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those old guys aren't really that old to some of us

I am not sure I like no divisions, but I can live with it. If that is what we are living with, Medina's scheduling method of three nonrotating rivals appears to me to be optimal. We need three nonrotating games because of Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Minnesota, which the group here seems to recognize, too. There is uncertainty amongst the group here about whether we need to pair Nebraska with Wisconsin. That said Minnesota, and Iowa need to be paired with each other, and with Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

As I have said before the Big Ten has become the Big 1, and Little 13. Instead of Ohio State being in the championship game 75% or more of the time, it will now be in the championship game 90% or more of the time with no divisions. Ohio State will have a great chance of being in the Top 2 when they are not in the Top 1.

Ohio State continues to shape the conference to its liking. Like it or not, Ohio State is to the Big Ten, like Texas was to the Big 12. Ultimately Texas severely damaged the Big 12. Hopefully that will not happen here.

I wouldn't mind 8 conference games, and do as we did in the 1st COVID season and schedule a 9th competitive game after the season has played out. It's a mystery game, and I thought that was cool even though Iowa and Michigan didn't get to play each other due to COVID-19. This could be accomplished by teams playing the 9th game the 1st week of December and the BTCG two weeks after the last regular season game, provided the 4-game national tournament agrees to select teams after the 2nd Saturday of December.

Why would you wan't to play Auburn instead of Vanderbilt? 

It would make it more difficult to just cruise into the playoffs without even being challenged. 

Ohio St. won't cause the same damage because they share the $$$.  More importantly, the rest of the conference has been pushed around by Ohio St for decades, they're used to it.

The whole idea going to 8 conference games is an easy path to the playoff.  adding a 9th even more competitive game than luck of the draw ruins this.  Perhaps you could have the #1 team, Ohio State and the #2 team ??? play the 14 & 13th teams.

Actually, my thought, was not expressed articulately. #s 3-14 play in the mystery game the first Saturday of December.
Everyone plays only 12-games, 9 of which are against conference opponents. The Top 2 do not play a 13th game. The Top 2's 12th game of the year is the BTCG.
Doomsayers will say that if Teams 3 and 4 play each other in the mystery game, the winner of that game arguably should have played in the BTCG, but I would say too bad, you should have played better your first 8 games.

Actually, my thought, was not expressed articulately. #s 3-14 play in the mystery game the first Saturday of December.
Everyone plays only 12-games, 9 of which are against conference opponents. The Top 2 do not play a 13th game. The Top 2's 12th game of the year is the BTCG.
Doomsayers will say that if Teams 3 and 4 play each other in the mystery game, the winner of that game arguably should have played in the BTCG, but I would say too bad, you should have played better your first 8 games.

I like this idea as a means of balancing schedules but only with the caveat that other than the CG, the rest of the games need to match teams that DID NOT already play.  I simply see no reason to add six extra rematches.  Using last year as an example but with no divisions, the final standings were:

• 8-1 Michigan
• 8-1 Ohio State
• 7-2 Michigan State
• 7-2 Iowa
• 6-3 Minnesota
• 6-3 Wisconsin
• 6-3 Purdue
• 4-5 Penn State
• 4-5 Illinois
• 3-6 Maryland
• 2-7 Rutgers
• 1-8 Nebraska
• 1-8 Northwestern
• 0-9 Indiana

So the non-divisional CG would be a rematch of The Game which sucks for Michigan.  The other six games would be:

• Michigan State vs Iowa
• Minnesota vs Penn State (Minnesota wins tie with UW and PU based on beating both H2H.  They play PSU because that is the best team they didn't already play).  
• Wisconsin vs Maryland (Wisconsin wins tie with PU based on beating them H2H.  They play UMD because that is the best team they didn't already play).  
• Purdue vs Rutgers (Purdue is the last of the 6-3 teams after the tiebreakers so they play the best remaining team they didn't already play)
• Illinois vs Indiana (Illinois is the next best remaining team so they play the only remaining team they didn't already play)
• Nebraska vs Northwestern (This is a rematch but it is forced by the fact that the two CG participants are from the East so there were going to be two B1G-W teams left over at the end).  

