exswoo

Just to give a final update on the Director's Cup : http://thedirectorsc...nfstandings.pdf Final Standings #3 Ohio State #7 Michigan #10 Penn State #19 Illinois #20 Minnesota #24 Wisconsin #34 Indiana #35 Michigan State #38 Nebraska #42 Northwestern #47 Iowa #48 Purdue ...and just for fun, the Big 12 rankings : #5 Big 12 Texas #11 Big 12 Texas #16 Big 12 Oklahoma #26 Big 12 Baylor #40 Big 12 Oklahoma State #44 Big 12 Iowa State #50 Big 12 Missouri #52 Big 12 Kansas #62 Big 12 Kansas State #68 Big 12 Texas Tech

In your situation I would see the following: Definitely in : Ohio State goes 11-0 Oklahoma goes 11-0 Alabama goes 10-1 losing to Florida (wins the SEC) Debatable : Virginia Tech goes 11-0 Michigan goes 10-1 losing to Ohio State LSU goes 10-1 losing to Alabama Out: Boise State goes 11-0 I suspect they would look at SOS of these 3 teams to decide which one deserves the #4 spot - and I suspect ACC will get hosed again with it really coming down to Michigan and LSU, starting the next chain of conference realignment

Bowls still exist - but the team selection process for the major bowls may go back to the bowls like they used to instead of it being part of the 'BCS' system. This is one of the areas that's still yet to be finalized.

Finals will be bid out, so it's possible for the championship to be in Indianapolis or some other city in B1G country

You can't really look at the historical rankings to get a sense of how the rankings will play out though. Since the selection committee won't be making the final decision until all the way at the end, I expect most people to just follow the AP and Sagarin rankings for most of the season with the occasional talking head coming up with different bracketology articles based on expected records at the end of the season - similar to college hoops

I think my friends who went up for one against Michigan last year mentioned that it was relatively easy to buy tickets off of some students for around $40-50...YMMV obviously, but I wouldn't give up too early

I noticed the same thing about Chip Kelly...is that about the rumored NCAA violations that's supposed to be coming? I can't think of any other reason anyone in Oregon would be displeased about Oregon winning their first Rose bowl in 95 years...unless that's going to be taken away from them.

I'd imagine the the tickets would be relatively easy to get through other channels though - probably one of, if not the cheapest game in conference.

This is an accurate depiction of how I felt about each school when I first started grad school and was new to B1G country : Illinois - I remember their basketball team being dominant a few years back...why are they so bad now? Indiana - Their logo's pretty cool, I guess. Iowa - Corn Michigan - Michael Phelps really trained here? Michigan State - Wait...is that a different school from U Michigan? Minnesota - Home of Best Buy and Target. Weird. Nebraska - More Corn Northwestern - Shouldn't this school be out in Washingon? Northeastern's out in Mass... Ohio State - Damn, that's a huge school. 80k! Penn State - De-facto New England rep. Purdue - Purdue's in Indiana? WTF? Wisconsin - Cheese

Isn't it just a rating to mark the student athletes' process towards graduation? It doesn't factor in the difficulty of the courses/majors or the possible existence of easier courses geared towards athletes so a high score doesn't necessarily tell you the quality of the education the athlete is getting...just that that they will get a degree of some sort eventually.

I guess it depends on how you try to determine the best conferences - even looking at the data you just presented, the Pac 12 and the Big Ten rankings seem about even, so I'd give that a push. Here's another way to look at the conference rankings: BCS All Time Records Conference (Record) Mountain West (3-1) Southeastern (16-7) WAC (2-1) Pac-12 (11-7) Big Ten (12-13) Big East (7-7) Big 12 (9-10) Atlantic Coast (2-12) Independents (0-3) Here you see that Big Ten has the most BCS bids of any conference at 25 and is #2-#3 ish depending on how much you want to give to weighting the appearances vs wins vs win %. It is fair to say that the Big Ten has struggled to win the big bowl games to put it over the hump, and Michigan falling off the face of the earth for a few years probably didn't help matters.

The Director's cup doesn't factor in the # of sports that the school has, so you are completely right in that a school like OSU (and Stanford, who tends to win the cup) has a large advantage. The link has the raw data so it's definitely possible to create a separate ranking to filter based on just the sports that UNL has...but I couldnt figure out an easy way to dump the pdf table to excel so I gave up. Feel free to give it a try though

The Director's Cup is probably the best way to keep track of things like this - of course, it puts equal weight into all sports, but it's as good as measure as you'll get across the college sports landscape : http://www.nacda.com...nt-scoring.html Big Ten Rankings Fall Sports (Cross Country, Football, Field Hockey, Soccer, Volley Ball, Water Polo) #5 Michigan #6 Penn State #12 Ohio State #14 Wisconsin #16 Illinois #25 Michigan State #38 Indiana #40 Minnesota #52 Purdue #61 Nebraska #105 Iowa #105 Northwestern Winter Sports (Basketball, Bowling, Fencing, Gymnastics, Ice sports, rifle, track) #2 Ohio State #3 Penn State #5 Michigan #6 Minnesota #10 Wisconsin #15 Illinois #18 Michigan State #25 Indiana #29 Nebraska #34 Iowa #37 Purdue #61 Northwestern Spring Sports - to be released end of June

I realize that the possibility of this is nil, but just imagine the schadenfreude if FSU/Clemson join the Big XII...just in time to see Oklahoma and Texas depart for PAC-12/B1G. The meltdown on the internet will be EPIC

Denard wasn't playing well and we had a number of questionable calls go Iowa's way which would've pushed it to OT, including two possible touchdown plays.

What are your thoughts on The Big Ten vs The Big 12? In addition to the usual conference vs conference questions I was interested in any insights you saw in fan attitudes, tailgating experiences, philosophies, etc. I realize that there are some threads on this already but I was wondering how you guys all felt after having gone through a full schedule. It's pretty rare for the Big Ten to add members so you guys are probably going to have the most objective view on this matter until next year rolls around (by then I expect you to be too ingrained to the conference to not love everything about it )

Sorry to hear that you didn't have a great experience - my general perception of Michigan fans is that as a whole (done by asking my fellow students' undergrad experiences at other universities) we're one of the friendlier crowds within the major FBS teams but obviously there will be the usual riffraff as well.