The Big Ten’s removal of divisions means the Championship Game will look a lot different going forward:
It was a good run for the Big Ten West, going an impressive 0-10 in title games since the conference moved to the East-West structure prior to the 2014 season. As the Big Ten moves into the world of 18 teams, gone are divisions, and with them, a straightforward way to assign participants in the conference championship game.
While on the field East vs. West was far from even, it was the most fair way to determine the participants in Indianapolis. Now there will likely be multiple teams with equal records — and unequal strength-of-schedules — that all have a legitimate claim for a spot in the championship game. The Big Ten will have its own thoughts on how to determine the matchup, but what about you?
Who should play in the Big Ten Championship Game?
Assuming there is no obvious situation (i.e. the top two teams in the conference at least a game ahead of third place), then I see three main options for the Big Ten. The first sounds simple in practice: pick the best two teams. This is the most likely outcome and will have to incorporate some of the traditional tiebreaking procedures that have existed for years. It definitely seems the most fair, and is also going to be the safest in the court of public opinion.
A trickier solution would be structuring the format to best improve the conference’s path into the College Football Playoff. The actual method behind this gets a little complicated, but it would be essentially providing one participant on the bubble a shot at a signature win without jeopardizing the resume of the other. How this gets input into a computer is a little messy, but even messier is communicating this system clearly.
Finally, my preference would sit in the middle of these two: the best possible combination that is not a rematch. While sometimes rematches can bring the hype (Washington-Oregon just last year), they do run the risk of diminishing the regular season, especially if they occur in back-to-back weeks like could happen with The Game. While this structure would potentially see the conference’s second-best team bypassed for a “lesser” team, I think it would be for the greater good of the Big Ten. Plus, the second-best team will always have had a shot to beat the team in first during the regular season; let someone new have a crack at them.
What do you think? Have your own proposal for the Big Ten? Let us know in the comments below!