Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1157192
2 0 1 9 K I C K O F F S P E C I A L Ten schedules more appealing, to replace the Indiana States and Tennessee Techs with games against more-formidable op- ponents. But in doing so, the Big Ten was requiring its members to play one more conference game than its counterparts in the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast con- ferences. That requirement has since been cited as one of the factors that have played into the Big Ten's absence from the two most recent CFP 9elds. "We decided we wanted to have better games for our stadiums and for our fan base and for our players, so we went from eight to nine," commissioner Jim Delany said last month at Big Ten media days. "It happened to dovetail with some of the criteria that were developed by the founders of the CFP, but it wasn't done because of the CFP. It was done much more to create in-stadium attractive- ness, television attractiveness. As con- ferences expanded, we felt we wanted to play each other more, not less, so that allows us to have three games across [the divisions] as well as six games inside a division." Additional conference games mean ad- ditional risk, and no league in the country knows that better than the Big Ten. Ohio State has won the past two Big Ten cham- pionships, and one sign of its recent dominance is its record against the East Division's other three perennial con- tenders. Since 2017, the Buckeyes have gone 6-0 against Michigan, Michigan THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON Standing next to commissioner Jim Delany, James Franklin holds aloft the Big Ten Championship Game trophy following Penn State's victory over Wisconsin in 2016. The Nittany Lions weren't selected for the College Football Playoff that year, and Ohio State, which won the league title game in 2017 and '18, was likewise passed over both years. Photo by Steve Manuel