[NU Sports] Big Ten/Pac-12 annual tieup

[Mike Nolan]

The Big Ten and Pac-12 have announced plans to have annual games between
schools in the two conferences, starting in around 2017.

Details are still to be worked out, such as how they choose who plays whom,
but I'm not excited by the prospect, as it further ties the scheduling hands 
of the individual schools, and might actually lead to FEWER games between
Big Ten and Pac-12 schools.  

With a 9 game conference schedule in the works (2015?) plus an annual
game for each Big Ten school with a Pac-12 school, SEC and Big Twelve
schools (at least the good ones) are likely to disappear from Big Ten 
school schedules except during bowl season.

Unless they set it up so that the strong schools in the conferences never
play each other (which would be a bigger mistake IMHO), this also increases 
the possibility that the Rose Bowl could be a rematch. 
--
Mike Nolan