Around the 'Shoe

If true then it's terrible and a by-product of conference jumbling that so many here are enamored with.

Its true.....................

You should start one. I'd love to hear the rationale behind that pearl of wisdom on an otherwise slow news day.

Ditto. I'm not in favor of dodging anyone but as long as we're going to only play 8 B1G games, I'd rather play Minnesota and Northwestern in the regular season than MSU and Nebraska and save those two for the conference championship game. scUM didn't play Wisconsin or Penn State last year, two teams that would have given them helluva lot more fight than Illinois and Purdue did.

Back in 2002, we didn't play Iowa; they finished the regular season 11-1 and undefeated in the Big 10 and co-champs with OSU but we were undefeated. They were ranked #3 and screaming for a playoff. Instead, we beat Miami in the desert and won a national championship, while they got clobbered by #5 USC in the Orange Bowl. There are people here who still won't let us forget that, acting as if OSU had dodged them. That won't happen anymore. The two best will play in Indy. I'm content to wait until then to play the Legends' better teams.

Why com the hord on fer nebusks

True enough, but the Big Ten is already considered a weak sister conference. I say play the toughest competition we can in the conference. When Nebraska joined the conference a year ago, I was looking forward to many classic battles. They have a great following and solid tradition. I'm disappointed although I understand the difficulty with scheduling.

I read an article on sporting news where they said this (and its true) and they were saying "Ohio State is getting a break by not having to play the new power house in the B1G" but we still play MSU, TSUN, PSU, Iowa, etc.

This brings up a point that my scUM buddy and I talked about last night. When does Indiana's football team just, flat out, fold? They are GARBAGE. Good school for hoops. TERRIBLE school for football.

P.S. If I'm Kevin Wilson and coaching at a perennial loser like IU, I'd be following Bill Snyder's original blueprint at K-State and recruiting the sh*t out of JCs. Snyder took over a program that had the worst overall record in Division I-A and had gone winless in its prior 27 consecutive games. He built K-State into a NC contender recruiting JCs like QB Michael Bishop and off-the-radar high schoolers like RB Darren Sproles, who's a Barry Sanders clone, who was another guy who didn't meet anyone's measurables. With only two years of eligibility left, JCs don't have any margin for error. Sell them hard on being the start of something great.

It only takes seven above-average players to make a pretty good football team: QB, WR, OT, DE, DT, CB and PK. And with the exception of PK, those are the six highest paying positions in the NFL. As of today, IU doesn't have a single 2013 commit, which means Wilson's a) resigned himself to the scraps and will be competing once again with the MAC schools, b) he's banking on unknowns blossoming as seniors, or b) he's realized insanity is doing the same thing day after day and expecting different results and has developed a strategy to work it from a different angle.

It makes sense. I woudn't want to play them every year.
You didn't play a BIG foe year after year when you had 10. You have both a 2 and 4 year window.

Rule 1: anything and everything that has to do with college football these days starts with money. Rule 2: when in doubt, refer to Rule 1.

I don't think we'll see 9 B1G games unless we expand to 14 teams. I'll bet even Indiana makes more $ as the home team hosting Indiana State than getting a visitor's cut playing in the Shoe or the Big Outhouse. But OSU and scUM and PSU hardly want the visitor's share of IU's, Minnesota's or Northwestern's gate when they could be hosting lowly MAC teams and making a lot more money. See Rule 1.

Right now, the B1G has 12 teams. Nine B1G games means 5 against our Leaders foes, plus 4 against teams from the Legends division. (Gwad, I hate those names!) That's only two games short of playing all 11 of the other B1G teams. It also increases the odds the two teams playing in the conference championship game will have already played once in the regular season, match-ups I'm guessing Delaney would personally prefer to avoid. He'd rather have two undefeated teams playing than a rematch of an earlier game. Again, Rule 1.

If the B1G expands to 14 teams, nine conference games means 6 games against divisional foes plus three games against the 7 teams in the other division.