Iowa-Purdue "Rivalry" Explained

The Boiling Point:Many fans were confused when Iowa was Purdue’s “designated rival” in the Big Ten’s new divisional lineup. A high roller from the Big Ten explains how it happened.


I know I was confused as to how Iowa became Purdue’s cross-divisional rival when the Big Ten unveiled the divisions earlier this year. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Off Tackle Empire spoke to Big Ten Senior Associate Commissioner Mark Rudner about this and many other topics.

"“OTE: Most Iowa and Purdue fans were surprised when they were named each other’s cross-divisional rival. What was the thought process in that decision, since there is no real traditional rivalry there?”“It really goes to how and why we created the divisions. From the start, our athletic directors made competitive equality the number one guiding principle. We spent a lot of time looking at what competitive equality means. Maintaining traditional rivalries was important, as was geographic considerations, but really, the number one principle was competitive equality, and we spent a lot of time on that. We looked at a number of different data points and we created so many different permutations on the divisions, that when we put up what ultimately turned out to be the Legends and the Leaders divisions, when you look at them, it really passes the competitive equality test. We weren’t able to maintain all the traditional rivalries, but the AD’s wanted to make sure that the divisions were balanced in such a way that could be shown to be competitively equal. When you look at the cross-divisional games, Ohio State-Michigan makes sense, Penn State-Nebraska makes sense, and Iowa-Purdue probably doesn’t. But they’re two conference schools that, when you look at it, are very close together. It wasn’t perfect, but at the end of the day the number one principle was competitive equality, which we met.”"