OSU-Michigan: ‘Sacred’

Regardless of Big Ten’s alignment, ‘The Game’ will be in its familiar place

By Tim May

The Columbus Dispatch

The easiest part of Big Ten expansion was the declaration that the conference, with 12th member Nebraska starting in 2011, will have a championship game. Now comes the tougher parts.

How is the conference going to be split into divisions? How many conference games, including inter-divisional, are going to be played? Which rivalries are sacred and which could be sacrificed for the sake of the divisional format?

One thing is for sure: Ohio State-Michigan is sacred. The Game will continue to be the final regular season game for the Buckeyes, said OSU athletic director Gene Smith, even if the two rivals wind up in different divisions.

“That’s not going to change,” Smith said.

But if Michigan and Ohio State wind up in different divisions, that raises the possibility that they could meet in back-to-back games: the regular-season finale and the championship game.

“You don’t design your regular season based upon the [possible matchups in the] championship game,” Smith said. “That’s a mistake, because you can end up doing a disservice to competitive balance within the league.

“Remember, the championship game is one game. The gauntlet is the other 12 games you must play. You would like to avoid [a back-to-back rematch], but that would not be a high priority for me.”

What is a high priority is weaving Nebraska into the Big Ten starting in 2011. Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne sees few snags, contractually, with non-league games already scheduled.

“We’re not scheduled to the point where we’d have to break anything right now,” Osborne said. “I’m sure every school will play at least three non-conference [opponents].

“The thing that may happen if a conference goes to more [league] games, then you may see people wanting more home games, because we would like to keep at least seven, and maybe occasionally have eight.”

That’s why it’s likely the Big Ten will stick with an 8/4 format, at least to begin with, that would have eight league games (five intra-division, three inter-division) and afford four non-conference games. That would be the least disruptive.

As for a site for a championship game, within the borders of the Big Ten there are three indoor NFL stadiums — Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ford Field in Detroit and the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The league could move it around like the Big 12 has done, or it could settle on one site, as the Southeastern Conference did with the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

The bigger question is the makeup of the divisions and league scheduling. Big Ten associate commissioner Mark Rudner and assistant commissioner Mike McComiskey “have run lots of models,” commissioner Jim Delany said. “The short time frame is we’ve got to get a variety of models for divisional setup, and then we’ve got to look at where the non-conference contracts are. Then we’ve got to put together some options for our athletic directors and get our coaches’ viewpoint on it.”

The final decision on divisional makeup will be made by the conference presidents perhaps by the end of the summer, Delany said. One obvious way would be grouping the schools in the Eastern time zone (Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Michigan State, Indiana and Purdue) and those in the Central time zone (Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska).

That would keep most of the long-term rivalries in place and Ohio State and Michigan in the same division, “and that’s a natural thought,” Smith said. “But that doesn’t have to happen.”

The primary aim will be “achieving competitive fairness and balance,” Smith said. “The second thing is making sure you protect existing traditions while at the same time trying to identify others that could emerge.”

For example, a regular-season finale of Nebraska vs. Iowa likely would have more appeal than the Iowa-Minnesota battle for the Floyd of Rosedale trophy. Which leads to another major aspect of the scheduling equation: “Balancing what your partners need,” Smith said.

By that he meant the league’s television partners, the Big Ten Network and ABC/ESPN. Nebraska’s addition means the Cornhuskers will be playing some Big Ten teams they haven’t played in quite some time. Ohio State, for example, has only played Nebraska twice, the last time in 1956. Michigan has only played Nebraska six times.

Such matchups would presumably interest television networks.

“But again, you have to look at competitive fairness,” Smith said. “Everybody would like to see those [matchups] every year, but they’re not.”

But Ohio State-Michigan at least once a year? Count on it.