The Big Ten's Bowl Problem

New Year, Old Story: For The Big Ten, Its Time to Put Up or Shut Up

Now in its 100^th year, the Rose Bowl has always been an annual rite of passage. The TV gold panorama shots of the packed stadium set against the backdrop of the San Gabriel mountains is as much a signal of the new year as is the dropping of the diamond ball in Times Square. But while the Rose Bowl has always been a part of the New Year’s tradition, a new tradition has come to the forefront over the past several years: Big Ten football ineptitude.

Once again this year, January 1^st was not a good date for those trying to show that Midwesterners can still play football at a high level. With losses by Iowa and Wisconsin today following earlier defeats of Minnesota and Michigan, the conference dropped to just 2-4 for the 2013-2014 bowl season and a staggering 49-65 in bowl games during the BCS era (1998 to present).

While this ugly record in the silly season has done as much to bolster the reputation of the vaunted SEC as it has to slowly diminish the stature of the once-powerful Big Ten, it does have its fair share of legitimate and often overlooked reasons.

First and foremost, the Big Ten had traditionally ended its regular season up to two weeks prior to its bowl opponents. Although this has largely been eliminated since the conference added a championship game during the 2011 season, it did play a part in much of the dark era of Big Ten bowl performance. Though obviously both teams face a layoff prior to the “postseason”, there is a big difference between three weeks off the field and five weeks away from the game. Certainly this falls more in the category of “excuse” than legitimate explanation, but it does carry some weight when you look at the flat starts and uncharacteristically sloppy play that has marred the performances of the conference’s best teams under the national spotlight.

But perhaps more importantly, bowl games are played in the south and southwest rather than the Big Ten’s home turf. Moreover, the games played in the south are played against teams from the south (SEC) and those played out west are generally played against teams from the west (Pac-12). The Big Ten’s struggles in the Rose Bowl against Pac-12 teams playing in their own backyard aren't all that new. Even after Michigan State snapped a three-game slide (all by Wisconsin) by defeating Stanford, the conference has won just 4 of the 11 BCS-era match ups and just 13 of the 40 matchups played since 1970.

The Pac-12 dominance could be the result of having better teams and certainly during the periods of USC dominance, that is very much the case. However, the one-sided nature of the modern Rose Bowl is also in part a function of the fact that Big Ten teams are not built to play in the LA basin. Furthermore, the Pac-12 representative traditionally faces a very minimal travel burden and doesn’t have to make the climate adjustment that for many of us from the great white north makes performance at a high level virtually impossible to pack for the trip.

The same phenomenon largely holds true with regards to the Big Ten’s ineptitude against SEC foes in the “lesser” bowl games that lead off the New Year’s Day slate. Teams designed to handle the cold weather of November Big Ten games are forced to play in the heat and humidity of Florida or in the indoor track that is the Louisiana Superdome (almost always, coincidentally, against Louisiana State) and have to do so against teams built for precisely those conditions in which the games are played.

Don’t pretend that a game between Ohio State and LSU in the Superdome is a “neutral site game” and don’t tell me that Michigan can play against Florida on an “even playing field” in Orlando. Bowl games in the south are home games for the SEC representative and to call them anything else is to ignore reality.

If you consider the bowl games the road games they really are, the Big Ten’s record becomes a whole lot more respectable. While a .430 winning percentage is far from outstanding, consider that during the 2010-2011 season road teams in games between BCS conference teams (and ND) won just 32.73% of the time. Though the bowl environment certainly dampens the advantage for the home SEC (and to a large extent, Pac-12 as well) teams, the familiarity with conditions most commonly faced on the field and the desire of these teams, particularly those from the SEC, of protecting the “home turf” of their region gives rise to an advantage significant enough to explain a good deal of the basis for the Big Ten’s bowl game struggles.

Could the SEC be far superior to the Big Ten at this point in time? Sure, of course they could. Is it legitimate to argue that they are the best conference in the country? Certainly.

But are the results in their bowl games against Big Ten opponents a valid piece of evidence to support these contentions? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Remember, the Big Ten struggling in bowl games is nothing new. Though the folks at the worldwide leader seem to act as if the last decade has seen the SEC surge ahead of the rest of the country in terms of football prowess (particularly in relation to the Big Ten), the statistics simply don’t back that assertion. And yes, I know the only stat that matters in the eyes of many is national titles and the SEC has won all of them.

