Recently on the FishDuck Forum there was a thread started by iubhounds titled “Having To Fly East For Games”. In the thread, I poked the bear and said, in effect, “there’s no evidence that travel and unbalanced schedules with random bye weeks impact the results of the games. OBD wins regardless of travel.” Jon Joseph wrote an outstanding reply that ...

Is ‘Flexible Symmetry’ the Answer to Big-10 Scheduling?

Love this article and thanks for the velvet hammer. My great reply did not get a pass from you, Professor. I get it; been there and velvet-hammered before. For the most part, all hammering was well deserved.

Chancing a deserved critique, might I suggest the following B1G add-ons, with the understanding that the next media deal will see B1G teams keeping the majority of money they earn in the postseason, and media revenue will be shared by eyes on the prize; how many people are watching you play ball.

Cal, Stanford, CU, Utah, UNC, and Duke. (Notre Dame, if amenable, would take the place of one of these six teams. If ND agreed to go B1G, perhaps add UVA with ND.)

Three eight-team divisions. Twenty-four-team playoff. Flex schedule the last two weeks of the regular season for playoff play-in games.

Seven division games. Four cross-over games. One OOC game.

PS - Two trips to the Eastern time zone in November of 2026 is cruel and unusual, but usual for OBD.

I love what Mike Whitty is proposing, as sometimes you try things, (like removing divisions) and then realize things were better the way they used to be. His proposed movement of teams every two years is quite interesting as well.

And WHO would be the final two teams added to the Big-10? Great stuff...

Predictably, Jon Joseph presents some enticing arguments that provoked my mind to consider different directions for reply.  That’s a good thing.  It is exactly what I hoped for while writing the article, and more.

Jon does not really ATFQ of which two schools the B1G should consider for expansion because he gives us six!  And not two divisions, but three.

I struggle to understand how three divisions with four cross-over games can ever be symmetrical.  Of necessity, there is no way the teams will be playing comparable opponents in the cross-over games. 

The Socratic question to you, Jon, is: “How is that symmetrical?”  Hence, is it fair?

I have considered the flex schedule at the end of the regular season before, but Jon gave me a new twist that I will address in the next article.  Hint, maybe there is a way for the B1G to achieve symmetry with only 18 teams and not expand.  Thanks for that.

Notre Dame is an obvious candidate for expansion.  Charles and I have discussed this possibility and he believes that the Irish broadcasting deal with CBS will keep them independent.  More to discuss there.

If expansion and a new alignment means only 2 schools are to be taken (without ND being a possibility) I say Stanford and Cal. This seems like a no-brainer to me. They are among THE finest private and public, respectively, schools in this land. I believe that their fan support will skyrocket with membership in the Big-10 after their few years of purgatory traveling to Clemson, SC. Gross.

If ND is in the mix? ND and Stanford.

Go thoughts, Feather. I miss playing Cal and Stanford. I wonder whether the experience that schools in the B1G before bringing in OBD, fuskies, UCLA and USC are having with the expanded conference as is would cause them to object to two more from the west coast.

Jon Joseph explained it well to me why the two bay area schools will not be added to the Big Ten. They do not add to the revenue stream, and in fact, everybody would have to take a haircut in the conference, if they joined.

I agree that scholastically they fit the Conference perfectly, but if everybody has to take less money?

This goes back quite a ways, but it was announced by the B1G that they have passed on those two schools permanently.

2 hours ago, Grandpa Duck said:

Predictably, Jon Joseph presents some enticing arguments that provoked my mind to consider different directions for reply.  That’s a good thing.  It is exactly what I hoped for while writing the article, and more.

Jon does not really ATFQ of which two schools the B1G should consider for expansion because he gives us six!  And not two divisions, but three.

I struggle to understand how three divisions with four cross-over games can ever be symmetrical.  Of necessity, there is no way the teams will be playing comparable opponents in the cross-over games. 

The Socratic question to you, Jon, is: “How is that symmetrical?”  Hence, is it fair?

I have considered the flex schedule at the end of the regular season before, but Jon gave me a new twist that I will address in the next article.  Hint, maybe there is a way for the B1G to achieve symmetry with only 18 teams and not expand.  Thanks for that.

