[NU Sports] Big Ten Divisions appear to be firming up

[Mike Nolan]

> The most obvious situation Delany is trying to avoid is the Big XII which
> was essentially doomed to collapse once it became clear most of the power
> was concentrated in the south.  

I was never a fan of the North/South division of the Big XII, mostly because
it killed off the Nebraska-Oklahoma game at Thanksgiving.  (Nebrasaka-Colorado
never caught on as a rivalry game, at least not in Nebraska.)

But the Big XII voted against any kind of protected cross-division 
rivalry game.  

This became a bigger problem when Nebraska had a down cycle in the past 
decade (its first since the 60's.)  Colorado also hit the skids big time, 
as did Kansas State.  Kansas and Missouri were hit-and-miss, and still are.  
Iowa State is the divisional punching bag, like Baylor in the South.  

> The problem is that there is no great solution for the Big Ten - the teams
> will have to be split somehow.  Personally, I don't like the current setup
> where each team misses two others every year, leading to lot of split
> championships.  

Even though Northwestern has probably benefited from that more than
any other team in the conference?

My concern from the point that the Big Ten announced it was considering
expansion was that the big dogs would make sure that no school (at least 
not one wearing purple) ever won another conference championship 
while skipping both Michigan and Ohio State.  I guess I'd rather be
in a division with ONE of those schools than BOTH of them, though.  
--
Mike Nolan