Many thanks to those who gave freely of their thoughts in the thread titled: “Is ‘Flexible Symmetry’ the Answer to Big-10 Scheduling?” This rainy Sunday morning in Eugene I asked Charles to lock that thread. As requested, you have given me a load to sort through and I will consider some of that below. As anticipated, you provided information I ...

How the BIG-10 Football Schedule Can Become Fair

Thank you Mike, as you came up with a very reasonable way to solve this. I realize that the teams are swapped every two years, but I do feel that the East is a bit more top-heavy than the West. I would propose moving Wisconsin to the East, and placing Indiana in the West...not because I want to play them, but because we cannot break up Ohio-State Michigan, and Indiana is closer than Penn State. (I believe the 'Lions will be back as a power immediately)

Washington has gone from the ashes of only two returning starters to nine wins in just two years under that bastard Fisch, thus once they get to the final stage and are winning 10 games consistently--that can also help balance the power between the two divisions.

Great ponder points--thank you.

Thanks, Mike.

Your format, including flex scheduling, could work and would be an improvement on the current throw of the scheduling dice from 2024 through 2028.

The difficulty would be in selling the idea to Tony P and the folks at Fox, CBS, and NBC. But as you noted before, discussing the issue is a start.

As iuphound pointed out, and as Charles commented on above, the Legends and Leaders split, followed by the more aptly named East-West, did not work out, due to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and, on one occasion, Michigan State's dominance.

Two years in, OBD has won a conference championship, with the other won by Indiana. Not what the folks in B1G HQ imagined when putting the schedules together.

I do believe Petitti's 24-team playoff without automatic qualifiers format will be adopted, including no conference champ games being played. I also believe that, in addition to Oregon, SC, UCLA, and UW are spending the money required to be successful in football. Wisconsin has stepped up, and one day, Nebraska may see a decent return on its football investment.

So, would East-West Divisions be better balanced today? I think OBD, USC, UCLA, UW, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois could be competitive versus the East.

Perhaps a flex-scheduled East-West crossover conference opening slate of games using the prior season's standings, and a final week of crossover games using the standings after the penultimate week of the regular season.

Play ten conference games, eight division, and two crossover games. Have half of the B1G teams idle in Week Six, the other half in Week Seven. Could the ACC, B12, and SEC be convinced to play ten conference games and follow the same format?

I do think travel matters. Your Division structure would help with travel. Asking OBD to play two games in four weeks in the Eastern time zone in November is handing Oregon the short end of the scheduling stick.

Trying to balance the in-conference SOS is certainly worthy of consideration. Can the folks in Chicago be convinced?

Great follow-up article, Mike, thank you.