B1G-SEC Challenge: September, Upgraded

Arkansas Bret Bielema favors an SEC/Big Ten or SEC/ACC challenge in football, similar to basketball model

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 31, 2016

It's big but not all that new. Doug Lesmerises floated a proposal nearly a decade ago, albeit with watered-down neutral site venues that over that same decade have grown in early-season popularity and pale in comparison to the campus experience.

The ACC-B1G Challenge in basketball - and similar conference vs. conference showdowns - are the best regular season scheduling innovation in modern college sports, and the games are played on campus. Exotic tournaments in the Caribbean, Alaska and Hawai'i are fine, but nothing gets us provincial and aggregates viewing audiences like dumb ol' conference pride.

Purdue playing NC State in any sport is utterly meaningless. Purdue playing NC State as the tiebreaker in the ACC-B1G Challenge is everything. Winning those games pads the NCAA Tournament resume. Losing them? Eh, you tried.

There have been 17 ACC-B1G Challenges and the ACC won the first 10 of them. It hasn't won one in seven years. That's fun. Conversely, you can't name a single team that's ever won a Maui Classic without looking it up. Stick to flawless sunsets and $9 bottles of water, Maui. The most exciting and rewarding college sports are played on campus, not the Lahina Civic Center.

Bert reignited this flame, and whenever his sausage fingers begin fumbling around with matches, people pay attention. HIT US WITH SPONTANEOUS PAIRINGS, SPORTS BLOGGER

Alabama-Ohio State
Texas A&M-Michigan
Arkansas-Wisconsin
Georgia-Michigan St.
Tennessee-Penn St.
Florida-Nebraska https://t.co/ORSVcMWQ88

— Dr. Saturday (@YahooDrSaturday) May 31, 2016

Ooh, that is shiny. Iowa didn't make the marquee here, probably because the Hawkeyes only went 12-0 last year and travel as well as any program in the country. Michigan State-Georgia is interesting though Sparty has more conference titles over the past three years than Georgia has in the past 30. That said, we just saw what happened when the SEC and B1G sent its champs to play each other. That was a lot more fun a year earlier. 

Still, there's nothing to be lost in putting together this kind of annual arrangement over the first two weekends of the season. Nobody's title hopes will be lost. We know just two years into the College Football Playoff era that early season losses are the most forgivable, especially if the culprit is a Power Five opponent. Programs are rewarded for just making the effort.

Why not give the two wealthiest conferences who collectively garner more viewers than the rest of the sport combined the opportunity to kick down the offseason's door every September?

Greg Sankey on Bielema's SEC vs. Big Ten challenge idea: "We generally call those bowl games." So that would be a no.

— Jon Solomon (@JonSolomonCBS) May 31, 2016

Right, bowl games. Those expensive December and January sparsely attended neutral site parties generally held in the SEC's backyard that don't require Slive's conference traveling north unless the Music City or Belk come calling. That's not the intent here, Greg. Do you even watch football, sir?

Sankey, like Mike Slive before him, isn't likely to support anything that doesn't specifically benefit his conference above others, which - once you embrace that - helps you better digest the SEC's official position on things like satellite camps and, well, now this.

A B1G-SEC Challenge would improve neither the B1G or the SEC individually, when you look at it with football-only tunnel vision. What it would do is holistically upgrade college football's first month, benefit the entire sport - and potentially many others. 

That's how it would roll coming off of last season using football as the benchmark, which gives us one rematch from the postseason at the top (this is not a bad thing) and one game that's already being played this fall in Wisconsin, albeit not at Camp Randall.

Play them all on campuses, Ryder Cup-style: All games on SEC campuses one year, then all on B1G campuses the next. This makes scheduling simpler, with [at SEC OPPONENT TBD] occupying the first or second Saturday of the schedule until the final standings sort out who it is. This also creates a whole new sport: Standings watching!

But if chalk is too boring in any given year:

Because as a wise 3rd-string Ohio State quarterback once said, student comes before athlete. Are you surprised that this method produced so many excellent matchups? You shouldn't be - it's impossible to force these two conferences to play each over two Saturdays without ending up with a whole bunch of attractive games.

Even when you go by each institution's first year molding minds you get decent games (admit it; your eyes went straight to Ohio State and you thought 1) wow, didn't know OSU was the newest Big Ten school and 2) ugh, Mississippi State but then realized 3) oh wow, Urban vs. his former offensive coordinator). 

Indiana could even play the SEC East Champs again!

And there's no reason to limit this to football: Every member of the B1G and SEC also funds men's and women's soccer and cross country teams, women's field hockey and volleyball. Those games could be played on the same campuses against the same opponents that weekend, showcasing the NCAA's entire fall sports catalog between two schools across 14 college towns with 28 member institutions in the limelight from the two power conferences that sell television advertising better than any other.

People insisted for years a playoff would never happen in college football, except that idea refused to go away - and now it's a reality. Starting each college football season with on-campus festivals pitting the B1G and SEC against each other - and bringing non-revenue sports along for the ride - makes too much sense and benefits too many stakeholders and the expense of none to simply fade away from Bert's ham-scented breath (the MAC and Sun Belt will continue get their B1G and SEC paydays on other September Saturdays; they'll be fine).

Talk about an idea long enough and it becomes difficult to ignore. The B1G and SEC need to work together to make this happen. Keep fighting the good fight, Bert!