How Would a Conference Championship Game Affect Iowa?

On June 11, 2010, the University of Nebraska officially joined the Big Ten, therefore solidifying a Big Ten Championship Game in 2011.

It seems a lot of people have split feelings for the soon-to-be Big Ten Conference Championship Game. Most specifically, a lot of Hawkeye fans are unsure where they sit on this fence.

Perhaps the best way to judge this would be to step back and consider how it might have affected the Hawks over the past 10 years; all things considered, 10 years that have been very good for Iowa fans.

First of all, there are certain assumptions that have to be made in order to put together the following scenarios.

The three primary assumptions are based off of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney's quotes of June 11. On that day, Delaney held a press conference during which he addressed splitting the conference into divisions.

“First priority’s competitive fairness to me. Second priority is maintenance of rivalries, some of them are very important. They’re part of who we are and they’re not treated lightly. And then I think the third is what factor, if any, does geography play?” Delaney said.

This says a few things in regard to how the divisions will be set up.

First off, the Michigan and Ohio State rivalry will be maintained and will be played at the end of the Big Ten season. Furthermore, as it's safe to say the Big Ten will not want the conference championship to simply be a replay of that game, the Wolverines and Buckeyes will be in the same division.

Secondly, "competitive fairness" or divisional parity is key. Therefore, the only two teams that come close to counterbalancing OSU and Michigan's historical dominance —Penn State and Nebraska—will be in the other division.

Finally, geography will be taken into consideration, but will not be the major factor when putting together divisions.

In effect, it is a fairly safe assumption—even though some disagree —that Division A will include OSU and Michigan. Meanwhile, Division B will include PSU and Nebraska, despite the fact that these are the two most distant institutions in the conference.

Where does that leave the Hawks?

This is where geography plays a part, as Iowa is the only Big Ten team that shares a border with Nebraska. In effect, it is probable that, in an attempt to stoke up a border war of sorts, Iowa will be in Division B with Nebraska.

The other teams in this scenario, outside of maybe Wisconsin, Illinois, and Purdue, are irrelevant for my purposes, so for the time being they can be disregarded.

Therefore, for the sake of argument, let's say that the Badgers and the Illini would also be in Division B while the Boilers would be in Division A.

The question thus becomes how would a championship game have affected the Hawks seasons over the last decade?

In order to answer this hypothetical question, two considerations have to be made.

The first consideration is that Nebraska's place in what would be their division will be determined by their Sagarin ratings from 2000-2009.

The second consideration is if the conference had been split into divisions, then Iowa's—and every Big Ten team's—schedule would have been drastically altered thus potentially producing much different results.

Regardless, given these considerations, the hypothetical divisional champion will be based on the prospective team's conference record (or, in the case of Nebraska, their Sagarin rating if it is higher than the Division B team with the most wins in any given year).

In the case of a tie, head-to-head play determines the winner, and if there is still no champion, then Sagarin ratings will determine the winner.

With all of that said, Division A is fairly simple as either OSU or Michigan would have won it—with the aforementioned criteria—nine of the past 10 years, with Purdue taking 2000.

After Purdue kicking off the decade with a division championship, Michigan would have won in 2001, 2003, and 2004, and Ohio State would have taken every other year.

Division B isn't so simple.

To begin with, in both 2000 and 2001, Nebraska had a higher Sagarin rating than the best of the potential Big Ten B teams.

In 2000, Nebraska was ranked fourth compared to Wisconsin's 24th, and in 2001, Nebraska was fifth in comparison to Illinois who was 15th.

That leaves the championship of the first two years of the decade as the Huskers against the Boilers and then the Wolverines.

Moving on to the magical season of 2002, Iowa would have gotten Division B's crown and thus, would have played Ohio State.

Iowa also would have gotten the nod in 2003 and 2004, playing both games against the Wolverines. It should be noted that if Purdue were in Division B, they would have been in the 2003 championship over Iowa.

Penn State would have won 2005 and 2008, Wisconsin would have taken 2006, and Illinois would have been in the championship in 2007. Each of those games would be against OSU.

Finally, 2009 would have seen Iowa as the division champion thereby creating a rematch of the 2009 Hawks-Bucks game at the Shoe .

And there you have it. Certainly, it's an imperfect science, but this is the world of BCS football . In effect, an imperfect science sort of makes sense.

While I admit that I think all the questions were answered against the Buckeyes in 2009, as a Hawk fan, I would have loved to have gotten a crack at OSU in 2002.

Furthermore, at the end of the season, I think 2004 Iowa would have disposed of 2004 Michigan. Also, we all remember how 2003 saw the Hawks take their second win in a row over the Wolverines. 

So, what do you think Hawk fans? Would a 12th team and a championship game have made a great decade for football even better?