Tag: Big Ten Championship Game

Kirk Herbstreit predicts the Huskers to make the Big Ten Championship Game

A major analyst likes the Huskers in 2022!

Longtime ESPN College Football analyst Kirk Herbstreit held his annual preseason prediction show on ESPN earlier this week and made a bold prediction regarding the Big Ten and who will win the West Division in 2022. Herbstreit believes the Nebraska Cornhuskers will make it out of the West this year. It’s a bold take for a team that was 3-9 last year, but as you’ll read below, Herbstreit believes the previous season is a big part of the reason why they’ll be making a postseason championship appearance.

Should Nebraska win the west, it would be the first time the Huskers had played in the postseason since the 2012 season when they made it to Indianapolis as a member of the Legends Division. Nebraska would lose that game to Wisconsin by 70-31. That was a period in which Nebraska made a conference championship game five out of seven seasons (2006-2012). However, the Huskers would go 0-5 during that stretch.

Big Ten announces new media rights deal worth $1 billion annually

The conference has announced an unprecedented deal for collegiate media rights!

The Big Ten Conference has finally announced its much-awaited media rights deal after reaching agreements with CBS, FOX, NBC, and NBCUniversal’s Peacock for distribution. Beginning in the fall of 2023, the Big Ten will operate an unprecedented morning-to-night broadcast schedule. Starting next football season FOX will air Big Ten games at 11:00 am CT, CBS at 2:30 pm CT, and NBC in Prime Time. The media rights agreements will begin July 1, 2023, and run through the 2029-30 season.

Reports state that the conference will earn between $7-$8 billion over the length of the 7-year contract. Brett McMurphy of Action Network HQ has said that a source close to the agreement says the deal contains “contract escalators may increase value to nearly $10 billion, so B1G “is not done expanding.”

A Big Ten press release states that the three partner networks (CBS, FOX, and NBC) will broadcast the seven Big Ten Football Championship Games over the deal’s life on a rotating schedule.

CBS: 2024, 2028

FOX: 2023, 2025, 2027, 2029

NBC: 2026

 

Is the Big Ten about to make a big change?

One major conference took the first steps today. Are more leagues to follow?

It was back in May that we talked about the Atlantic Coastal Conference having discussions during their annual spring meeting discussing a new scheduling model that would see the conference abandon the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions. The NCAA recently repealed a rule mandating conference divisions for any league that wanted to play a conference championship game. Now, divisions are no longer required for championship games. With that rule now removed, the ACC has become the first league to eliminate their conference divisions, starting in 2023.

The new model the ACC has adopted is known as the 3-5 format. That would give each of the league’s 14 full-time member schools three permanent opponents, while the other ten schools would operate on an every other season rotation for ten seasons, five years on and five years off. That would allow a four-year player to play every conference opponent at least once. 

The Big Ten has made vague interest in dropping the conference’s east and west divisions and adopting the same format. That change would not occur though until after the Big Ten and its TV partners have signed a new media rights agreement. That agreement could make the Big Ten the first conference to earn more than $1 billion per year in media rights. 

Hopefully the Big Ten can move quickly and wrap up their negotiations and begin the process of having a division free conference starting in 2024. The ACC has take the first important step and it’s time for the Big Ten to start a trend among the other three major conferences with divisions remaining (Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12) and take that important first step and eliminate divisions in order create a more engaging schedule both for fans and for the conference itself. 

Look below at list of Big Ten Championship Game participants.

Could Nebraska have played for more Conference Titles without Big Ten Divisions?

Could Nebraska have played for more Big Ten titles if the Big Ten had never had a division?

Last week we told you about an idea that the Atlantic Coastal Conference was floating around in which they would scrap their conference divisions. Unfortunately, they were beaten to the punch on Tuesday morning as the Pac-12 announced that they would be scrapping their division system. This news comes on the heels of the NCAA announcing that conferences no longer had to use a division format to decide participants for a conference championship game for leagues of 12 teams or more.

The Pac12 has stated they will select the two teams to play in their conference title game based on their conference winning percentage starting this season. With that format in mind, how different would a Big Ten Championship Game have looked with a no-division format? Would Nebraska have played in more than one Big Ten title game? Let’s look at every match, starting with the first game in 2011 until last year. Then, we will take the two teams with the highest winning percentage in the Big Ten for that season and see if it would have created a different matchup for the Big Ten title. The head-to-head matchup will be the only tiebreaker used.

Scroll below and take a look at how different or not the conference championship game would have been in an entirely new format.

Nebraska Softball wins their first Big Ten Conference Tournament Championship

Nebraska Softball will now prepare for its first NCAA Tournament birth since 2016.

For the first time since 2004, the Nebraska Softball team has won a Conference Tournament Championship. The Husker defeated the Michigan Wolverines by a score of 3 to 1 in eight innings to win Nebraska its first Big Ten Conference Tournament Championship since joining the league back in 2011. The win is the Cornhusker’s tenth conference tournament championship overall and veteran head coach Rhonda Revelle’s fourth such victory. The win also gives Nebraska an automatic birth into the NCAA Division I Softball Tournament, their first birth since 2016.

