance,” as you scan down the table shown above.  Finally, competitive balance is more elusive, as a conference adds permanent match-ups.  The Big Ten’s current alignment grants each team two, permanent match-ups.  Then, each team plays 6 of the other 8 teams, annually.  The limited number of permanent match-ups helps to average-out the long-term difficulty of each team’s schedule.
  • The table included above shows that My 3 Pods was a better idea than the plan that the Big Ten settled on, this summer (i.e. the X’s and O’s).
  • The four balanced pods included in the table above were built using the average Sagarin ratings, similar to an NCAA tournament bracket:
    • (1) Ohio State, (8) Purdue, (9) Missouri, and (16) Indiana
    • (2) Nebraska, (7) Iowa, (10) Michigan State, and (15) Rutgers
    • (3) Michigan, (6) Notre Dame, (11) Maryland, and (14) Illinois
    • (4) Penn State, (5) Wisconsin, (12) Minnesota, and (13) Northwestern
    • This alignment would relegate the following rivalries to triennial reunions:
      • Ohio State vs. Michigan
      • Iowa vs. Minnesota
      • Michigan State vs. Michigan
      • Illinois vs. Northwestern
  • The four balanced divisions were also built using the average Sagarin ratings.  One division would include Ohio State’s pod + Penn State’s pod, as listed in the previous bullet, while the other would include Nebraska’s pod + and Michigan’s pod.  Three of the four rivalries listed above – all but Michigan State vs. Michigan – would still be left behind and would be played only once every eight years.
  • My four pods ensure that all of these rivalries are played, annually.  The “minimum rivalries” alignment includes the non-optional rivalries, as listed above (i.e. Minnesota-Wisconsin, Indiana-Purdue, and Ohio State-Michigan), while the “maximum rivalries” alignment includes those plus the 3 optional rivalries (Michigan State-Penn State, Notre Dame-Rutgers, and Missouri-Illinois).  Including additional, permanent match-ups increases the variance (i.e. reduces competitive balance).  But, recall that competitive balance cannot be guaranteed, anyway.