I'm not keen on rematches so I wouldn't be thrilled with the tOSU/M and UNL/NU games but other than that I like this system and there would be some big stakes in a number of these games:

• tOSU/M would likely have been playing for a CFP spot.  If tOSU wins then Michigan's earlier win is effectively erased and the Buckeyes go.  If Michigan wins they reaffirm their earlier win and easily go to the CFP.  
• MSU/IA would be playing for a high-end Bowl.  In the actual history Iowa went to the Citrus and played Kentucky while MSU went to the Peach and played Pitt.  
• MN/PSU would be interesting.  Minnesota had a better record by two games but there is an argument that this was because they were in the easier division and didn't have to play PSU's tougher SoS.  Well, lets find out.  If PSU wins then it looks like MN's record was a product of an easier schedule.  If MN wins then they look like a better team.  
• UW/UMD is really not interesting to me.  I think UW would have been favored by multiple scores.  
• PU/RU, see UW/UMD.  
• IL/IN would at least give IU a chance to win a game.  
• UNL/NU can play for the title of NU.  

Why would you wan't to play Auburn instead of Vanderbilt?

It would make it more difficult to just cruise into the playoffs without even being challenged.

Fine, we'll put Ohio State in a division with Alabama, Georgia, and the 85 Bears, you insufferable twat.  Happy?

As I have said before the Big Ten has become the Big 1, and Little 13. Instead of Ohio State being in the championship game 75% or more of the time, it will now be in the championship game 90% or more of the time with no divisions. Ohio State will have a great chance of being in the Top 2 when they are not in the Top 1.

I don't think there is much (if any) risk of that because the dynamic here is vastly different than it was in the B12.  

The problem in the B12 wasn't that Texas was better at football then everybody else, they weren't.   Actually when the conference was new the issue was that the B12-N was too strong because the best two teams were UNL and KSU.  Then later the B12-S was too strong because the best two teams were OU and UT but it was never really UT all alone.  

The issue from the very beginning was that there was simply too much dead wood in the B12 from a revenue perspective.  As originally formed the B12 was made up of:

• Four schools from Texas
• Two schools from Oklahoma
• Two schools from Kansas
• Missouri
• Colorado
• Nebraska
• Iowa State

Texas has a humongous population but having four schools from there in a major conference never made sense.  They don't have four times the population of Ohio.  Moreover, Texas' football fans aren't evenly distributed over UT, aTm, TxTech, and Baylor anyway.  My impression is that Texas has the lion's share, aTm is next, and the rest have relatively small fanbases.  

Two schools each from Oklahoma and Kansas makes no sense.  The B1G has two schools each from Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan but Oklahoma's and Kansas' population is nowhere close to those states.  

Iowa State is definitively NOT the main or "flagship" school in Iowa and, like OK and KS, Iowa's population is substantially less than IL, IN, and MI.  

OkSU, KSU, ISU, and either Baylor or TxTech never brought enough fans to the table to be logical P5 teams.  The B1G has that with Northwestern and the SEC has it with the second schools in TN and MS but one or two in a league isn't a major issue.  With the B12, at least a third of their members simply didn't bring enough fans/eyeballs to the table.  The B12 didn't share revenue equally because they couldn't.  Texas brought the most fans (by a longshot) and they clearly were never going to settle for an even share of revenue in a league with the second schools in OK, KS, and IA plus the second, third, and fourth schools in TX.  

The B1G is vastly different.  Ohio State has a huge fanbase but there are other huge fanbases in the league (M, PSU, UNL) and even a lot of the league's non-helmets have decent sized fanbases.  The Buckeyes aren't nearly as imbalanced here as Texas was in the B12.  

A number of years ago the NYT did a study where they used website clicks to measure fanbase size and they came up with the following top-10:

• tOSU
• M
• PSU
• ND
• TX
• aTm
• Auburn
• Bama
• UF
• Clemson

They did determine that tOSU's fanbase was the biggest (I have my doubts) but that isn't my point.  The more important point is that Ohio State's fanbase is approximately equal to Michigan's (for this purpose it makes no difference which is larger, just that they are approximately the same).  Then Penn State's is not much smaller than those two.  Within the B1G per the NYT article:

• 3.2M, tOSU
• 2.9M, M
• 2.6M, PSU
• 1.4M, UW
• 1.3M, IA
• 1.2M, UNL
• 1.1M, MSU
• 1.0M, IL
• 1.0M, MN
• 0.9M, RU
• 0.6M, IU
• 0.6M, PU
• 0.5M, NU
• 0.5M, UMD

Ohio State doesn't and can't push the B1G around because they aren't the only game in town.  M and PSU have fanbases approximately equal to tOSU's.  UW and IA combined have about as many fans as tOSU.  UNL, MSU, and IL combined have about as many fans as tOSU.  There is very little dead weight in the B1G.  Per the NYT article Baylor, KSU, and ISU would all be nearly dead last in the B1G.