I have a feeling it won't be long before people catch up with my annoyance with how the Big 10 chose to structure itself.
The manner in which the conference has been structured in order to determine a champion is nothing short of absurd. Folks have just rolled with it to this point. Yeah, we're adding USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. Watch out SEC!!!!
Meanwhile the prostitutes in charge count their incoming money and roll out an 18 team league whose championship drive includes:
- Each team playing slightly more than HALF of the conference. There's 17 possible opponents for each team and each team plays only 9 of them!!! No divisions to section off teams and ensure apples are being compared to apples. 8/17 unplayed by every single team!!! No little league administrator would keep their job setting up such utter nonsense.
- Half the league plays 4 home games and the other half plays 5. That's a massive BUILT IN disadvantage for HALF of the conference.
Nobody seemed to care. They looked at the schedules and thought "seems pretty even some have it a little worse than others. You've got to win your games".
The fact that you have to win your games is completely separate from the job that administrators of athletic competitions should be doing - setting up as even a playing field as possible to determine a champion. But instead they showed they couldn't care less about an even playing field, simply maximizing cash and we get this.
The Indiana resurgence story is great. I'm happy for Indiana fans and love a turnaround.
However, their having to travel only to @UCLA, @Evanston, @East Lansing, and @OSU is a complete joke. The OSU loss is a throw away of course. 0-1. UCLA looked tough on paper but Evanston could be tougher because UCLA is hot garbage. And that's the obvious, you can't project who will be good or bad and use that projection to try to massage schedule balance. You just don't know.
Then Indiana has five home games the toughest of which is Michigan who looks to be the fourth best team in the Big Ten AT BEST?
Now compare that to what Nebraska, also a resurgent team has to play. They have five road games @OSU, @USC, @Iowa, @Indiana, @Purdue.
Its a damn joke that they are "competing" for the same crown. We will see this EVERY year in this structure.
And people will still sit back and say "oh well, luck of the draw it will even out over the years, what can you do?"
What can you do? Set up a structure with competitive schedule fairness. Its not hard!!! Its done in every community in every sport across the planet.
We could be walking into an OSU-Indiana rematch in the Big Ten championship game because of this blatant prostitution.
When you set up an athletic league, you should be making every effort to ensure teams are playing on a level structural playing field in terms of their schedule. Again ALL little league administrators are held to this standard.
That wasn't even a consideration in this mess. Only the almighty dollar was.
I remain disgusted and, for now, seemingly alone in my disgust.
The manner in which the conference has been structured in order to determine a champion is nothing short of absurd. Folks have just rolled with it to this point. Yeah, we're adding USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. Watch out SEC!!!!
Meanwhile the prostitutes in charge count their incoming money and roll out an 18 team league whose championship drive includes:
- Each team playing slightly more than HALF of the conference. There's 17 possible opponents for each team and each team plays only 9 of them!!! No divisions to section off teams and ensure apples are being compared to apples. 8/17 unplayed by every single team!!! No little league administrator would keep their job setting up such utter nonsense.
- Half the league plays 4 home games and the other half plays 5. That's a massive BUILT IN disadvantage for HALF of the conference.
Nobody seemed to care. They looked at the schedules and thought "seems pretty even some have it a little worse than others. You've got to win your games".
The fact that you have to win your games is completely separate from the job that administrators of athletic competitions should be doing - setting up as even a playing field as possible to determine a champion. But instead they showed they couldn't care less about an even playing field, simply maximizing cash and we get this.
The Indiana resurgence story is great. I'm happy for Indiana fans and love a turnaround.
However, their having to travel only to @UCLA, @Evanston, @East Lansing, and @OSU is a complete joke. The OSU loss is a throw away of course. 0-1. UCLA looked tough on paper but Evanston could be tougher because UCLA is hot garbage. And that's the obvious, you can't project who will be good or bad and use that projection to try to massage schedule balance. You just don't know.
Then Indiana has five home games the toughest of which is Michigan who looks to be the fourth best team in the Big Ten AT BEST?
Now compare that to what Nebraska, also a resurgent team has to play. They have five road games @OSU, @USC, @Iowa, @Indiana, @Purdue.
Its a damn joke that they are "competing" for the same crown. We will see this EVERY year in this structure.
And people will still sit back and say "oh well, luck of the draw it will even out over the years, what can you do?"
What can you do? Set up a structure with competitive schedule fairness. Its not hard!!! Its done in every community in every sport across the planet.
We could be walking into an OSU-Indiana rematch in the Big Ten championship game because of this blatant prostitution.
When you set up an athletic league, you should be making every effort to ensure teams are playing on a level structural playing field in terms of their schedule. Again ALL little league administrators are held to this standard.
That wasn't even a consideration in this mess. Only the almighty dollar was.
I remain disgusted and, for now, seemingly alone in my disgust.
