So What are the REAL Competitively Balanced Divisions?

When the Big Ten announced their realignment on Wednesday, they said that both competitive balance and geography played a part in setting up the divisions. A lot has been said about the geography side of things. An East-West split seemed pretty easy, but what about the Competitive balance part of it. My guess is the Big Ten grouped and then split pairs of teams by competitiveness. It was probably something like 1. Ohio State - Michigan 2. Nebraska - Penn State 3. Iowa - Wisconsin 4. Purdue - Michigan State 5. Illinois - Minnesota 6. Northwestern - Indiana.

But, what if the Big Ten used real numbers to split up their divisions? I thought this would be interesting to look at, so I looked at each of the 12 teams records throughout the BCS Era (since 1998). I feel like that is a pretty good gauge of competitiveness. You have 12 years to work with, this was an era when things became a little more standardized in college football, and its recent history. Sure, Illinois was awesome in the 1920s with Red Grange, but how much does that matter or affect their recruiting now? Remember, colleges are trying to recruit kids that were born in 1992 or 1993 this year, so the BCS started when they were 4 or 5. So let's take a look at the standings since 1998. These records include bowl games and conference championship games (for Nebraska). Teams in the real life Ohio State division are in red and teams in the real life Michigan division are in blue:

	W	L	PCT
1. Ohio State	119	32	0.788
2. Wisconsin	107	46	0.699
3. Nebraska	105	49	0.682
4. Michigan	101	48	0.678
5. Penn State	96	52	0.649
6. Iowa	84	63	0.571
7. Purdue	83	66	0.557
8. Michigan State	76	70	0.521
9. Minnesota	75	72	0.510
10. Northwestern	67	78	0.462
11. Illinois	56	85	0.397
12. Indiana	47	92	0.338

So, if we were to split up the conferences from a competitive standpoint, we would put teams 1. 4, 5, 8, 9, and 12 together and teams 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, and 11 together (to make it a "snake" pattern). This means the divisions would be:

Division A: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Michigan State, Minnesota, Indiana
Division B: Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois

This is interesting because in real life, the Big Ten put the top 2 and bottom 2 teams over the past 12 years together, leaving the other division to mostly be the "middle of the pack" division. Divison A looks much stronger on paper in the alignment above, but its actually more balanced, at least over the 12 years. The interesting thing is in his alignment, pretty much only the Purdue/Indiana and maybe the Iowa and Wisconsin vs. Minnesota rivalries would be lost to realignment, probably eliminating the real life need for a cross-conference protected rivalry.

I also took it one step further, because the Big Ten is all about money. Bowl game appearances bring in big bucks, so I gave 1 extra "win" for a bowl bid and 2 extra "wins" for a BCS bid. This didn't change the standings that much, but here they are:

	W	L	PCT	Bowls	BCS	EPCT
1. Ohio State	119	32	0.788	3	8	0.914
2. Wisconsin	107	46	0.699	9	2	0.784
3. Michigan	101	48	0.678	6	4	0.772
4. Nebraska	105	49	0.682	8	2	0.760
5. Penn State	96	52	0.649	5	2	0.709
6. Iowa	84	63	0.571	6	2	0.639
7. Purdue	83	66	0.557	8	1	0.624
8. Minnesota	75	72	0.510	9	0	0.571
9. Michigan State	76	70	0.521	6	0	0.562
10. Northwestern	67	78	0.462	5	0	0.497
11. Illinois	56	85	0.397	1	2	0.433
12. Indiana	47	92	0.338	1	0	0.345

This setup only gives us one change, but its a big one. It swaps Michigan and Nebraska. Here is what it would be under this alignment:

Division A: Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Michigan State, Minnesota, Indiana
Division B: Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois

I'm sure under this format they would have done the cross-division rivalry because they split up "sacred" Michigan and Ohio State. What would the other 5 be? I'll guess Nebraska vs. Iowa, Minnesota vs. Wisconsin, Purdue vs. Indiana, Illinois vs. Penn State, and Michigan State vs. Northwestern. The most interesting thing I realized while doing this is that Illinois has only been to 3 bowl games in the past 12 years, and 2 of them have been BCS bowls. Weird. But that's why splitting them up by BCS appearances alone can be deceiving. Also, who would have guessed that Wisconsin has the 2nd best record over the past 12 years, even when you correct for bowls? They have been very, very consistently above average, but rarely great.

I'm interested to hear what you think about these other possible alignments. Feel free to leave a comment.