They made me commissioner for a day and I've got this thing solved. Hear me out:

1. Keep OSU-Mich as is, last game of season.

2. Schedule all last games as rivalry games - existing traditional ones or regional by state or geography. Examples might be Iowa-Nebraska, Indiana-Purdue, Penn State-Michigan State. Everybody plays a rival last game of season.

3. Every last game would be a cross division game. You would have the rivalry component, but also, every team would be not only playing itself to it's division championship, but also to knock it's opponents out of theirs. Look how this would increase the "what ifs" going into that last week. Look at all the combinations of who might make it with cross division play the last week. And by scheduling some traditional power match ups as part of that, you would insure that there was a lot on the line. Talk about maintaining interest in who was going to make it to the title game and generating $$$!

4. Schedule the title game 2 weeks after the season. Drop the bye week if you need to to do this. Avoids the problem of teams in opposite divisions playing two weeks in a row for championship. Also, equals out the title game..makes it a little fairer....in case one team has a really tough match the last week and the other by chance a cupcake game.

If there is a rematch, well it won't be that often, and I keep saying, the only thing better than one OSU-Mich game would be two! Imagine the $$$ that could be made off a rematch for all the marbles! Same would go for an Iowa Nebraska rematch, or whomever. Again, with 3 powers in each division, I don't think it is going to happen that often!

Since I am commissioner for a day, I also have the power to determine the divisions. Here goes. This is what the rivalry game schedule would look like the last week. First column is Division A and second Division B. One team in each column would then go to the title game for all the marbles:

OSU - Mich
Iowa - Nebraska
Penn State - Michigan State
Minnesota - Wisconsin
Illinois - Northwestern
Purdue - Indiana

If you rank the teams in the league from 1-12 on overall program history, each division has 3 of the top 6 teams. If you add up the ranks in both divisions, one totals 38 and one 39. Pretty balanced. Quibble with it a wee bit if you must, flip flop a couple teams, but the concept and framework is there.

I forgot geography in doing this, because you have to make a decision to balance the divisions on either geography or competitiveness. You can't do both. Having said that, the divisions I came up with aren't too bad geographic wise for travel. And remember, you will be playing every year 3 teams in the other division which will balance travel out too. The plus in this is that every school can end with a rivalry...in most cases a border war. They all can develop their own Ohio State - Michigan tradition! In any one year, I think you could have 3, 4 maybe 5 teams playing for a shot at that title game.

And the biggie...you don't mess with success...with what SI and others have called the greatest rivalry in college football history.

There...that wasn't to difficult to solve was it!

The only problem I see is that if Jenny reads this, she is going to think I have way too much time on my hands! Here comes another honey-do job. Oh well, it will probably be easier than being Big Ten commissioner right now!