College Football '10 - Conference switching chaos!!

[Guynemer]

Personally, I'd love it if they had the balls to do an outdoor, last-week-in-November, freezing-rain/snowpocalypse championship in Green Bay, or, more likely, Chicago.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm down. Would be just like the last Big 12 title game Nebraska played in Kansas City.

[Drake Tungsten]

I just got off of a teleconference with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, Michigan State president Lou Anna Simon, Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne about Nebraska becoming the 12th member of the Big Ten.

There are so many subtopics to discuss in the coming months, but here's a bit more about what we know now:

Further Big Ten expansion: It definitely could happen. Delany and Simon both said the league remains within its 12- to 18-month time frame to study expansion and could act again depending on the climate. The Big Ten only acted now because of circumstances with the Big 12 and Nebraska. Delany admitted the league might not have been ready to act three months ago. The Big Ten now will return to "the slower tempo sort of game" with expansion, but Delany said the league is prepared to act quickly again. "We have two-thirds of study period left to go and we’re real anxious to work with Jim and others around the next step," Simon said. Added Delany: "If we can be as successful with a 13th or 14th member as we were with Nebraska, that would be great."

Championship game: Delany has never been rah-rah about them, but he expects the Big Ten to begin playing a championship game in football in 2011. Venues and locations haven't been discussed, but Big Ten associate commissioner for television administration Mark Rudner and others will begin examining the possibilities. Feedback from athletic directors and coaches will be gathered before any decisions are made. "It’s important to get it right, and there’s no silver bullet," Delany said. "There will be different views on it."

Division alignment: The Big Ten also must figure out divisions in the coming months. Delany listed three main criteria for sorting them out: competitive fairness, maintenance of rivalries and geography. He stressed that competitive fairness is the No. 1 priority, which I believe to be the correct approach. Geography shouldn't determine divisions. You don't want another Big 12 South scenario.

Scheduling: Osborne hinted that the number of conference games could increase in the new Big Ten. He expects at least conference games and, like many Big Ten athletic directors, wants to keep as many of those at home as possible. The Big Ten's challenge will be figuring things out for Nebraska's arrival in September 2011. "Mark Rudner and Mike McComiskey have done a lot of models," Delany said. "The issue for us it the short turnaround."

Rivalries: Delany has often talked about the intimacy of a league and how vital rivalries are to its fabric. "They're part of who we are," he said Friday. But he added that rivalries have to be evaluated independently to see which ones are worth preserving in an expanded league. "We’re going into this with the idea that rivalries really matter," Delany said. "But not all rivalries are equal."

Timeline with Nebraska: Delany and other Big Ten officials met with Nebraska officials three or four weeks ago to have informal discussions in an undisclosed location (it wasn't Lincoln, where Delany made his first trip Friday, or Chicago). Osborne also had briefly discussed expansion with Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel and Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez (a former Nebraska player and coach), both of whom told him the Big Ten was considering the Huskers. The process only really heated up after the Big 12 issued stay-or-go ultimatums to its members. If the Big 12 -- and Pac-10 -- didn't speed things up, the Big Ten would have continued to move along slowly. But Nebraska seems happy with the way things worked out. "We don’t feel like we’re walking into a room of strangers," Perlman said. Added Osborne: "We feel we share a lot of common values with what we know of Big Ten institutions."

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/23150/more-nebraska-big-ten-quick-hits

[Drake Tungsten]

BREAKING NCAA NEWS: Detroit Lions apply to join Big 12. They were rejected.

http://twitter.com/EricStangel/status/15963515839

[Drake Tungsten]

Does anyone at Penn State or Michigan State actually care about the Land Grant Trophy? I had gotten the feeling that they didn't, but this analyst on the Big Ten Network is going out of his way to preserve it in all his potential Big Ten divisional arrangements, even where a permanent Nebraska/Penn State crossover game would seem to make more sense.

[Guynemer]

No. No one really cares. They just shoehorned it in, so that Penn State would have a consistent end-of-season game, like Michigan-Ohio State. I don't think anyone would be truly broken up by it disappearing.

[Drake Tungsten]

Iowa fans already seem sure that Nebraska is going to be their new end-of-season game, but I really think Nebraska and Penn State fans would rather play each other. Wouldn't that be better for the Big Ten, as well?

[Guynemer]

I would agree, but Iowa isn't a terrible alternative.

[Drake Tungsten]

I would agree, but Iowa isn't a terrible alternative.

Not at all. I see Iowa/Nebraska developing into something similar to Colorado/Nebraska, while Penn State/Nebraska might be able to approach the heights of Oklahoma/Nebraska. The former isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it will never be quite as compelling as the latter.

[Guynemer]

Now, I read that Colorado would join the Pac-10 in 2012, but Nebraska will join the Big Ten in 2011.

How do they work? [/ICP]

[Drake Tungsten]

Now, I read that Colorado would join the Pac-10 in 2012, but Nebraska will join the Big Ten in 2011.

How do they work? [/ICP]

Well, Shaggy Too Dope, that is an excellent question that no one seems to know the answer to yet. The most likely answer seems to be that the Big 12 will play the 2011 season with 11 teams before Colorado and presumably Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech move to the Pac-10 in 2012. A&M might leave at the same time for the SEC or Pac-10, or they might leave for the SEC earlier. And Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State and Baylor could be leaving for/merging with the Mountain West, Big East or Conference USA in 2011 or 2012. It's a very confusing time for the Big 12 conference.

[Guynemer]

It's magic, yo.

[Drake Tungsten]

One interesting wrinkle is that it takes 9 teams to vote to dissolve the Big 12 conference with no penalty payments being made by any of the schools that are leaving. As such, the Forlorn Five may have an incentive to be the last teams remaining in the Big 12 so that they can collect on millions in penalty payments from the seven schools that are leaving before they themselves join the Mountain West or Big East.

[Guynemer]

I always forget that Iowa State even exists, let alone is in the Big 12.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm the same way with Baylor. And Minnesota, quite frankly.