Iowa AD Gary Barta hints at potential shakeup to matchups for B1G's crossover week
It sounds like the crossover matchups for Week 9 in the B1G may not be a straight top-to-bottom alignment between teams.
As games continue to get canceled on a weekly basis in the conference, Iowa AD Gary Barta was asked about the schedule and arrangement to finish the season. He said the conference has not discussed shifting the current six-game threshold required to play in the conference championship game, and he also hinted that the Week 9 matchups – when teams are set to play an opponent from the opposite division – may be shuffled a bit.
According to Scott Dochterman of The Athletic, Barta said the initial plan was to do a top-to-bottom seeding of each division with corresponding matchups. However, it is now possible there is some flexibility with those matchups due to some of the cancellations around the conference.
Barta also said neutral sites have been discussed for the crossover games:
On the B1G's crossover challenge:
"We've talked about neutral sites. So that's still a possibility," Barta said. "The original thought was 1-1, 2-2 all the way through. Because of the pandemic and some of the disruptions, it is possible those matchups move around a little bit."— Scott Dochterman (@ScottDochterman) December 3, 2020
What does that mean for the Week 9 schedule? We will just have to wait and see.