Notre Dame is an obvious candidate for expansion.  Charles and I have discussed this possibility and he believes that the Irish broadcasting deal with CBS will keep them independent.  More to discuss there.

Thanks again for the great article to ponder. I don't believe in a conference with 16 or more teams that in-conference scheduling can be 'fair.'

In 2023, I don't believe any human or any computer programmed to make in-conference scheduling equal could have predicted that the college football program with the most losses in the history of the sport would qualify for the playoff in 2024 and win the whole darn thing in 2025.

The NFL does all it can to achieve parity among the 32 teams. Besides Bo being injured and a new head coach with a clue, the Pats were in the Super Bowl because New England stunk the prior four seasons, and accordingly, played the easiest NFL schedule in 2025.

It just so happens that Ohio State plays the most difficult conference schedule in 2026, plus a game at Texas. But do you want your top brands and the two teams that played for a conference championship the year before to have the most difficult schedules the next season? Such scheduling would be putting multi-million dollar bullets in your gun and shooting your conference in the foot.

There is a solution, and it's a solution that reflects the state of today's game, including the teams that have qualified for a 12-team playoff the last two years.

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti's 16-team, 4-4-2-2-1-3 automatic qualifier format in 2025-26 would have had one fewer G5 team, but one more B1G, SEC, ACC, B12 team, and Notre Dame would also have been in the field.

Playoff play-in games would help with scheduling symmetry. Wisconsin had a brutal schedule last season. A sixth-place Badgers team may well have been better than a third-place team that had a lightweight schedule; settle it on the field.

1st and 2nd place are in the playoff field, 3rd and fourth place teams are rewarded with flex scheduled home game in the final week of the regular season. The 5th and 6th-place teams have a shot at the playoffs, and more fans would be involved and invested in the entire season.

The price of attendance for Oregon home games next season, and for home games coast-to-coast increase significantly in 2026.

Flex-scheduled playoff play-in games would bring in more media dollars. And with an AQ playoff format, a B1G/SEC out-of-conference football challenge could be played every season for bigger B1G/$EC media money.

Much of the PO Committee's subjectivity would be eliminated. More money for the ACC and the B12 helps stave off further consolidation and keeps millions of ACC and B12 football fans invested in the great game of college football. No need to further shuffle the CFB conference deck.

Your Honor (if you are still awake), I rest my case.😁

[Oops - If and as I expect will happen in 2030, B1G teams keep the playoff money they earn, and media revenue is based at least in part on the number of folks watching the games, adding Cal and Stanford, with a floor for annual investment in athletics for all conference teams, might make sense.]

3 hours ago, Charles Fischer said:

This goes back quite a ways, but it was announced by the B1G that they have passed on those two schools permanently.

Well crap. Those two, I think, should be the only possibilities in the west. Maybe Colorado, but Utah? No way.

OK, ND and UNC it is I guess.

Two things, conference expansion and playoff scheduling.

Maybe it makes sense for the B1G to announce that in 2030 the conference will expand to 20 teams and thereafter there will be no further consideration of expanding. They could even name teams they are considering and include Notre Dame along with five or six others. Then the Irish will be presented with a now or never decision.

To me, allowing the playoff committee and the bowls to impact matters beyond their primary objective, like scheduling, is nonsense. The conferences could just tell them: "We are available to begin playoff games on January 1, 2025, a Friday and you, playoff committees and bowl committees, arrange your schedules accordingly with games on that day and the next. No games more than eight days apart." As it is now, the tail is wagging the dog.

Speaking of travel, on a separate basketball note, so far this season, games in Central/Eastern zone:

1-4 Oregon, with 2 to play

1-4 uW, with 2 to play

1-5 UCLA, with 1 to play

3-4 USC - final trip was Feb. 11

By the way, those 3 USC wins were by a combined 5 points total, and 1 loss was by 1 point.

Cronin is a very unhappy guy at UCLA this season. Both UCLA and USC lost road games at UM & MSU "bigly."

The B1G is a tough basketball conference. Most often, fans are fully invested in basketball especially if their football teams are semi-mediocre at the same school.

If the B1G needs to expand to 20, bring in Stanford and California.

Most of the men at Berkeley need a haircut, anyway.