But where are those “National Titles” decided? Here is a clue: It isn’t Indianapolis, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, or any number of viable midwestern sites.

Much of this is sentiment I have expressed before and it is sentiment I will continue to believe in despite the fact many so-called experts conveniently choose to ignore it.

However, I am done using it as an excuse because it is no one else’s fault by the Big Ten conference itself. Time and time again, the Big Ten has allowed itself to be the sacrificial lamb (albeit one that is very well-paid) for two conference in the Pac-12 and SEC that are gradually becoming the class of the college football landscape, taking hold of a mantle the Big Ten itself once held very securely.

If the bowl games were what they should be, exhibitions to reward teams for a successful season and to provide TV networks (well, just 1 network now) with a massive audience to get the year started, then I would have no problem with the conference continuing to put itself in a difficult position and would be fine persisting in my crusade to eliminate the bowl season from consideration in the never-ending debate concerning college football superiority both on the conference and individual team level.

But with the end of the BCS era (thank the lord) and the beginning of the college football “playoff” next season, it is clear that the bowl games can never again be mere exhibitions. Regardless of how illogical it may be, the bowl games not only will be deciding the national champions of the current season, but also the contenders for the title the following year.

While this is a phenomenon that began when the BCS was formed in 1998 (and was bolstered by the changes made to the BCS formula in 2006, conveniently the very season that marked the beginning of the SEC “streak”), it is one that the Big Ten had a perfectly good opportunity to stop when it negotiated for the new four-team playoff system that will begin with next season.

Though undoubtedly other parties were involved, the negotiations for a new system to replace the BCS at the end of its contract in 2014 were essentially a battle between the interests of the on-field “power” that is the SEC and the off-field power that is the Big Ten (Have you seen the Pac-12 network available in a New York City hotel?).

For many of the reasons I have always stated, the SEC wanted to ensure that the entire “playoff” would be played in the confines of Dixie, with the “concession” being made that they could occasionally move into the “neutral” southwest when the available sites south of the Mason-Dixon were all gobbled up.

On the other side of the table, the Big Ten stood ready with a proposal that would, if you believe in the theory of vast SEC superiority, have benefitted the “best conference in America” had it been adopted. The Big Ten’s plan was to reward the higher seeds in the four-team playoff by having the semifinals played in the home stadiums of the #1 and #2 teams. This would allow the rest of the bowl system to stay in tact, with the semifinal winners moving into the national title game and the losers filling back into the “BCS Bowl” slots from which they were removed when they were selected for the playoff.

As ESPN’s own Big Ten blogger Brian Bennett said back in 2012 when the proposal was unveiled, “Playing semifinal games at home sites instead of using the bowls makes so much sense that I'm actually surprised that top college football officials would consider it.” From the Big Ten’s perspective, it was a way to allow for the possibility that a title-contender from the Midwest could make its way to the finale by taking advantage of playing in the cold comforts of home while also preserving the Rose Bowl as a likely Big Ten-Pac 12 matchup on January 1.

The SEC couldn’t get a playoff approved without the Big Ten’s support and since this proposal gave teams around the country a chance to host a spotlight game on campus, it would seem like this would be the plan toward which the support of athletic directors around the country would flow.

But the SEC knew what the Big Ten held so dear and took advantage of it: The Rose Bowl.

Even though it has been a contractual part of the event for only the last half of its century-long existence, the Big Ten conference and commissioner Jim Delany are obsessed with the Rose Bowl. Ironically, however, the conference’s devotion to protecting the matchup with a Pac-12 foe in Pasadena on New Year’s Day may have not only resulting in the caving in to SEC demands for a more southerly playoff track, but also in the end of the very matchup the conference was so intent on protecting.

As a result of the conference’s inability to use its leverage to set up a system that removed the inherent bias against them, the SEC has ensured that it will continue to dominate the college football landscape for years to come, provided only that its members can continue their tradition of protecting home turf like every college football team in America has a tendency of doing.

