COLUMN: Angry old sports fan fighting change

No one on social media sites has answered my question. So maybe one of you will. I’ve mentioned this before.

The new Big 18 Conference, I mean Big 10, is underway. This year is the introduction of four new teams to the conference; USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. Since 2014, the conference had 14 schools. But since sports fans on the east coast didn’t like waiting until 10 p.m. to watch west coast games, the conference USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington were in collapsed and those schools went elsewhere. Oh, did I say that?

I never liked going to 14 teams. The Big 10′s growth started when Penn State was on the field in 1993. I can’t use expressions in this newspapers to explain my anger going to 18. At least when it was 14, the football schedule had something to play for. With the conference divided into east and west, the goal was to win your division and play the other division winner for the conference title.

Expanding to 18, those divisions were eliminated and each school was designated rival games every year. I wish the Big 10 would have stopped at 12 members when Nebraska joined in 2011. I wasn’t comfortable, but I tolerated it.

My beef is 18 will potentially hurt the image of the conference and championship game. Each team plays nine conference games. Do the math, that means each team plays only 53% of the conference. (I only rounded up .06). That means to me there is too much uncertainty with games not scheduled. I will say it’s a matter of when, not if, a game not scheduled will have had major implications on who plays in, let alone wins, the conference title. “Iowa was great this year, but what would have happened if they would have played Indiana,” for example. Iowa doesn’t play Indiana this year.

The other problem is the conference football game itself. Say team A finishes 9-0 in conference play and team B finishes 7-2. What is the point of playing a conference title game between A and B? Hasn’t team A already proven they are the conference winner? In basketball, the three lowest ranked teams in the conference will not play in the conference tournament after the regular season.

I’ve followed Iowa football for 40 years. Probably the 1990 team was my favorite now, purely because of what they did without any controversy or “what ifs.” That team, in an eight-game conference schedule with 10 teams, finished 6-2. During that era each team played 89% of the conference (I rounded up .12). Iowa won the conference because of the tiebreakers based on head-to-head games with the others. Iowa was one of four teams to finish 6-2 in conference play but Iowa got the nod because they beat the other three. That shows the importance of playing as many conference teams as possible. Ohio State finished 5-2-1. Although Ohio State beat Iowa, their tie game eliminated OSU for title contention. (Tie games ended when the NCAA implemented overtime beginning with the 1996 season).

I fear the Big 10 will take on embarrassment, maybe at heightened levels, when team C gets all the hype during bowl season but everyone knows team D would have beat them, but C was not scheduled to play D.

Today’s players’ transfers to other schools is the biggest game of musical chairs I’ve seen in my life. I understand the massive money behind college sports these days and the permission for the players to be compensated. I’ve never liked the college football playoff to determine a national champion. It was horrendously structured and executed even worse. I struggle what is happening to conferences. That’s probably not done either.

The culture of the game and excitement I had watching games on Saturday afternoons in the 1980s is why I enjoyed it. Since, I have watched it slowly get darker like the days as we get closer to the first day of winter. It is depressing.

I can easily find 18 other things to do on Saturdays. I’ve been accused of being at the stage in life where I’m an angry old man who fights change. I won’t deny that for this reason.

I’ve explained my evidence. Please, someone tell me why I should continue watching or be a fan?

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I’ve heard complaints about the work on Henry A. Wallace Road in Adair County for Union County residents who use that road to go north to metro-Des Moines and elsewhere. Last Friday I met friends in Des Moines. I avoided the work on Wallace road and went through Macksburg and ended up on Highway 92 west of Winterset. Paved all the way and and great roads! (That’s not a criticism of any other county. We should compliment all of the good stuff in Southwest Iowa when we have the opportunity. We need to promote our section of the state together.)

I didn’t think the time traveling at posted mph was drastically different than using Wallace road under normal conditions.