Looking back at Big Ten's Legends and Leaders

Three years after dirt was heaped upon their grave, the Big Ten's 'Legends and Leaders' divisions were so novel they need a proper wake.

I know, the eyeroll-inducing, alliterative-sounding names had the appeal of pretentious golf claps, upper-crust tweed jackets and self-congratulations. But the concept was so sound it's almost worth plugging in a digital photo frame, splashing the back of our throats with a shot of Jameson's Irish whiskey and shattering an empty glass against the wall. God rest ye Big Ten divisional structure.

As the college sports world bristles for another round of 'As Realignment Turns,' the Big Ten's non-traditional thinking briefly altered the landscape in 2010. League officials eschewed dividing the league by time zones and instead pored over data. The divisions struck a balance between emotion and logic. And for three seasons, the Big Ten was as symmetrical competitively as it ever has been, or ever will be.

Back in December 2009, the 11-team Big Ten announced it planned to consider expansion over an 18-to-24-month process. As Commissioner Jim Delany and his staff waded through the numerous prospects, other leagues jumped in the realignment pool which expedited the Big Ten's process. Ultimately the league snagged Nebraska.

Dividing the Big Ten geographically, like the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences, would have been easy. Slicing the league at the Indiana-Illinois border made sense for rivalry preservation. But it would have given the league a lopsided look, both competitively and in the power structure. So Delany, his staff and the league's athletics directors chartered a different course.

'The first factor was, 'Let's do the best we can to create competitive equity, that was principle No. 1,' Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta said in 2011. 'Then we started to talk about how can we take that as a leading principle and keep geography in mind. What are the match-ups that we have to make sure, from a conference standpoint, are always going to be included? What are we going to have to give up?'

League officials used a 17-year time frame to determine competitive makeup. That baseline covered Penn State's league entry (1993), the 85-scholarship implementation and changes within the bowl system. They found competitive tiers among the teams over that period with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Nebraska in one cluster, Iowa and Wisconsin in another, followed by the rest.

'Our No. 1 criteria was competitive equality,' Wisconsin Athletics Director Barry Alvarez told The Gazette in 2011. 'I felt it was important that you go 3-3, three of those teams had to be in one division, three of them had to be in another division. If you put four in one, then it would be unbalanced.'

As the nation's oldest sports league, the Big Ten is consumed with rivalries. Some are vital on a micro scale (Indiana-Purdue), while others are titanic clashes (Ohio State-Michigan). Nine of the 12 schools had competed in the league together for nearly a century so there are varying levels of contempt. By 2010, 10 series featured at least 90 games. Everyone declared their 'perfect world' scenarios of who they wanted — and needed — to face. For Barta, that was Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Michigan's list included Ohio State and Michigan State. Penn State also wanted the Buckeyes.

To ensure the highest percentage of rivalries remained annual, protected crossovers were approved. Then the top four programs were split with Ohio State and Penn State in one division and Michigan joining Nebraska in the other. Michigan State, which had the eighth-best winning percentage over the 17-year period, was linked with instate rival Michigan. Indiana, Purdue and Illinois joined Ohio State and Penn State, while Northwestern and Minnesota were placed with Michigan, Nebraska and Michigan State.

The only remaining question dealt with Iowa (sixth-best winning percentage) and Wisconsin (fifth) and early scenarios had the teams floating among the divisions. Ultimately, Iowa's western location stapled the Hawkeyes to Nebraska and Minnesota, while Wisconsin's central location pushed the Badgers east.

Eight of the league's 11 annual rivalries were preserved through either inter-divisional or cross-divisional play. The exceptions were Northwestern-Purdue, Michigan State-Penn State and Iowa-Wisconsin. Only the Iowa-Wisconsin series generated more than shrug. Without Iowa or Minnesota in its division, Wisconsin had to pick only one as a permanent crossover opponent. The Badgers' series with Minnesota is the most played in Division I. That left Iowa-Wisconsin expendable.

