Isn't this what the Big Ten had originally proposed last year?
It was and I was really intrigued by the idea then.
I like it even if it simply replaced the ninth game because of the schedule-balancing function that it provides.
Consider this year and look at the two B1G-E teams that went 8-1, Michigan and Ohio State. Michigan's three B1G-W cross-overs were:
- 6-3 Wisconsin
- 1-8 Nebraska
- 1-8 Northwestern
So the top team in the B1G-E ended up playing the two worst teams in the B1G-W.
The teams they missed were:
- 7-2 Iowa
- 6-3 Minnesota
- 6-3 Purdue
- 4-5 Illinois
Ohio State's three B1G-W cross-overs were:
- 6-3 Minnesota
- 6-3 Purdue
- 1-8 Nebraska
The teams they missed were:
- 7-2 Iowa
- 6-3 Wisconsin
- 4-5 Illinois
- 1-8 Northwestern
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Indiana who went 0-9 in conference. Their three B1G-W cross-overs were:
- 7-2 Iowa
- 6-3 Purdue
- 6-3 Minnesota
So the worst team in the B1G-E ended up playing three of the four best teams in the B1G-W.
The teams they missed were:
- 6-3 Wisconsin
- 4-5 Illinois
- 1-8 Nebraska
- 1-8 Northwestern.
The ninth game would be a lot more appealing to me if it was automatically a good B1G-W team for good B1G-E teams and a bad B1G-W team for bad B1G-E teams. Lets say you went back to eight, dropping Iowa for the Hoosiers, Northwestern for the Wolverines, and Minnesota for the Buckeyes. Then at the end of the year you'd have Michigan play Iowa, you'd have Ohio State play Wisconsin, and you'd have Indiana play Northwestern. You get three pretty even match-ups (at least theoretically) instead of two complete mismatches and one more even matchup.
I DO like the ninth game, I'm just not as enamored by it as most people here because I realize that while the "extra" game for Michigan might have been Wisconsin, it also might have been Nebraska or Northwestern. For Michigan, adding Wisconsin is great because both were pretty good. Adding Northwestern or Nebraska for Michigan doesn't really get you much since Nebraska and especially Northwestern were terrible. My point is that a randomly added ninth game might be a great match-up that you'd love to see or it might be a complete mismatch that nobody cares about.