The Huskers score the go-ahead run in the eighth inning to clinch their first Big Ten Tournament (below)

The NCAA tournament selection show will take place on ESPN2 on Sunday, May 15th, at 6:00 pm CT. Regionals will run from May 20-22, and the Super Regionals from May 26-29. The Women’s College World Series will go from June 2-10 at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinion.

Let us know your thoughts, and comment on this story below. Join the conversation today!

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Preview of Nebraska softball vs. Ohio State in the Big Ten Semi-Finals

How you can watch and what you need to know before Nebraska’s semi-final conference tournament game on Friday afternoon!

Nebraska will play Ohio State in conference tournament softball on Friday afternoon, and if you’re wondering how you can watch the action live, you’ve come to the right place.

The Husker softball team is one win away from playing for the Big Ten Championship this weekend. Nebraska (38-14, 17-5) is taking on Ohio State (35-14, 13-9) in the conference tournament semi-finals on Friday afternoon. In three regular-season conference games in 2022, the Cornhuskers lost two of three to the Buckeyes.

The winner between the #2 Huskers and #6 Buckeyes will play on Saturday, May 14th in East Lancing, Michigan against the winner of #1 Illinois and #4 Michigan.

Here’s when you should tune in to see the game:

  • Date: Friday, May 13th
  • Time: 1:00 p.m. CT
  • TV Channel: Big Ten Network
  • Live Stream: fuboTV (watch here)

Nebraska and Ohio State 2022 Season Series:

April 29: @ Ohio State   Loss   Score: 2-6

April 30: @ Ohio State   Loss   Score: 4-5

May 1:    @ Ohio State   Win    Score: 9-1

Players to watch:

Nebraska Catcher Ava Bredwell, Big Ten Freshman of the Year, will be joined by First Team All-Conference second baseman Cam Ybarra in sparking the Husker’s offense.

Bredwell had a .337 batting average, .879 OPS with 2 home runs and 15 RBI during the 2022 regular season.

Ybarra hist .379 with a 1.086 OPS with nine home runs and 37 RBI.

Ohio State first baseman Niki Carver leads the Buckeye’s offense. She’ll be helped by second-team All-Big Ten members Sam Hckenbracht and Lexie Handley.

Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes and opinion.

Let us know your thoughts, and comment on this story below. Join the conversation today!

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Is the Big Ten eliminating divisions in football?

The Big Ten eliminating divisions is becoming more and more likely with NCAA rule proposal

The days of a two division format in the Big Ten and other conferences could be numbered. The NCAA is working to review a rule change that would allow conferences to have the ability to determine how a conference championship game can be arranged, allowing conferences to abandon the long-standing NCAA policy that only division champions may compete in any sanctioned conference championship game.

And this could be a major change for the Big Ten.

When Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011, it allowed the Big Ten to hold its first conference championship game in football. The NCAA previously required conferences to have at least 12 members in order to be eligible to organize a conference championship game, made popular by the SEC following its addition of Arkansas. With Nebraska bringing the conference membership to 12, the Big Ten split its membership into the awkwardly-named Legends and Leaders Divisions.

Without looking it up, which division was Penn State in? The answer is down below.

When the Big Ten made its most recent expansion to welcome Maryland and Rutgers to the conference, the conference took advantage of the newest members to remake its division lineup with a more traditional East and West format. And, for many of those years, the perceived dominance of the East has been a recurring storyline. What happens when the two best teams in your conference are pit in the same division?

That’s often just the way things go sometimes for every conference, but this appeared to be a more pressing concern for those following and covering the Big Ten, which has seen every Big Ten championship game since the 2014 expansion won by the champion of the East Division (Ohio State five times, Penn State, Michigan, and Michigan State once each). The last four Big Ten championship games have been decided by double-digits.

So, with the NCAA preparing to allow conferences to dictate their own championship game terms, and with a mega-media rights deal in the works, it makes too much sense for the Big Ten to use this opportunity to reshape its conference championship game plans.

The Big Ten will not be alone. The ACC has taken the lead on expressing an interested in changing its conference championship game format, and the PAC-12 is another conference many expect to follow suit. The SEC, on the other hand, may see no reason to mess with a good thing. But how the dynamic changes when Oklahoma and Texas join the conference remains something to watch.

But changing the championship game is one thing. REarranging a conference schedule without the limits of forced division matchups is something else entirely. How the Big Ten handles that may be the more intriguing development to watch unfold. Will schools have protected matchups? If so, who would Penn State be paired up with, especially if Ohio State and Michigan remain locked in their heated rivalry?

These are all questions that will have to be answered, and for every member of the Big Ten as well. What may seem best or most attractive for Penn State may not be for another school, and vice versa.

The times are changing, and so is the way a Big Ten champion will eventually be crowned.

Trivia answer: Penn State was a member of the Leaders Division from 2011 through 2013.

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Is a big change on the horizon for Big Ten football?

