In Reply to: I pray that the Big Ten doesn't expand posted by mh on May 13, 2024 at 10:53:53
. . . the college football regular season expands beyond 12 games.
With 18 teams in the Big Ten, each team plays one rival every year, then round robins through the remaining 16.
That means you play each team two times--one at home, one on the road--in a four-year span. That's thin enough as it is. Expand beyond that and the others teams start becoming really unfamiliar.
Now if you expand to a 14-game season, then you have 10 non-rival conference games and the two-times-in-four-years arrangement allows for 22 conference teams.
I'm not advocating for the longer season, just doing the math.