Nebraska Leaving Big 12 North For...New Big 12 North

Wisc, Iowa, Illinois and other Big 10 schools recruit Chicago, but so does Michigan, Michigan St. and Ohio State. For example, Ohio St. already has a verbal from two of the top players in the Chicago area in WR Daniels, and G Bobeck for 2011 class and the top G Walsh has Mich and Mich St. at the top of his short list. Also ND is right there and recruits Chicago heavily—Illinois, and NU are not traditionally good football schools. The rest of Illinois is not traditionally fertile recruiting ground. It is a fair question for Penn St., but IMO, they should have no problems getting recruits after JoePa retires—may have a very good class for 2011 regardless with a lot of good players still considering Penn State. They have great tradition, and are in the zone I mentioned and also recruit NY, NJ, Maryland, and Virginia. I bring up Fl St. to compare to Penn St. only for recruiting purposes, because JoePa team’s are still very competitive, but when Bowden stepped down—I do think Bowden should have been given one more year, recruiting sky-rocketed even with a HC who has never coached a game. Like PSU, FSU has great tradition and is in a good recruiting area. The idea of more Big 10 expansion came to mind when I asked myself, What are they doing with these divisions? If ND—really the goal of any more Big 10 expansion—is added, could be put into the West. I would not be surprised if Pac 16 happens with shaky Big 12, which would trigger both SEC and Big 10 to act. SEC or Big 10 could strike first—Big 10 started looking into it first this time. Iike you, I doubt expansion is over. If expansion does not come, Big 10 should split those three up—they all respectively have great tradition, recruiting advantage—historically and geographically, and will cause the conference to become athletically lopsided in favor of the East IMO. In article BG gave up there the Big 10 officials are, "Alvarez said that Big Ten officials and athletic directors have been analyzing “everything — overall record, conference record, opponents, opponents’ records, BCS ratings, Sagarin ratings” in an effort to achieve what commissioner Jim Delany calls “competitive fairness.”

That’s the first criteria the Big Ten will use. Second is preserving rivalries. Third is geography, though Delany did acknowledge travel concerns at Big Ten media days." He did not mention recruiting patterns and where the better areas for HS recruiting are in Big 10 country as a criterion in determining divisions and this make no sense to me. It is a lot more important than BCS ratings or Sagarin ratings and as important if not more so as the rest of the criteria. I think having West: Mich, Neb, NU, Iowa, Wisc, Minn and East: Mich St., OSU, Penn St., Ind, Purdue, Illin would work fine—basic geographic split and having the three bigs split.

but the point is that there was/is much contention in the Big 12 that both schools were privy to. Texas A&M had the right idea courting the SEC, while Nebraska would’ve been stupid to turn down the Big Ten with UT threatening to blow the whole conference up if NU didn’t get back in line.

Athletically, it could go either way. NU may end up getting another easy cruise to the conference title game, a la the Big XII North. I don’t see how that would be a bad deal. But I think it’s generally thought that NU will have a harder time of it in the Big Ten. Iowa and Wisconsin are very good right now— better than any competition the North has to offer. Either way, Bo Pelini was twice given the opportunity to voice his opinion of the move, and both times he voted in favor of it. I trust him and Tom Osborne to know what they’re getting themselves into.