The ACC is set to make a significant change to its conference. Could the Big Ten be next?

During the Atlantic Coastal Conference’s annual spring meetings, progress was made on a new scheduling model that would see the conference abandon the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions model sooner rather than later. The ACC first adopted divisional play starting with the 2005 season, and they are the only Division I conference whose divisions are not divided by geography. However, on Tuesday, Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich told reporters, “we’re closer to the end (of divisions) than to the beginning.”

The current model the ACC is discussing adopting is known as the 3-5 format. That would give each of the league’s 14 full-time member schools three permanent opponents, while the other ten schools would operate on an every other season rotation for ten seasons, five years on and five years off. That would allow a four-year player to play every conference opponent at least once. Of course, one of the last hurdles that remain for the conference would be to see what their network partner, ESPN, would think of such a move. The league would want to make sure that its most important business partner would be willing to accept a new conference layout.

The ACC has talked for years about dropping divisions in their league. Still, progress was finally made after the NCAA indicated that they would be dropping a rule requiring a conference of 12 teams or more to have divisions to stage a conference championship game. With that rule on the verge of sunset, the question now becomes, “would the Big Ten ever drop the East/West divisions to create a more balanced schedule within the league?” The Big Ten had non-geographical divisions for the first three years following conference expansion with the gone but not forgotten Legends and Leaders divisions. The league would adopt geographic East/West divisions three years later in 2014.

Why would the Big Ten want to drop the divisions and adopt a format similar to the 3-5? For the sake of competitive balance. Since 2014, the year East/West was adopted, the East has been undefeated. That’s right. The East currently holds an 8-0 the advantage over the West division. The dominance continues heading into this season as well as the top four Big Ten football team for 2022 according to ESPN’s Football Power Index all come from the East division (OSU, Mich, PSU, MSU). I would think that the Big Ten would be interested in dropping divisions if for no other reason than to see new title game matchups and create new possible rivalries by having regularly scheduled matchups against rotating teams within the conference.

The ACC would not drop their divisions until 2023, so it would probably take the Big Ten until 2024 or 2025 until they could or would adopt such a format. I hope Commissioner Kevin Warren would embrace the possibility of more flexible scheduling and the opportunity for some of your marquee rivalry games to be played on a stage like the Big Ten Championship Game.

 

Now a look at the Big Ten division winners and Conference Champions since expansion in 2011.

Big Ten keeping football championship in Indianapolis

The Big Ten is keeping its football championship game in the perfect spot through 2024.

For as long as the game has existed, the Big Ten’s football championship game has been played in LucasOil Stadium in Indianapolis. After an announcement on future championship sites on Wednesday, the Big Ten confirmed that will remain the case for another three seasons.

The Big Ten announced it will continue to play its football championship game in the home of the Indianapolis Colts through the 2024 season, giving the next three Big Ten football title games to LucasOil Stadium in Indianapolis. While there have been discussions about exploring other potential venues for the championship game, keeping the game in Indianapolis is perhaps the best option for the Big Ten.

Indianapolis is widely regarded as a terrific host city, and its central location serves the Big Ten well. Having the dome handy is also nice, although some fans would love to see just one Big Ten title game played outside in the Big Ten elements. But, all things considered, playing on a neutral field in a controlled environment allows for the best quality product for the Big Ten and all parties involved.

Penn State has appeared in the Big Ten championship game once, topping Wisconsin in 2016 to earn a berth in the Rose Bowl Game. The Big Ten has played a conference championship game every season since 2011, when the conference expanded to 12 members with the addition of Nebraska and split into two divisions, the Legends and Leaders Divisions.

Men’s and women’s basketball tournament sites confirmed too

The Big Ten also confirmed its future plans for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The 2023 women’s basketball tournament will be played in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Target Center. Both the men’s and women’s tournaments will be played in the same location the following season, in 2024. This will mark the first time either tournament has been played in Minnesota.

The 2023 men’s basketball tournament is already scheduled to be played in Chicago at the United Center. The Big Ten men’s basketball tournament has been played in Chicago 10 times since 1998, including the first four years the tournament was held beginning in 1998. Chicago and Indianapolis have alternating hosting duties for the tournament throughout the history of the Big Ten tournament, with Washington D.C. and New York City each hosting the tournament in back-to-back years in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

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Where each Big Ten team ranks in latest ESPN FPI standings

Is #Michigan too high, too low, or just right?

ESPN is one of many sites that utilize tools such as the Football Power Index (FPI) to help predict what teams will do both before college football season starts as well as during the season itself.

Advanced analytics like these can be useful predictors, but of course, they’re not always accurate. In 2021, Michigan football used the 1% chance to win the Big Ten as a rallying cry helping to propel it to its first conference championship since 2004. But still, such tools can be good measuring sticks, helping fans understand where their team may be in the pecking order.

This week, ESPN updated its popular FPI for the 2022 season. Here’s where each Big Ten team stacks up against each other as well as where it stands compared to the rest of the college football landscape.

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