Eight League Games is Right

The Big Ten toyed with idea of playing nine conference games annually. While it made sense financially, it didn't make a ton of sense competitively. Sure, nine games gave the conference more meaningful games for their network or to spillover onto the ESPN/ABC family of networks. The downside is that it probably made it harder for a school to contend for a national championship. Now it appears that playing more out of conference games might enhance a team's playoff prospects. Thankfully, the B1G has recognized this and responded accordingly.

 

There are probably only three cross-division games that Nebraska fans care about: Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State. With all of the turmoil in State College, it's possible that you could trim that list to just the Buckeyes and Badgers. An extra cross-division game would mean more games with OSU and U-Dub, but it's not as though you'd miss them entirely if you were a contender for the conference championship. If Nebraska won the Legends division they'd face off with the winner of the Leaders division. For the foreseeable future, that's going to be Ohio State or Wisconsin.

With an eight game slate, Nebraska can swap a game with Illinois, Purdue, or Indiana with a non-conference game of their choosing. Sure, sometimes that might wind up being an Idaho State. But other times it could be a UCLA, Miami, BYU, or Tennessee. Let's also not forget the oft-discussed scheduling of a Nebraska-Oklahoma game. Nine games would also mean fewer home games for fans to attend, since there will be years that a team must play five road games in conference.

More importantly, if conferences like the SEC aren't going to nine league games, why further make it tougher for teams from the Big Ten? You're not going to edge out the SEC's recent stranglehold on the national championship by handicapping yourself. The flexibility offered by the eight game slate should allow B1G teams to adapt to whatever the new playoff system requires. If that means scheduling tough out of conference games, then do it. If it means cupcakes, do that. In either case, you aren't locked into a course of action that you can't change.