Geography. That's how divisions are usually decided ( except for Mizzou playing in the SEC East). Unfortunately all the good teams are in the East where Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State are traditional powers. Nebraska is the only team in the West that had been considered a football power. Maybe if ND ever joins the B1G they could be put in the West to try and balance things out a bit.
Hey B1G, how did it come about that they let the two divisions be so lopsided. Historically, Ohio State and Michigan were usually the best in the B1G, and among the best in the NCAA. I thought for sure they would have split those two up.
That was the excuse for our keeping both Vandy and UT at first and then just UT, after the expansion. Going forward, I think the SEC has to be reorganized, either into divisions which make more sense or into a round robin. Trying to arrange around rivalries no longer makes sense. In our case, MO needs to move to the west and AU needs to move to the east. Traditional rivalries needs to be dropped. As I've explained before, the AU "rivalry" is a relatively new one. When I matriculated in 1957, we'd been playing them only for nine years, since the series was discontinued in 1907. You could hardly count the last three of those, during the Whitworth regime. I'm one of those who believes that resuming the rivalry has not been good for either school nor for the state. I think it's time to return to logic in conference alignment...
I'm not sure Northwestern has to beat TOSU to keep the Big10 out of the playoffs. If TOSU wins the conference then I think the big12, Alabama, Clemson, and Notre Dame are the top 4. TOSU should not have gotten absolutely whooped by Purdue.
