The Big Ten has rapidly changed over the past two years, and, more than likely, this is just the start.
Before last season, USC and UCLA sparked a tidal wave over the college football offseason, announcing their intentions to join the Big Ten in 2024. The two Pac-12 giants were the Big Ten’s answer to a power play by the SEC to absorb southern titans Oklahoma and Texas the year before.
This offseason has been different, but equally transformative. The Big Ten announced a new-look scheduling model beginning in the 2024 college football season when it welcomes the West Coast schools.
Gone are the divisions. No more East and West. You both can go in the bin alongside the forgotten Leaders and Legends. Now, the two teams that meet in the Big Ten Championship game beginning in 2024 will be the two best Big Ten teams from that season.
This means (hopefully) no more beat downs in the championship game. The East division has been the dominance force, with Ohio State and Michigan the two clear best in the conference. The West representatives haven’t been bad teams, but there have been clear disparities in the game on more than one occasion.
For Iowa, this new change has a profound meaning. When I first saw this change, my immediate thoughts were, “How the heck are we going to get back to the championship game now?”
That right there is the problem. And this change is the potential solution.
In the new Big Ten, the championship will be played between the two best teams. No longer will you be rewarded for being the best of a mediocre West division. Think back to this past year. Absolutely none of those teams deserved to make the Big Ten Championship. Heck, Iowa should have won the division last year despite being, well, the 2022 Iowa Hawkeyes.
The Big Ten is trying to become the biggest and best conference in sports. To do so, it cannot accept average. While the past model has been great for teams such as Iowa and Minnesota, it does not work with the new generation of college football.
Keeping up with the new trends has been a problem for the University of Iowa in recent years. Fans of both the team and of the conference have seen how the game has started to pass them by. Insistent on doing things the “Iowa Way,” Iowa has a tried and true method to success. But it comes with a ceiling. It’s even more frustrating when you realize it’s a self-imposed ceiling.
Iowa football truly has not experienced a harsh falloff yet, even with a disappointing 2022. A large part of that has to do with the old Big Ten model. Instead of just being a meh, middle-of-the-pack team, Iowa literally almost made it to the conference title game. A team that didn’t even average over 18 points per game. That right there is mediocrity being rewarded.
The University of Iowa will not have that luxury afforded to it in the new Big Ten landscape, especially if and when the conference adds more competitors. For the Hawkeyes, it’s time to adapt or die. Never think your program is too big to fail.
Fortunately for Hawkeye fans, Iowa’s use of the transfer portal this offseason is at least one indication the program is finally prepared to handle the changing tides in the Big Ten and in college football.
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