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Big Ten Football > The Big Ten Message Board > Conference Alignment in 2011

Plainfield, IL

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August 3, 2010, 07:39 PM

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With Nebraska joining the Big Ten in 2011, how do you think the conferences should be aligned? I wrote a blog with my take.

However it works out, I'm excited that we will have a conference championship game.

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August 12, 2010 08:20 AM ET

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The alignment will be tricky to handle. The Big10 has more long running rivalry than the other conferences. It will be important to keep these games intact as much as possible. The tOSU-tSUN game needs to be protected as much as any other game. It would be prudent to have these two teams be in the same division to avoid playing "The Game" two weeks in a row.

The splits I have seen put out there can create some problems...to have tOSU, tSUN, and PSU in one division puts the 3 largest stadiums on one side. Does this give this side an advantage in ticket sales (obviously, money is the driving factor). But, to have PSU and Nebraska in one division brings travel costs into play (for teams and fans). It will be interesting to see how things fall.

One final point...I don't think the Big10 is finished expanding. If the Big10 goes to 14 or 16 teams, how will the new teams be added to the newly created divisions? Will they choose an eastern team (Pitt/Syracuse/etc) with a western team (Mizzou/ND/etc) to keep the balance?