AD still working on fixing the OSU/MSU home/away problem

[Gulo Blue]

I can't believe the Spartan mental gymnastics I'm seeing on reddit. We're talking about playing in EL 4 times in 5 year, while MSU is in the middle of their strongest team in most of our lives, and they think it's a scam aimed at making our schedule easier.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Also, I think, in order to keep the in-division home/away balance correct, there needs to be a 3rd party involved. Like we go to East Lansing twice in a row, MSU plays @ Rutgers twice in a row, and Rutgers plays in Ann Arbor twice in a row.

 

[Gulo Blue]

oh christ, youre right. that pretty much blows my whole post up. I do think we should amend it.

maybe at least they get both us and penn state on the road or at home? if Penn State ever cleans up their act and gets their shit together, that could be a big deal.

I think that's the logic behind the original shift. OSU, PSU, and Michigan all have home/away splits every year. Dave Brandon prioritized competitive balance over rivalries and didn't realize the power can shift.

 

[TheVictors]

I can't believe the Spartan mental gymnastics I'm seeing on reddit. We're talking about playing in EL 4 times in 5 year, while MSU is in the middle of their strongest team in most of our lives, and they think it's a scam aimed at making our schedule easier.

some sparties are so stupid

 

[byco42]

Since this is not the Big-Ten of 1973 and is the B$G T$N with 36 teams, we can't expect things to remain the same and also change.

 

[byco42]

I can't believe the Spartan mental gymnastics I'm seeing on reddit. We're talking about playing in EL 4 times in 5 year, while MSU is in the middle of their strongest team in most of our lives, and they think it's a scam aimed at making our schedule easier.

Good. Let Sparty anguish over nothing. It's what they do.

 

[allshouldbleedblue]

Also, I think, in order to keep the in-division home/away balance correct, there needs to be a 3rd party involved. Like we go to East Lansing twice in a row, MSU plays @ Rutgers twice in a row, and Rutgers plays in Ann Arbor twice in a row.

This is the major problem of the situation. Since you have to play so many home and away games and they have to be against certain teams, the B1G scheduling rules are what is causing the most issues.

 

[thewolverines24]

This is the major problem of the situation. Since you have to play so many home and away games and they have to be against certain teams, the B1G scheduling rules are what is causing the most issues.

We already went to East Lansing twice in a row. Ridiculous to do that again.

**** over Rutgers. No one, other than their fan, cares about them anyway.

 

[Sbee]

A few of points, here

1, I don't consider this a problem. From a competitive standpoint, you simply have to win road games. We beat UM and OSU on the road last year, split with them at home in 2014.

2 as a season ticket holder, I don't mind this. the AD needs to schedule good non conference games in the off year, last year we hosted Oregon, next year ND. You can balance it out

3 MSU and UM have played 73 times in Ann Arbor, only 35 in East Lansing. If we're talking about owing return trips, to make it fair you'd have to play almost 4 decades of games in EL to make this up.

4 For anyone who thinks the 2013 and 2014 outcomes would have been different in AA, you must not have watched those games.

 

[Gulo Blue]

2 as a season ticket holder, I don't mind this. the AD needs to schedule good non conference games in the off year, last year we hosted Oregon, next year ND. You can balance it out

I've seen this point made a bunch of times on reddit too. I'm glad you're happy with your OOC schedule. We're pretty excited to have ND, UCLA, Texas, and Oklahoma coming up. The difference is that we were spoiled in the past with OSU, ND, and MSU all being rivals. We're just used to having amazing schedules. I don't see why so many people are upset that we want to make our schedule as good as it can be. Getting the best games possible is a bigger priority than evening out the home schedule distribution. Our AD made progress on the more important priority first and now he's trying to fix the second.

 

[Sbee]

I've seen this point made a bunch of times on reddit too. I'm glad you're happy with your OOC schedule. We're pretty excited to have ND, UCLA, Texas, and Oklahoma coming up. The difference is that we were spoiled in the past with OSU, ND, and MSU all being rivals. We're just used to having amazing schedules. I don't see why so many people are upset that we want to make our schedule as good as it can be. Getting the best games possible is a bigger priority than evening out the home schedule distribution. Our AD made progress on the more important priority first and now he's trying to fix the second.

Maybe that's why the clamoring from change is coming from UM, at least as far as I'm aware, OSU isn't in the same boat and MSU really doesn't care much. I guess it might be better to split those games up but it's not really worth changing. This year I have two great conference home games to go to, next year, pretty much none, but I just assume that the big ten will expand again eventually and this will change.

