How about this on the Big Ten (Don and James)

[Jim]

James, this breakdown favors Notre Dame and Penn State. I think Don has done an excellent job with his breakdown even though it does split things up by placing Penn State in the predominately "western" division of the Big Ten.

I seriously don't think Notre Dame could ever be lured into a traditional conference as they are the only team to have an exclusive TV contract (NBC) and can take all of the winnings when they do make it to a BCS bowl (the last two years have brough roughly $30-34 million to South Bend (via the Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl).

Since college football is actually a business (just lokk at chaches salaries) more teams would love to find their future much like Notre Dame - as an independent. I'll be surprised if Florida State, Penn State and BYU don't try doing this in the future as playing as a "national" team means you're a marquis game on everybody's schedule.

But, back to the Big Ten ...

Western ===> Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota,
Iowa, Notre Dame, Wisconsin
Eastern ===> Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State,
Penn State, Indiana, Purdue

Each team plays two non-divisional permanent games.
Illinois ===> Indiana and Michigan
Northwestern ===> Purdue and Penn State
Minnesota ===> Michigan and Indiana
Iowa ===> Michigan State and Ohio State
Notre Dame ===> Penn State and Purdue
Wisconsin ===> Ohio State and Michigan State

Two teams on a rotation with a home-and-home for a total of 9 conference games out of 11 other members. Now the Pac Ten plays everybody in their conference with only 3 OOC games - at least last year. The downside to all of this is that you'll probably have rematches when the title game comes around.

Bowl ties: Rose Bowl (vs. PacTen unless BCS situations negate this traditional match), Blockbuster (vs. SEC), Gator(vs. ACC), Alamo (vs. Big XII), Qualcomm (vs. MWC), Hoosier (a new one in Indianapolis) vs. Big East.
Additional bowls to make 8 potential bowl games for the Big Ten.

[JamesHowell]

First - You are correct, ND will not join the Big Ten (at least as long as they have the sweet deal from the BE for other sports).

Second - the divisions were what the Big Ten had discussed last time we tried to lure ND.

There are several requirements for the alignments (assuming ND).

- Michigan and Ohio State would head one division and Notre Dame and Penn State would head the other, playing at seasons end

- Wisconsin-Iowa-Minnesota would stay together

- Michigan State would stay with Michigan (as long as the addition was an eastern team)

- Illinois-Northwestern would stay together

- Northwestern-Illinois would stay together

- The above "stay togethers" are because they play at they very end of the season and the conference wants to avoid playing the same team twice in a row which could happen if the year-end rivals were in opposite divisions.

- If at all possible, they wanted to place a potential ND with Indiana and Purdue.

- Due to all of the conference requirements, the breakdown comes fairly easily;

West
-----
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Michigan
Ohio State
either Michigan State or a western expansion team (read: Missouri)

East
----
Penn State
Indiana
Purdue
Northwestern
Illinois
either an eastern expansion team (read: ND) or Michigan State

- if the expansion team were a western team, MSU would be PSU's year-end rival, which would be ND if they were the expansion team.

The year end rivals with a western expansion:

Michigan-Ohio State
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Iowa-Missouri

Penn State-Michigan State
Illinois-Northwestern
Indiana-Purdue


The year end rivals with an eastern expansion:

Michigan-Ohio State
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Iowa-Michigan State

Penn State-Notre Dame
Illinois-Northwestern
Indiana-Purdue

[EvilVodka]

Since college football is actually a business (just lokk at chaches salaries) more teams would love to find their future much like Notre Dame - as an independent. I'll be surprised if Florida State, Penn State and BYU don't try doing this in the future as playing as a "national" team means you're a marquis game on everybody's schedule.

The problem with this is where do you park all your other sports...

Also, Notre Dame has a pretty traditional schedule...they play Michigan, Mich St., Purdue, usually 2 Big East teams, Navy, Stanford and USC every year....

From an FSU perspective, who are we going to schedule to be that consistent? As an independent before, the schedule changed alot...Miami and Florida will always be fixtures on that schedule, but it would take alot of work to build relationships with other universities similar to the relationships Notre Dame has with the teams on their schedule

[EvilVodka]

West
-----
Wisconsin
Iowa
Minnesota
Michigan
Ohio State
either Michigan State or a western expansion team (read: Missouri)

East
----
Penn State
Indiana
Purdue
Northwestern
Illinois
either an eastern expansion team (read: ND) or Michigan State

- if the expansion team were a western team, MSU would be PSU's year-end rival, which would be ND if they were the expansion team.

The year end rivals with a western expansion:

Michigan-Ohio State
Wisconsin-Minnesota
Iowa-Missouri

Penn State-Michigan State
Illinois-Northwestern
Indiana-Purdue


Freakin add Missouri already

The Big 10 is a slow dumb turtle thats stuck at the middle of the road by adding Penn St. and going to 11...you can't go back, you'd have to kick out a team, and ND doesn't want to be in your conference...cross the road once and for all, add Mizzou and be done with it

[buckeyejim]

The Big Ten Conference is not going to expand just for our sake. If adding a Missouri would allow the conference to make more money then they would do so. It's obvious that as 11 school conference, the Big Ten is doing very well financially. Most Big Ten fans would like to see the conference expand to 12 teams and split into divisions but it's simply not going to happen unless it's a guarantee that the money (after it's divided up with 1 more school) will ammount to more than what each school currently is getting. The 11 current Big Ten schools get the largest average cut of any conference in America.

[Jim]

I can see your point since Missouri isn't in the "Great Plains" and is generally considered to be in the "Midwest" (traditional Big Ten country).

If Missouri did bolt - a good move for them financially at least - I'd immediately want the Big XII to grab TCU out of the Mountain West. That'd drop them down to 8 teams and fill up our basket again. But with 5 Texas teams and 2 Oklahoma teams how would you divide up the Big XII South - or would you leave it at 11 and do what the Big Ten does as far as permanent and rotations go?

Not that you were animate about Missouri but why not Iowa State or Nebraska to the Big Ten? Cyclones might not have a draw or a rich history but if that was a qualification (and why wouldn't it be?) Nebraska would be the logical choice.

[JamesHowell]

Missouri is only mentioned because they petitioned the Big Ten for membership; not because the Big Ten pursued them.

I actually think Texas would be a more likely addition as it adds new markets, but that would only happen if the Big Ten went to 14 or 16 teams and probbaly only if the SEC added Texas A&M and Oklahoma.

[buckeyejim]

A little know piece of information that was shown to me a couple of months ago is that if a school is added to the Big Ten, the state the school is located in MUST border a current state from the current Big Ten foot print. I didn't know this and I'll see if I can find this information to confirm that it's true but what saw then sure looked legit.

[JamesHowell]

It's not a requirement, it is a desire. Hence my comment that Texas would only be added in an expansion to 14 or 16.

[Jim]

For crying out loud, if Texas would ever be considered to join a midwestern conference (as in yankees bordering Canada) then lets just scrap the whole damn NCAA and develop two major leagues - the American and the National with 32 teams each. If you're not in the top 64 then you don't have any rights and you're not "authentic" anyway since you don't bring in the mullah!!!

Have teams in each league play for the title of theri respective leagues and then have a Super Bowl once week before the NFLs.

Just like Texas being considered for the Pac Ten? Where the hell is the Pacific OCean in Texas? Oh, yeah - same continent - how friggin' stupid of me!

[Blue Hen]

I say bring back University of Chicago football. There's your perfect 12th member for the B10. Pick right up where Amos Alonzo Stagg left off.