'Lots of discussion. Probably the most discussed,' Delany told The Gazette in 2010. 'We knew when we separated Iowa and Wisconsin we would have a particular issue of trying to get as much competition as we hoped to get in the western area. We were driven by the principle of competitive equality. We were driven by the principle of maintaining as many of the important rivalries as we could. But we also recognized in the west we were going to have some problems. It was debated and advocated and argued over.'

'We were very close to settling things and I made one more run saying I don't feel good about this,' Alvarez said in 2011. 'I wanted to protect that because I knew it was important to our people, and I think Gary felt the same way.'

With the divisions set, the crossovers included Michigan-Ohio State, Nebraska-Penn State, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Northwestern-Illinois, Michigan State-Indiana and Iowa-Purdue. Three months later, 'Legends' and 'Leaders' were attached to divisions. While the names instantly were mocked, the league's shot toward competitive equality was on target.

The Legends Division was better head-to-head against the Leaders (33-21 in cross-divisional games), but Leaders teams won the league title two of the three seasons. In 2013, the final season of Legends and Leaders, produced two division winners (Michigan State, Ohio State) who were unbeaten in Big Ten play.

Legends and Leaders were shelved after 2013 with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers. The league elected for an geographic alignment, but it tilts unequally toward the East, especially with Michigan State's rise. That perception — and reality — was everything league officials hoped to avoid with Legends and Leaders.

Here's a look back at my 11-part series in 2011 on how Legends and Leaders were formed:

Chapter 1: Geographically challenged

At a defining moment in the history of the nation's oldest athletics conference, Big Ten Conference officials and the schools' athletics directors had options for slicing its 12-team football league into two parts.

Chapter 2: Balance of Power

The painstaking process of dividing 12 schools based on competitive equality with special attention paid to rivalries and geography.

Chapter 3: Sweet Home Chicago

Multiple Big Ten schools want to play Northwestern annually to get their foot into the Chicago market.

Chapter 4: Rivalries, Reunions and Resignation

The league's football schools compete among one another for some of the nation's most recognizable traveling trophies. So when the Big Ten realigned itself in August 2010, the lifeblood of each college football program was at stake.

Chapter 5: Wisconsin's Melancholy

The Badgers are left isolated in a division without border rivals Iowa, Northwestern and Minnesota, and Wisconsin's longtime annual game with Iowa becomes collateral damage.

Chapter 6(A): Culture Shock

Nebraska joins the Big Ten without voting power but moves forward nonetheless in a league where Tom Osborne hopes the cultural ties are stronger than those that formed the Big 12 Conference.

Chapter 6(B): Cornucopia with Iowa-Nebraska football

The new-look Big Ten put Iowa and Nebraska on the fast track toward rivalry status.

Chapter 7: Heavyweight Headache

Michigan and Ohio State, the league's perennial football giants, became the public storyline when discussions had them splitting into opposite divisions and possibly moving 'The Game' into early November.

Chapter 8: Dollars and Sense

Financial issues play a huge role in college athletics, but how much were they discussed when the league formed the divisions?

Chapter 9: Scheduling Overhaul

The league put together its first 12-team schedule with an emphasis on power matchups on each weekend, culminating with the six powers competing against one another in the final weekend.

Chapter 10: What's in a Name?

In the series conclusion, what does the future hold for the divisions and how did the league select Legends and Leaders for division names, anyway?

After the league voted to include Maryland and Rutgers, here's a post that showed geography could work in a second realignment.

After Maryland and Rutgers were accepted as Big Ten members beginning on July 1, 2014, the league re-evaluated the Legends and Leaders divisions. Maryland and Rutgers are Eastern schools that wanted to establish a relationship with Penn State. Six months later, the league divided on geography with Purdue shifting West.

l Comments: (319) 339-3169; scott.dochterman@thegazette.com