Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
- Thread starter ISUcyclones11
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I don’t think anyone is clinging to Fran, I just think nobody cares as much about basketball as they do football so Fran catches 1/100th of the heat that KF does. Like if you told me tomorrow that they decided to just cancel the college basketball season all together. I’m not sure how much emotion I would really have about that one way or the other. I’d probably just shrug my shoulders and figure I’ll catch up on Netflix or something instead.
Plus most Iowa fans that are into basketball are all Indiana Fever fans these days anyway.
EIU is going to be in a world of trouble going forward with both coaches. They are owed a lot of money, Mad Fran is just starting his new 4 year contract and Freerents contract runs through 2029. I get the feeling a lot in their fan base would like to see both step away after the season, if for nothing more than to get out from under the money that they owe them.
Fran is what he is, gets you 20 wins, upper half finish in the conference and that is about it. Freerents could mail in 7/8 wins before the divisional change, so many in their fan base are happy.
Fran is what he is, gets you 20 wins, upper half finish in the conference and that is about it. Freerents could mail in 7/8 wins before the divisional change, so many in their fan base are happy.
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So, essentially you’re just saying that Iowa fans are bandwagon fans only? Cause Iowa fans supported basketball just fine when they were winning.
Kirk better watch out or suddenly football won’t mean anything to Iowa fans soon.
I actually don’t think Iowa fans disagree with this. And speaking from experience, going to the Big10 Championship and losing badly wasn’t any fun so I’m not upset about that going away.
Going forward, a lot is going to depend on how the committee ranks teams with totally different resumes. It’s not going to happen for awhile because schedules are set years in advance but it seems likely that we will eventually get to where there are no games at all between the Big10 and Big12 so how is the committee going to compare resumes?
I know lots of people here think there is a Big10 bias but I think it’s more accurate to say there is a blue blood bias and I’m not sure it’s going to extend to the Illinois/Indiana/Iowa tier of schools.
That's what's incredible though...if you truly didn't care, why not roll the dice many times on a better coach. Obviously they at least care that the next guy could be worse than 19 years of mediocre or they wouldn't have inked the guy to 19 straight years.
It's a chicken or the egg thing because you've been there for an entire generation with the guy. I was an Iowa fan in the 80s. Iowa football fans cared about Iowa basketball back when they had it rolling.
If Indiana finishes with a great season we could find out fast.
It's kind of wild that the first year the Big Ten supercharged adding the top teams from the Pac, that Indiana and Illinois have their best teams in memory. Makes up for Michigan and Washington really having a huge dropoff from last year.
SEC is the only major conference where last year's top team/teams didn't really fall off the map from a year ago.
FSU, Washington, Utah, Michigan, AZ, OK St...all way down after all being conf champ or right there a year ago. You could throw Oklahoma in there too but none of the traditional SEC teams.
Wild that you threw Ok state and Arizona in that group.
That’s what’s supposed to happen. The problem is the big ten has been devoid of a middle class to rise up to take those spots. Some schools are finding the right coaches now to make these seasons more common.
Yeah, I’ve had that thought myself recently. Like I’m more worried than I’ve ever been that the playing field is being tilted towards the big money schools but then here’s Indiana having their best season ever with a bunch of James Madison transfers that nobody wanted. Although to be fair, I still think they are probably the 4th best team in the conference and I’m skeptical they could really make a deep run in the playoff beyond maybe win one game if they get some lucky bounces.
I think probably the right way to think about it is it’s going to end up like MLB where the big market teams don’t win every year but if you’re a fan of a small market team you better savor it the years you catch lightning in a bottle because most years the odds are against it.
Baseball is doing great too. Every sport should definitely follow MLB’s lead
Yeah, I probably don’t disagree. Obviously I don’t pretend to speak for all Iowa fans or anyone other than myself but personally speaking, replacing Fran just hasn’t even been on my radar. And if the question is why does everyone ***** about KF and not about Fran, I think the answer is that people are so much more invested in football. Last winter everyone was too busy following Caitlin to get too worked up about the men’s team.
Both Indiana and Illinois have played good football and have avoided playing the better teams in the league. Illinois did play Penn. St, and has Oregon this week, but finish up with Minn, Rutgers, NW and MSU.
Both schools remind me of the old B12 North days, ISU would have very good records when they did not play UT and OU for two seasons, and then struggle when they both came back on the schedule for two years.
Getting a good coach and more importantly having them stay is the single most important thing for a non traditional power to rise up. The scheme, development of players, and recruiting are more important then ever. Some schools will always have bigger advantages and disadvantages then others but stable coaching is vital.
I'm just pointing out how so many highly ranked teams from last year are at the very bottom of their conference or have plummeted in rankings. Arizona was 11th last year. FSU's fall is probably all time historic year to year, especially without a coaching change.
It worked out for the Big Ten that Indiana is good out of nowhere when Michigan and Washington both fell off, although most knew Washington would fall off sharply, Arizona too. A lot of teams with coaching changes this year got ranked high anyway, probably some money could have been made in early weeks betting against Washington, Michigan and Arizona.
I think some mid level teams big ten teams have jumped up at times (Iowa, MSU, Wisc) but we're just not used to them being Illinois or especially Indiana. I don't think anybody outside the biggest Big Ten homers believed in Indiana at all until they blew out Nebraska.
100% agree with all this. I cleaned up bettering against Michigan most of the year (I call it hedging happiness). I was honestly surprised that Washington was this bad. I figured the new coach would have brought along more talent and that they had more on the bench. Get how much they lost to the NFL but didn’t think it would be quite like this.
Zona was expected but also agree that FSU is an all time collapse. I have no idea how a program that recruits the way they do has to rely so heavily on transfers.
Is this really the NCAA’s problem or the schools’ problem though? The NCAA allowed for more scholarships, but did not force them to be filled. It was the schools’ choice to move that money from one sport to another. They should be the ones on the hook. And at least two of the conferences may have deeper pockets than the NCAA.
But, let’s be real, this is the future. Non-revenue sports will no longer be scholarship sports before too long. The pursuit for money is more important than the foundation of collegiate athletics.
I had a glimmer of hope there was a reasonable solution to this madness, I've lost what little hope remained.
Pretending for so long that college football players weren't pro athletes has led us to this disaster, and made the un-raveling much harder for everyone now.
Pretending for so long that college football players weren't pro athletes has led us to this disaster, and made the un-raveling much harder for everyone now.