Looking at it from our perspective, the Home/Home and Road/Road made gave us no real advantage in the last two seasons. It doesn't matter that much, not worth the effort in changing.

 

[Michchamp]

I think State fans are more okay with this because they grew up accustomed to mediocrity, and the only game worth going to for them was the home-v-Michigan one which would always be every other year, anyways. so it's no big deal.

 

[Sbee]

I think State fans are more okay with this because they grew up accustomed to mediocrity, and the only game worth going to for them was the home-v-Michigan one which would always be every other year, anyways. so it's no big deal.

Then you would be wrong.

 

[TheVictors]

Ooooh look, Sbee is starting to get sassy

 

[Michchamp]

Then you would be wrong.

the only state fans who have grown up expecting anything more than mediocrity are under the age of 6.

or delusional.

 

[Gulo Blue]

The MSU and OSU element of the conversation has been weird. This is a Michigan thing that Michigan would like to see happen and they're all over the topic telling us how much they don't care. Like that should impact whether or not we care.

On reddit, the thread was started by a Spartan and it's gotta be half Buckeye and Spartan comments.

 

[Sbee]

the only state fans who have grown up expecting anything more than mediocrity are under the age of 6.

or delusional.

That's not the part that I disagree with, MSU football was mediocre for a long time. You said that's why we were OK with the scheduling now, which is wrong. We have a major non conference game at home in the year UM and OSU is road, so that's not much of an issue. Also, we've been in the title race for the two years when this schedule has been in place and it didn't affect us at all. We won both last year and split at home the year before. It's of little consequence to MSU. I'd imagine if ND didn't end your series and you were playing them in AA this year that this wouldn't be an issue.

 

[hungry]

I've seen this point made a bunch of times on reddit too. I'm glad you're happy with your OOC schedule. We're pretty excited to have ND, UCLA, Texas, and Oklahoma coming up. The difference is that we were spoiled in the past with OSU, ND, and MSU all being rivals. We're just used to having amazing schedules. I don't see why so many people are upset that we want to make our schedule as good as it can be. Getting the best games possible is a bigger priority than evening out the home schedule distribution. Our AD made progress on the more important priority first and now he's trying to fix the second.

No kidding! It's not like Michigan doesn't have good opponents lined up in the future.

They are not doing this out of schedule difficulty. People need to cut that crap.

The Fans and posters on message boards have absolutely nothing to do with this. The AD of Michigan is doing this. He has his own motivations.

IF i were in the market for season tickets, I wouldn't look at the line-up and say..."oh 7 home games, 1 good one in the OOC, and 6 mediocre games...best one against Wisconsin..." No. that would not work for me. It'd be nice to have a good one OOC AND a good one in conference. I think I can speak for most Michigan fans and say that we think the conference season is more important.

 

[hungry]

The MSU and OSU element of the conversation has been weird. This is a Michigan thing that Michigan would like to see happen and they're all over the topic telling us how much they don't care. Like that should impact whether or not we care.

On reddit, the thread was started by a Spartan and it's gotta be half Buckeye and Spartan comments.

Yep. I don't see or hear a lot of my Michigan fan buddies even discussing this...but the Spartan and OSU fans are talking and talking and talking..."Michigan fans are pussies!!! Scared!!"

Huh?

 

[TheVictors]

OOC is wholly irrelevant to anything related to this topic - it's only about the inclusion of the new shitbag schools in NY and DC and the moronic way in which they were integrated into the schedule. Add to that, the B10's insisting that PSU and msu become "rivals" by playing on the final week every year.

And how lovely that these ruffian sparties all puffed up can lecture MICHIGAN about schedules when they have only played osu 6 times out of the 9 years Mike Dantoni has been head coach and his record vs osu is (2-4) in regular season. the win in the BigTen Title game over osu came during a season when the teams did not meet in the regular season.

Funny how these "champs" talk all big when they've managed to duck osu 1/3 of the time during the programs most successful era in history.

But forget about that ...you play the schedule you're dealt and want to face tough teams. Let's go back to the B10 before the NY and DC TV markets were added ...msu and osu alternated in terms of home/away on the UM schedule and for season ticket holders and fans, you had at least the one "rival" game at home each season. Now, with the imbalance, you have a schedule like this year's that have ZERO rival games in A2 ....zero. Unless you dig up the ghosts of Barry Alvarez or Bill McCartney or pretend that penn state is anywhere really relevant as a 4-12 record vs MICHIGAN outside of the Rich Rod era.

That's the problem - the home schedule for fans is stupid and it has nothing to do with the who, it's the where and the fans.