Most Impactful Conference Realignment Decisions in history

[medinabuckeye1]

that's true. but conferences had uneven schedules all the way into the late 70's if i remember right. maybe 80's. i know bama won an sec title in 70's due to having played 1 more game than rest of conference (also was undefeated and only other team with argument was on probation, so not controversial, but could have been). i'm sure there were come controversial ones.

socon split from even bigger siaa conference, which was a bumbling mess of a conference that couldn't decide if it wanted to exist or not.

I think (could be wrong) that most conferences had at least some semblance of scheduling uniformity long before the SoCon did.  

In the early days of the B1G, there were oddities and that was actually one of the driving forces behind Michigan's ten year hiatus.  They wanted to play more games and specifically more OOC games because they were at a point where they were at least trying to be competitive with the major East Coast powers (which were the major powers of the day) and the league was reigning in the number of games and specifically the number of OOC games so Michigan left.  

For what became the B1G, it started with very unequal numbers of games:
1896:
Wisconsin won with a record of 2-0-1 which counted as a 1.000 percentage because at the time ties basically didn't count so they were effectively 2-0.  In a modern system ties are treated as 1/2 of a win so that 2-0-1 would have been .833 still good enough to win.  Chicago played five league games, Northwestern played four, and the other five members played three each.  


1906 was the last year before Michigan's hiatus:

• 4 games:  Chicago, Illinois
• 3 games:  Wisconsin, Purdue
• 2 games:  Minnesota, Indiana
• 1 game:  Michigan, Iowa

1913 was Ohio State's first year in:

• 7 games:  Chicago
• 6 games:  Indiana, Northwestern
• 5 games:  Purdue, Illinois
• 4 games:  Wisconsin
• 3 games:  Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio State

1917 was Michigan's first year back and consequently the first time that what became the B1G had 10 members:

• 5 games:  Northwestern, Wisconsin, Illinois, Chicago
• 4 games:  Ohio State, Minnesota, Purdue
• 3 games:  Indiana
• 2 games:  Iowa
• 1 game:  Michigan

It seems that by roughly the end of WWII schedules were pretty uniform.  For example, in 1947 all nine teams (Chicago was out by then and MSU wasn't in yet) played six league games.  

One exception that REALLY hurt Ohio State was the BigTen's experiment with nine league games in the early 1980's:
It started in the late 1970's with a few teams playing nine league games.  Then in 1981 all except tOSU and Iowa played nine league games.  Ohio State and Iowa did not play each other and were league co-Champions at 6-2.  Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin were tied for 3rd/4th/5th at 6-3.  If Ohio State and Iowa had played, the winner would have been outright champion at 7-2 while the loser would have tied Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin for second at 6-3.  Iowa went to the Rose Bowl because at the time the tiebreaker was whoever hadn't been for the longest (the Longest Loser rule) so they went to the RoseBowl because they hadn't been in a long time while Ohio State had gone as outright champions two years earlier.  

The next year (1982) Michigan won the league outright at 8-1 with Ohio State finishing second at 7-1 and Iowa third at 6-2.  Ohio State's loss was to Wisconsin in their conference opener and they beat Michigan H2H.  If they had played (and beaten) Iowa, they'd have tied Michigan at 8-1 and won the H2H tiebreaker for the RoseBowl.  


Trivia:
In 1983 all ten teams played a full 9-game round-robin and Illinois became the (still) only team to ever beat EVERY other B1G team in a single season with their 9-0 record.  

• 9-0 Illinois beat everybody
• 8-1 Michigan lost only to IL
• 7-2 Iowa lost only to IL and M
• 6-3 Ohio State lost only to IL, M, and IA
• 5-4 Wisconsin lost only to IL, M, IA, and tOSU
• 3-5-1 Purdue lost only to IL, M, IA, tOSU, and UW (tied MSU)
• 2-6-1 Michigan State lost only to IL, M, IA, tOSU, UW, and NU (tied PU)
• 2-7 Indiana beat only MN and NU
• 2-7 NU beat only MN and MSU
• 0-9 Minnesota lost to everybody

They stuck with nine games through 1984 then reverted to eight in 1985.  

[847badgerfan]

Illinois lost to Mizzou that season. Otherwise who knows. Of course, UCLA blew their doors off in the Rose Bowl.

[medinabuckeye1]

One exception that REALLY hurt Ohio State was the BigTen's experiment with nine league games in the early 1980's:
It started in the late 1970's with a few teams playing nine league games.  Then in 1981 all except tOSU and Iowa played nine league games.  Ohio State and Iowa did not play each other and were league co-Champions at 6-2.  Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin were tied for 3rd/4th/5th at 6-3.  If Ohio State and Iowa had played, the winner would have been outright champion at 7-2 while the loser would have tied Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin for second at 6-3.  Iowa went to the Rose Bowl because at the time the tiebreaker was whoever hadn't been for the longest (the Longest Loser rule) so they went to the RoseBowl because they hadn't been in a long time while Ohio State had gone as outright champions two years earlier. 

