Even if East is loaded again, B1G still shouldn't shift divisions anytime soon

It’s the offseason and once again, the B1G East looks loaded heading into 2017. On top of that, we’re coming off a season in which the East legitimately had three teams vying for a College Football Playoff spot heading into the final weekend of the regular season.

In other words, get ready for it. This offseason — probably at B1G Media Days — the question will surface once again, just like it did last year.

Are there any plans to change up the divisions?

B1G Commissioner Jim Delany will probably have a similar response. He’ll have the same look of frustration on his face, and for good reason. After all the heat he caught for “Legends and Leaders,” the 2014 switch to “East and West” was exactly what those critics wanted.

But now it’s obvious that there are more national contenders in the East than there are in the West, and that’s somehow Delany’s fault. Some believe it’s Delany’s responsibility to make a change based on a three-year sample size.

The truth is, that’s still not enough time to see this thing through. Changing up the divisions now would be premature, and in reality, Delany would be asking for an even bigger headache by doing so.

Obviously one could look at the divisions and see that since the 2014 expansion, the East has been the better division. They own all three B1G titles and all three College Football Playoff berths. One could argue that between Mark Dantonio, James Franklin, Jim Harbaugh and Urban Meyer, no division in college football has better coaching.

Those are all valid points.

But let’s not pretend like the West has been a doormat. After all, six West teams finished in the final Associated Press top 25 in the last three years. In that same stretch, eight West teams won at least nine games.

Let’s also not forget that arguably the top two B1G upsets the last two years were Nebraska knocking off Michigan State in 2015 and Iowa stunning Michigan in 2016.

And with the exception of the 2014 B1G Championship, the West was represented well in the title game. We’re coming off of two thrilling B1G Championships that were fair fights to the finish.

Who could forget this?

Both B1G West teams would’ve likely earned playoff berths had they prevailed. That’s a lot more than the SEC can say.

Getting back to those nail-biter B1G Championships, Michigan State is the exact reason that division-shifting can be an impossible task.

At this time a year ago, MSU was part of the unbalanced divisions problem. They were the team that had three straight top-six finishes and by all accounts, looked like a national power for the foreseeable future. As long as Dantonio was in town, it would’ve been easy to assume that wouldn’t change anytime soon.

RELATED: Projecting the B1G’s non-conference schedules from weakest to toughest

In one year, MSU went from the team that dethroned the defending national champs to the team that won half as many games as Maryland. With an offseason from hell, the Spartans are college football’s biggest mystery moving forward.

Penn State looks like the team that took MSU’s place in the East hierarchy, which nobody predicted last year. And while the Lions appear locked and loaded for another run, what happens if they go back to being an seven-win team if and when Joe Moorhead takes a head coaching job?

There are no guarantees in college football. We can act like we know exactly how a team will perform over the next five or six years, but it’s still a guessing game.

Even if we could guess future records accurately, the B1G is actually set up much better for parity now than it was in years past.

The nine-game conference schedule is why division-shifting is an unnecessary gamble to make in the near future. Three crossover matchups lessens the probability that one B1G team has a significantly tougher schedule than another.

Just look at what the West has ahead in 2017: