Big Ten vs. Pac 12 Agreement: Will Requiring 7 Wins for a Bowl Kill This?

The Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences agreed a month ago to play each other more regularly in all sports, and most importantly, once per year for each team in football. This agreement means each Big Ten team will play nine games against top conference foes, while the Pac-12 will play ten (nine game conference schedule).

While this agreement sounds good on paper and will force teams like Penn State to schedule a bit tougher competition than previously, the biggest questions surrounded those teams with other natural rivalry games against top competition. Would the great series like Michigan vs. Notre Dame and Iowa vs. Iowa State continue?

From all reports, those games will likely continue, which forces a true cupcake off the schedule for most of these teams. At a minimum, these teams will be playing nine or ten of twelve games against legitimate competition.

This week it was leaked that there may be a serious push to move bowl eligibility up to a winning record once again, now 7-5 instead of the six wins needed previously. With such a change comes a number of problems, not the least of which is the culling of a few bowl games since there will not be enough eligible teams with seven wins to fill all bowl slots.

However, the push back from the recent wave of 6-6 teams making the bowl games will likely be enough to push some of these minor bowls back off the schedule. If this move happens, will the agreement in football between these conferences be doomed before it begins?

Take a mediocre team, for example. A team in the Big Ten only needed to schedule four cupcake games (as long as three of them were against FBS schools like the MAC and the Sun Belt) and then manage two conference game wins to reach the magic 6-6. Even some very poor teams could manage a 2-6 conference record by splitting the home games, and thus ended up in bowl games.

It is hard to explain why such a team deserves a bowl berth. Under the new proposed system and agreement with the Pac-12, Big Ten teams will need to win four out of nine tough games just to have a shot at bowl eligibility. While 4-5 is not a great record, it shows a lot more competence than 2-6 and would likely lead to much better bowl matchups.

The story is even better in the Pac-12, where teams will need to achieve a .500 record in ten tough games to make a bowl. For every good story like Indiana a couple years ago or Purdue this year, there are teams like Illinois and Ohio State who finished on long losing streaks and had fired coaches and no fan excitement heading into a 6-6 bowl battle.

I think the Big Ten and the Pac-12 will tolerate this change. Sure, it makes it tougher on the lower tier of the conference, but those bottom bowl games barely paid enough money to cover expenses. Thus, the move to seven win bowl eligibility will likely not jeopardize the new Big Ten Pac-12 agreement.

Let's hope not, anyway.