Delany and company not only failed to win approval of their proposal for semifinals hosted by the higher seeds, they didn’t even reach a compromise. With just an ounce of hard-nosed bargaining, the Big Ten’s leadership could have at the very least won support for a system in which the entire playoff was conducted in a completely neutral set of venues, either influenced by the geography of that year’s higher seeds or otherwise varied from year-to-year to ensure a wide geographic spread of neutral venues.

Instead, they simply caved and allowed the SEC to win approval for 100% of its proposed system and to enable the status quo of patently unfair venues to continue into this new era of college football.

If anything, the new system is more geographically biased toward the schools of the old south than the BCS was even in its heyday. Of the six bowls that will be used to fill the semifinal games, the bowls still being used for no reason other than to continue the less-than-ethical relationship between high-level AD and presidents, conference commissioners, and bowl representatives charged with safeguarding the traditions (ahem, financial coffers) of their “not-for-profit” events conducted with 200+ unpaid entertainers, four of them are located in the deep south, two in the southwest, and ZERO in the northeast, mid-atlantic, or Midwest.

Since the Super Bowl can be held in Indianapolis and even outdoors in New Jersey, why does a NATIONAL college football semifinal game have to be played nowhere but the southern half of our vast nation?

Had the southern bias been, as it largely is now, confined simply to the title game itself, my anger at the “peace for our time” tactics of our conference negotiators would be somewhat restrained. But now instead of just one opportunity to be blasted by a full speed train of home field advantage, the new system provides two opportunities for Big Ten teams to find themselves at a loss against “SEC Speed”.

I know the title game venues beyond 2017 are TBA, but with a three-year lineup of Dallas, Glendale, and Tampa, does anyone really think that Indy, Detroit, or Minneapolis would have a prayer?

As much as I wish I could place the blame for this extension of the acutely unfair status quo on the evil overlords of the SEC, I cannot. This one falls squarely on the Big Ten and its inability to assert itself in the boardroom any better than it has of late on the field.

Agreeing to the playoff system the Big Ten agreed to is akin to allowing Tiger Woods to reach Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors by playing every US Open and PGA Championship at either Torrey Pines, Bay Hill, or Firestone (if you aren’t a golf fan, check out his record at those venues).

So having lost its opportunity to even the playing field at any point prior to the 2025 season, it might just be time for the conference to wave the white flag and admit defeat. Not defeat from the standpoint of agreeing that its brand of football is inferior to that played in the land of Dixie but rather that its brand is, by design, unable to compete in the consensus venues used to decide the “national champion” and if that is the case, continuing to try fitting a square peg into a round hole is a useless effort.

As long as collegiate football titles are decided in Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Glendale, and even Pasadena, the SEC will have a perpetual advantage and the Big Ten a never-ending hill to climb.

The opportunity to rectify the situation unfortunately passed with the long-term playoff agreement put in place last year. At this point, the only solution for the Big Ten is to cut off the opportunities they present to conferences like the SEC, Pac-12, and Big 12 to bolster their reputations at the Big Ten’s expense in patently unfair matchups.

Maybe you do that by reinstituting the “One bowl team” rule that the Big Ten had in place until the 1970s. But since the schools would never agree to that because of the irrational belief in the financial power of the bowl appearance, perhaps the conference could instead simply abandon the traditional matchups and find more favorable contracts that would improve the overall record. Doing so wouldn’t even require stooping down to the “Group of Five” level but would instead simply happen by virtue of playing teams from the west in bowls held in the south and visa versa.

Is it wishful thinking? Of course. But at this point I am sick and tired of making excuses for the annual ineptitude put on display by a conference that time after time squanders the opportunities it has to place itself on a more level playing field nationally.

At this point it is clear the money is too great and too important to conference leadership for them to place it at risk in pursuit of an agreement for crowning a “national champion” and for setting the national landscape of college football that isnt inherently tilted toward the gulf of Mexico (with an honorable mention going to the Pacific Ocean) both physically and consequentially.

Instead, I will just turn the calendar forward come December 31 and remember what the New Year should mean in the college sports landscape: the beginning of the march to madness. After all, its a lot easier on the psyche to concentrate on basketball, where subjective interpretation is irrelevant because in the end the titles are won on the playing surface. Even in this new “playoff” system the conferences have devised, football simply cannot say the same.