I thought Nebraska might be a dark horse in the west this year, until I looked at their schedule.
Road games against the Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Iowa. Yikes.
Conversely, fans often complain about unappetizing home schedules. Home games are Akron, Colorado, Troy, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan State. Only two interesting home games are Colorado (old rival) and Michigan State.
Akron and Troy are bores, but no matter what I always find conference games interesting.
"Colorado (old rival)." Boy, that seems like a "million years " ago. The Big Eight, PAC 8 and the Big 10 (when they actually had 10 schools)!
Yeah, it's too bad some schools moved around. Honestly, I think college football could fix a lot of the regional rivalries that have gone away with a few simple fixes:
1. Move Nebraska bask to the Big 12, insert Notre Dame into the Big Ten in their place.
2. Move Texas A&M back to the Big 12, insert NC State in their place from the ACC, add UConn to the ACC.
3. Swap Missouri and West Virginia
Yes... I know this will never happen due to many things so spare me the argument. But how great would that be for fans?
*ND finally in the Big Ten against traditional/geographical rivals.
*UConn back with some former Big East rivals, now in same conference with rival Boston College
*Nebraska/ Oklahoma, Texas/Texas A&M, Missouri/Kansas, etc. back in the Big 12
*NC State out of the UNC/Duke shadow, setting up nice rivalry with South Carolina in SEC. West Virginia/Kentucky (Hatfield/McCoy) as well as WVU taking on Tennessee every year. Appalachia Cup!
Of course we all know it's not about fans, but $$$. However, Just those few realignments would really add such a benefit for fans all over. More traditional rivalries. More geographical rivalries that fans could drive to. Better aligned conferences. I'd love to see it, but alas it will never happen.
I'm just someone who really loves rivalries and they are mostly built on geography. It's rare that you get a heated rivalry like ND/USC where the two schools are so far apart. Give me more OSU/Michigan, Alabama/Auburn, MSU/ND
Roam, while you are dreaming, why not a three-way swap with WVU to ACC, Louisville to SEC, and Mizzou to Big 12? WVU gets to pick up old rivals Pitt, Syracuse, BC, and VaTech. Louisville fits better with Kentucky and the rest of the SEC. Mizzou gets to go back with old Big 8 teams like OK, OK-St, K, K-State, Nebraska, etc.
That certainly works well too! Even better!
Anyone want to take a flyer on why ND chose the ACC instead of the B1G to play a partial conference schedule? Did the B1G insist it was either all or nothing?
If I remember correctly, yes that was the case. The Big Ten said football comes with you or find somewhere else.
LOL, funny that they are now partial members in Ice Hockey.
It's a question of want/need. They wanted/needed ND in men's hockey to increase competitiveness for tournament slots. They are pretty well set with more than six schools competing in most other sports (i.e., m & w basketball, m & w soccer, baseball, softball, etc.) and ND football is the main thing that they would like. Also, the hockey invite might be a change in tactic to get ND more comfortable with the B1G membership possibility. Still not likely due to ND deal with NBC and yearly games against USC, Stanford, and service academies.
The following is an interesting story. If true, some things have changed over the years and others have not.
