In an effort to improve its overall football product, the Big Ten is reportedly mulling a few possible changes to the way it crowns a football champion. One of those methods could be the removal of a division format.
As first reported by Scott Dochterman of The Athletic on Wednesday, Big Ten leaders have had discussions about moving from a nine-game conference schedule to an eight-game conference schedule and removing the current division format. If the big Ten were to make those changes, Big Ten members would rotate through the conference’s membership. Whether or not that modified format would account for any possible permanent rivalry games is unknown at this time, but it may be expected (there is no way the Big Ten would allow for the possibility of not having Ohio State and Michigan ply every year, for example).
The stripping of divisions is a change that seems to have widespread support from fans, and it could inject some more juice into the Big Ten championship game. The Big Ten East has never lost a Big Ten championship game since moving away from Legends and Leaders, and the perceived imbalance of the Big Ten divisions has been an annual point of discussion in recent years.
The removal of a division format would pave the way to sending the Big Ten’s top two teams to the Big Ten championship game, which would likely make for a more attractive matchup to sell to television viewers, and the advertisers who sell out the big money for the air time. That also likely gives the Big Ten championship game more weight in the College Football Playoff picture, with or without eventual expansion of the postseason format.
And while the idea of removing one more Big Ten conference game goes against the grain of the biggest selling point for having an extra conference game, the idea is that doing so would allow more scheduling flexibility for attractive non-conference matchups with teams from the Pac-12 or ACC. The Pac-12 has suggested it is ready to begin scheduling annual matchups for conference vs. conference showdowns with the Big Ten, but the conference is waiting for the Big Ten to pull up a seat to the scheduling table for that to unfold.
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