In case you missed the news yesterday, according to a piece in The Athletic, it appears the Big Ten is pondering the question of whether having two divisions in football is still worth all the hubbub. Citing the new Alliance with the Pac-12 and ACC, eliminating divisions and moving from a nine to eight-game conference schedule might be better for the conference.
So, as we hop in the football time machine, let’s take a look at the history of having two divisions in the big, bad, Big Ten. The two-division thing first started in 2011, except it was a little bonkers when things rolled off the press for the first time. In a nod to having competitive balance (good move), the conference suits decided to not go geographical and named the divisions the Leaders and Legends divisions (just weird, man).
After dodging all kinds of jokes about the division names like a front-row participant at a stand-up comedy show, the Big Ten moved on to the East and West divisions and aligned teams based more or less on location. And that, my friends, is where things still stand today.
But it may not last much longer. If the Big Ten decides to pull the rip chord on having divisions, the change to a more linear alignment could come as early as 2023. Welp, it got us thinking about how well each team did with winning a division, so we decided to go back and do the very easy math (that’s how I like my problems) and figure it all out.
Here is each Big Ten team ranked by how many division titles it has won since the two-division format started in 2011. As mostly usual, we go from worst to first.