The next year (1982) Michigan won the league outright at 8-1 with Ohio State finishing second at 7-1 and Iowa third at 6-2.  Ohio State's loss was to Wisconsin in their conference opener and they beat Michigan H2H.  If they had played (and beaten) Iowa, they'd have tied Michigan at 8-1 and won the H2H tiebreaker for the RoseBowl. 

That possibly cost the Buckeyes two straight RoseBowl appearances.  

The funny thing is that, at the time, it didn't seem like nearly as big of a deal as it became as time moved forward.  You see, at the time, the Buckeyes had just recently gone to the RB as outright Champions in 1979 (this is all by season year not RB year).  That 1979 trip was Ohio State's seventh in 12 years (68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 79) so missing in 1981 and 1982 due to not playing Iowa didn't seem all that big.  Then, Ohio State won the league outright and went to the RB in the 1984 season so still not a big deal.  But then came the dark times.  From the 1985 through 1995 seasons Ohio State went to zero Rose Bowls.  They did have some close calls:

• 1986 tied M, lost H2H tiebreaker.  
• 1990 finished 1/2 game out of a four-way tie for first.  
• 1993 tied UW, lost on Longest Loser Rule
• 1995 one game behind Northwestern, lost THE GAME which would have sent Ohio State in spite of the Longest Loser Rule because NU had an OOC loss.  

Heading into the 1996 season the Buckeyes hadn't been to the RoseBowl in 11 years and had only been to one in the previous 16 seasons (1980-1995) so those two possibilities in the early 1980's were a bigger deal by then.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Illinois lost to Mizzou that season. Otherwise who knows. Of course, UCLA blew their doors off in the Rose Bowl.

The Illini also had some fortunate scheduling that helped them along:

• 2nd place Michigan AT HOME, won by 10
• 3rd place Iowa AT HOME, won by 33
• 4th place Ohio State AT HOME, won by 4
• 5th place Wisconsin on the road, won by 12
• 6th place Purdue on the road, won by 14
• 7th place Michigan State on the road, won by 10
• 8th/9th place Indiana AT HOME, won by 28
• 8th/9th place Northwestern on the road, won by 32
• 10th place Minnesota on the road, won by 27

It is pretty amazing good fortune to get your three closest competitors at home.  Among the top-4:

• 3 home games, Illinois; 3-0 won the home games
• 2 home games, Michigan (IA, tOSU); 2-1 won the home games
• 1 home game, Iowa (tOSU); 1-2 won the home games
• 0 home games, Ohio State; 0-3 didn't have any home games

Ohio State lost the three road games against the other top-4 teams by three (M), four (IL), and six (IA) points.  Note also that the final records are in the exact same order as the number of home games against top-4 opponents.  IMHO, if all four would have played something closer to equal H/A schedules we'd likely have had a convoluted multi-team tie.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Of course it is possible that the BigTen simply wasn't any good in 1983:
First place Illinois:

• Lost 45-9 to UCLA in Rose Bowl
• Went went 1-1 OOC with a win over woeful Stanford and a loss to Mizzou

Second place Michigan:

• Lost 9-7 to Auburn in the Sugar Bowl
• Went 1-1 OOC with two close games against schools from the state of Washington

Third place Iowa:

• Lost 14-6 to Florida in the Gator Bowl
• Went 2-0 OOC with wins over ISU and PSU

Fourth place Ohio State:

• Won the FiestaBowl 28-23 over Pitt
• Went 2-0 OOC with wins over Oregon and Oklahoma

[OrangeAfroMan]

Pre-1975, SEC teams played 6 to 8 conf games.  Then it became more standard to play 6.  Then in 1987, they added a 7th conf game.  This is when Florida stopped playing Miami every season. 
It's hard to rate the quality of OOC games back then, as there were many independents.  Rating them is inexact, as there were great programs that were good every year and others that would peak and valley.
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Looking up all of this stuff, I noticed something about Vanderbilt. 
I know Vandy has sucked, does suck, and will always suck.  They went winless 16 times in the last 45 years in conference play. 
In 1975, Vandy started in a very Vandy way, losing their first 4 conf games by a combined 139-16.  Blowouts, destroyed.  Even their OOC wins were sad (9-6 over Rice, 6-3 vs Tulane). 
But then they beat Virginia.  Woo-hoo!  1-10 Virginia!
Anyway, Vandy then won 2 straight conf games, vs UK and Tennessee.  Tennessee!!
Would they build on that going forward?
No.
Vanderbilt lost it's next 33 conf games.  0-6 for five straight years and the first 3 SEC games that next year.
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Wow.