College Football '10 - Conference switching chaos!!

[Imran Siddiqui]

When is Colorado joining the Pac 10?

[Drake Tungsten]

The NU Board of Regents just proposed a resolution to authorize Nebraska to apply for Big Ten membership.

Now we have to listen to a bunch of boring comments before they vote.

edit: Resolution passes unanimously. Now the Big Ten members just have to vote to approve Nebraska's application and this is official.

[Drake Tungsten]

It's official!

Nebraska's membership in the Big Ten Conference is official.

The Big Ten's board of presidents and chancellors unanimously approved adding Nebraska on Friday, just a few hours after the school formally disclosed its interest.

The move is a potentially crippling blow to the Big 12 and the biggest move yet in an offseason overhaul that will leave college sports looking much different by this time next year.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman says the move offers stability "that the Big 12 simply cannot offer." The move becomes official July 1, 2011.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/ncaa/06/11/nebraska-bigten.ap/index.html

I guess I can stop breathing into this paper bag now and start planning a trip to Ann Arbor.

[DanS]

This is good for Nebraska fans. IIRC, the stadiums in the Big 10 are enormous compared to the ones in the Big 12. It's bigger time football, even if the quality of the actual football being played is no better, and arguably worse. Nebraska should rise to the top of the Big 10.

The Big 10 tends to play a different style than the Big 12. I would be interested in seeing Drake's analysis of this.

[Drake Tungsten]

The only stadiums in the Big Ten larger than Nebraska's are Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State. Nebraska was also already involved in the highest attendance on record at Penn State.

[DanS]

Yes, my point was that IIRC the average Big 10 stadium dwarfs the average Big 12 stadium.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm not sure that's true. Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma all have stadiums as large or larger than Nebraska's...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_football_stadiums_by_capacity

[SlowwHand]

Nebraska has had their panties in a wad for years, feeling disrespected by Texas.
I can hardly wait to see how they feel about the views that the Big 10 will have of them.
Texas A&M may go SEC.

[Drake Tungsten]

Nebraska has had their panties in a wad for years, feeling disrespected by Texas.
I can hardly wait to see how they feel about the views that the Big 10 will have of them.

I'm sure they'll treat us well. Even if they don't, we'll always have a big pile of money to sleep on while we clutch our suddenly more prestigious degrees tight...

[DanS]

OK, doing some math, pre-Nebraska move, the Big 12 average is 66,629 while the Big 10 average is 75,180. Substantially larger. Maybe "dwarfs" is too strong of language.

[Drake Tungsten]

Especially since no one cares about the capacity at Indiana or Iowa State.

[DanS]

Y'all should fill up Indiana's stadium just fine.

[Drake Tungsten]

Given that we took over South Bend, Bloomington should be no problem.

[DanS]

If they're going to divide the Big 10 into divisions, what would they be? The West might get the short end of the stick.

[Drake Tungsten]

OK, doing some math, pre-Nebraska move, the Big 12 average is 66,629 while the Big 10 average is 75,180. Substantially larger. Maybe "dwarfs" is too strong of language.

1. Penn State - 107k
2. Michigan - 106k
3. Ohio State - 102k
4. Texas - 100k
5. Texas A&M - 83k
6. Oklahoma - 82k
7. Nebraska - 81k
8. Wisconsin - 80k
9. Michigan State - 75k
10. Missouri - 71k
11. Iowa - 71k
12. Illinois - 63k
13. Purdue - 63k
14. Oklahoma State - 60k
15. Texas Tech - 59k
16. Iowa State - 55k
17. Colorado - 54k
18. Kansas State - 52k
19. Minnesota - 51k
20. Indiana - 50k
21. Kansas - 50k
22. Baylor -50k

I don't see much difference. The three 100k+ stadiums in the Big Ten vs the one 100k+ stadium in the Big 12 would seem to account for most of the difference in average capacity.

If they're going to divide the Big 10 into divisions, what would they be?

Guy and I seemed fine with a West (Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin) and East (Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State) when we discussed it earlier, but who knows if the Big Ten will be fine with that. The East seems somewhat stronger, but not necessarily enough to make the divisions unacceptable.