10 team is the best conference, 12 team can work with an even rotation but less desirable. B1G setup and scheduling is embarrassing.
I wish the Big 10 was 10 teams too, but even 12 wouldn't be great. Because you would need to choose between parity and an even rotation. Because if you choose even rotation, you divisions will be Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and then either Northwestern & Illinois or Indiana and Purdue vs. Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, and then Northwestern & Illinois or Indiana and Purdue. So also not great and you still end up with an 8-0 "east" record. If you try and create parity, then it isn't balanced and you run the risk of Ohio State winning 7 big 10 titles (because they are probably have either Penn State or Michigan State in their division.
And the format they have at 14 is the best they can have at 14.
This is the immediate answer. The B1G scheduling makes no sense. How can Nebraska play Michigan, Ohio St and Michigan State in the same season while Iowa only has to play Ohio St once in 10 years? The league office knows who the best teams are historically so start by having 3 West teams play Ohio St and 3 play Michigan. With the expected worst West team skipping those 2. Then 3 play Penn St and 3 play Michigan St. And so on. The crossover games now seem to have no rhyme or reason. This would prevent the Fake ID seasons that you see in the West, usually from Iowa who always seems to play the weakest East teams.
I disagree it makes no sense. It actually does, and I think it might be the only way to do it if you have nine conference games. Six of them are against the other teams in your division. Another game is against a team you have a six game series with. For Indiana and Purdue, that game does not change. For everyone else, that game changes. The 2016 - 2021 series was designed to produce competitive series. And they probably did a pretty good job (though I haven't gone through to look at each series) with the exception of the Ohio State - Nebraska. And whoever got Ohio State was not going to do well. For 2022 on it was/is randomly decided and you'll rotate through the other five teams in the other division. Finally, for the last two games, you rotate through the other six teams.
And your suggestion is just going to produce scheduling chaos. When do we decide the schedule? It has to be late spring/early summer at the earliest. Plus, teams are going to go without playing each other for long periods of time. You could also easily have a scenario where a team does better than expected and you're right back to "that team had a 'fake id' season."
