Iowa Hawkeyes get no favors in the middle of the newly fatter, far-flung Big Ten
Financial considerations aside, the University of Iowa should be uneasy of what the Big Ten Conference hath wrought.
Imagine, if you will, the Hawkeyes football team landing in The Eastern Iowa Airport about 8 a.m. on a Sunday after a mid-November night game in Eugene or Pasadena, then playing Nebraska five days later.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Imagine the Big Ten going to two nine-team divisions for football, and Iowa finding itself in the West with the four Pac-12 refugees. It would no longer share a division with at least one school from a border state.
If there are divisions, imagine the Hawkeyes playing USC and UCLA and Oregon and Washington a lot more over the years than Ohio State and Michigan and maybe even Illinois or Northwestern.
Imagine the hassles for Iowa’s basketball teams. You’d almost certainly have to play Oregon and Washington on the same trip, so …
The Hawkeyes would leave for Seattle on a Tuesday, get acclimated and prepared on Wednesday, play on Thursday, travel to Oregon on Friday while also getting ready for a different opponent, play on Saturday, then make the long trip home.
That’s five tiring days for 10 percent of your conference schedule, and you’d be worn out on the sixth.
Imagine making the same trip if you’re not flying charter like the basketball teams. What if you’re Hawkeyes softball or volleyball going commercial, waiting out delays and even occasional cancellations in Denver or Chicago?
Imagine the Big Ten basketball tournaments with the unwieldy number of 18 teams. Does everyone have to win at least four games to become champion, assuring that the champ and runner-up will be gassed entering the NCAA tournament?
Where will it be held? How would you like to be in the Big Ten tourney final on Sunday in Las Vegas, get home in the wee hours, then turn around on Tuesday to fly from your campus to an NCAA first-round site in Rhode Island?
A sort-of-good thing for Iowa: None of the four Pac-12 fugitives have wrestling or field hockey programs, so it won’t make the tasks of winning the Big Ten or traveling to other conference sites any harder.
A better thing for Iowa: Stanford isn’t coming to the Big Ten, so its football team can’t curb-stomp the Hawkeyes in another Rose Bowl. Nor will its band again ridicule Iowans in a halftime show.
Which leads to another good thing: The Iowa Senate won’t again call for an apology from Stanford. Now that was ridiculous.
But here’s the serious reality involving the field of play: It’s already been extremely tough, but it will become even more difficult for Iowa to win Big Ten championships in revenue sports.
Iowa hasn’t won a conference regular-season men’s basketball title since 1979. I wish all of you nothing but extended good health, but the odds of the Hawkeyes halting that streak in your lifetime just got longer.
This year, Iowa has a very visible path to win the West to become one win away from the league championship. Stick four more capable-to-dynamic teams in the mix starting next year, and good luck to the Hawkeyes ever finishing in the top two of the 18.
Unlike many others, though, I’m not ripping the Big Ten for its expansion. It can tack on Faber College and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for all I care.
This expansion of the Pacific Northwest only further exposed the conference for being aggressively money-grubbing, which is funny. For forever, the Big Ten has presented itself as high-minded and above the fray. What a bag of hot gas.
But really, who cares if it’s Wisconsin or Washington playing at Kinnick? It’s all spectacle. To paraphrase Thin Lizzy, the drinks will still flow and the blood will still spill.
Plus, UCLA being in the Big Ten means Iowa will still get back to the Rose Bowl once in a while.
