Michigan State football should be realigned to Big Ten West

The Big Ten has a big divisional balance issue. So how would it go about fixing it? Simple, by moving Michigan State football to the Big Ten West.

The Big Ten has a big division balancing issue, and it is very evident that the East is much stronger than the West. But, in a lot of scenarios that people come up with, it doesn’t always help balance because Michigan, Ohio State, and Michigan State football are all playing in the same division.

So even moving, for example, Penn State to the West doesn’t really help because those three would still mostly run the table.

Meaning, to get the true balance you would have to move to one of those three schools and Michigan State probably makes the most sense to be the one to move.

Why should Michigan State be the one to move?

For starters, it would make the most sense for the Spartans to be the one on the move. One reason is, besides Indiana, Michigan State is the western-most out of the schools in the East division. So geographically, it would make the most sense. Because, as stated before, you have to move one of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, or Penn State in order to get some balance.

Secondly, I don’t think the conference would want to break up Ohio State and Michigan since every year it is one of the most-watched games in college football so breaking it up would not make a lot of sense. Now yes, you could do cross-division play which I will get into in a moment but if you were to do that the game would not mean as much in the long run as it does now.

That being said, if the Spartans do get moved, I believe there still should be the yearly Michigan State versus Michigan game just to keep the long historic rivalry alive. It’s still a big rivalry that a lot of people would love to see but that is mainly for the people in the state of Michigan compared to nationally; Michigan versus Ohio State would be the better two schools to keep together.

Who would replace MSU in the East and would it even be OK with moving?

Of course, if you move one team you still have to balance them out so which West team would move? It would probably be Northwestern. Because you don’t want to remove a school like Iowa, Purdue, or Wisconsin from the West as those would be the biggest competitors to the Spartans.

Also, besides Purdue, Northwestern is the closest to the other East schools. So it wouldn’t affect their traveling as much.

Now I think everyone over at Michigan State would be just fine with moving, under one condition: they still get yearly Michigan versus Michigan State games and I think that’s all it would take. Simply because it would be an easier division for the Spartans which would mean they would probably get more fan attention than they already do being in such a difficult division because they would probably be winning more than they already do.

That is why I think Michigan State would be perfectly fine with moving.

Would the conference ever consider this?

The answer to this is quite simple. It would bring a lot more competitiveness to the Big Ten conference as a whole. Right now, who knows when the West will field a team that can compete with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, or Michigan State.

But, Michigan State to the West helps every school. Then the West schools play MSU more and if they pull out a win it can help their recruiting programs and make fans want to watch more games.

It would also set up for some very cool Big Ten Championship matchups, probably the biggest ones being Michigan State versus Michigan or Michigan State versus Ohio State. I’m sure a lot of fans would love to see it.

Those games are always the most-watched so adding the importance of the whole conference title to it would add so much more drama and emotion to the game for the teams and their fans — just look at the TV ratings for the 2013 Big Ten title game between MSU and Ohio State.

All in all, I don’t know if the conference would ever consider moving to Michigan State to the West. But I think it should be something taken into serious consideration because it would benefit so much more in the long run. As discussed before, it would make the Big Ten more competitive as a whole and would help the other schools in the West get more recognition than they already do by having to fight a team like the Spartans for the division.

Adding Michigan State to the West finally gives them that team that will make them a more competitive look than what we have seen in recent years.