It is a natural instinct to think that a complicated plan or structure is inferior to a simpler plan. In many cases, this is true, but once in a while, injecting a little bit of complexity and nuance into a system can actually help. The new Big Ten football schedule is such an example.
We explained to our friend Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football that the Big Ten could have created a very simple scheduling format. The Big Ten could have used a 3-6-6 plan in which each team played the other 15 schools in the conference every two years. Teams would play 12 rotating opponents (6 and 6) while keeping three permanent annual opponents.
Instead, the Big Ten didn’t give every school three permanent annual opponents. Iowa got three, but Penn State got none. USC and UCLA got one (each other). Maryland and Rutgers got one (each other).
There are reasons for this, and we spent time with Mark unpacking why the Big Ten did what it did.
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