You've Got To Think About The Game
One of the greatest tradition in the Big Ten, and in football, and in the world, is being threatened. With an expansion to twelve teams, it looks like the Michigan/Ohio State game which normally ends the regular season, and has been doing so on a regular basis for decades, may fall by the wayside. Now instead we may have divisional play and a conference championship.
"The Game" often decided the Big Ten championship, and who'd go to the Rose Bowl, but it was bigger than that. Legendary coaches like Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler built their seasons around it and saved their best plays for it. Winning could redeem a bad season and losing destroyed a good season.
I have nothing against change, and football is a sport of change. (You don't think so? I'll be commenting about this when I review a book of Chuck Klosterman essays in a few weeks.) But let's be reasonable here. If the conference can continue to call itself the Big Ten with twelve teams, certainly it can keep its signature game.
PS I have a friend who started a Facebook page about it. It's already got 1500 members.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:01 AM
2 Comments:
It appears that the league will split into two divisions with an end of the year championship game. The schedules will be uneven (like they are now as every team in the conference will not play every other team), but each team will play every other team within its division. Whether or not U-M and OSU will be in the same division, they will continue to play against each other.
Being the last game of the year is not that important. Nebraska/Oklahoma began to play earlier in the season when the Big 12 changed format; though the rivalry lessened when one team dominated the other for the better part of a decade. Unfortunately for Michigan fans, that has happened against OSU. Michigan appears to be on their way to insignificance (if they R not yet there?), so the rivalry has already diminished.
It's still The Game. It was back in 1969 when Woody didn't take Bo seriously.
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