Nebraska's state AG threatens Big Ten -- time to kick Nebraska out !!

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HoustonTXGopher said:
Then why in the hell have national college football experts picked Nebraska to win or finish in the top two spots in the west the last several years. It's because they still have brand awareness, whether or not they have lived up to those expectations the last several years is certainly not debatable. Tennessee has been down since Fulmer left, but to put them in a Colorado or NC State category is laughable.

Iowa St, Missouri and Louisville would bring nothing to the BIG.
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I did pretty clearly say "average CFB fan". I don't think "college football experts" is the same thing, is it? Most of them are old guys who remember and romanticize Osborne and the old Huskers. That just isn't there anymore. That's all gone now.

Why is it laughable to put Tennessee with Colorado (has won a national title) or NC State? Stats. Facts.

Louisville never was and never would be on the table for the Big Ten. If UKentucky ever gets to the point where they're a major research university and in the AAU, then perhaps they could be invited, one day.

Nebraska has brought nothing to the Big Ten. Horrendous basketball, even now that the conference is historically strong (even Rutgers!). Football team has gone from pretty good, to middling, to stinks. There is just no chance that they'll ever get back to national title contenders. None.

Great volleyball team. No denying that.

Worst of all, they were booted from the AAU for not living up the standards of a major research university. That membership is a core piece of the Big Ten's identity. It is a stain and an embarrassment on our membership.
 

HoustonTXGopher said:
Then why in the hell have national college football experts picked Nebraska to win or finish in the top two spots in the west the last several years. It's because they still have brand awareness, whether or not they have lived up to those expectations the last several years is certainly not debatable. Tennessee has been down since Fulmer left, but to put them in a Colorado or NC State category is laughable.

Iowa St, Missouri and Louisville would bring nothing to the BIG.
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Nebraska in the last 5 years is garbage. Really, they have a national brand for sure...no doubt. However, on the field they look terrible. I think they are like Jim Wacker or Joe Salem era Gophers. Just 20 years removed from national prominence (1960 --> 1980's Gophers - 1997--> 2017 to current Huskers) and some good players on the team but not very good performance on the field. They give up when they are losing, you can see it in the players attitude.

The current Huskers are not in the same universe as the Osborne teams so why predict a top 2 finish in the West? The prediction generates clicks on national websites that is why. Yes, It would boost the Big Ten to have the Huskers back but I have watched closely the last 5 years version of the Huskers and it is not good. I would put them in the same category as Colorado or NC State as a product on the field but as a brand they are still a Blue Blood. Have to wonder how long that will last though.
 

GopherDog1 said:
Nebraska in the last 5 years is garbage. Really, they have a national brand for sure...no doubt. However, on the field they look terrible. I think they are like Jim Wacker or Joe Salem era Gophers. Just 20 years removed from national prominence (1960 --> 1980's Gophers - 1997--> 2017 to current Huskers) and some good players on the team but not very good performance on the field. They give up when they are losing, you can see it in the players attitude.

The current Huskers are not in the same universe as the Osborne teams so why predict a top 2 finish in the West? The prediction generates clicks on national websites that is why. Yes, It would boost the Big Ten to have the Huskers back but I have watched closely the last 5 years version of the Huskers and it is not good. I would put them in the same category as Colorado or NC State as a product on the field but as a brand they are still a Blue Blood. Have to wonder how long that will last though.
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Bolded: how so? What does that even mean, then? They don't recruit like they're a top 10 team. No kid from Dallas who is a high 4* or 5* is passing up Norman to go to Lincoln.

They're only a blue blood ... around Nebraska. They have a great diehard base within a few hours drive of Lincoln, who buy tickets no matter what. People who grew up idolizing/romanticizing the Osborne Huskers, won't change their minds, fine. And that's the same trap that Delaney fell into. But the new generations are seeing them as the Illinois quality that they're sinking into.
 

MplsGopher said:
Bolded: how so? What does that even mean, then? They don't recruit like they're a top 10 team. No kid from Dallas who is a high 4* or 5* is passing up Norman to go to Lincoln.

They're only a blue blood ... around Nebraska. They have a great diehard base within a few hours drive of Lincoln, who buy tickets no matter what. People who grew up idolizing/romanticizing the Osborne Huskers, won't change their minds, fine. And that's the same trap that Delaney fell into. But the new generations are seeing them as the Illinois quality that they're sinking into.
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Well Glenn Mason said so a few years ago? haha!

I guess it has worn off by now. No longer a Blue Blood and I am fine with it.
 

GopherDog1 said:
Well Glenn Mason said so a few years ago? haha!

I guess it has worn off by now. No longer a Blue Blood and I am fine with it.
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Well right. Mason coached against Osborne for a number of years, as the HC at Kansas. I'm sure got his teeth kicked in a number of times.

That's what he remembers.
 


realistically, if there is any more realigning of conferences, it would be into some type of regional setup that results in 4 main conferences instead of five.

that winds up with 4 super-conferences each with 16 teams (depending on whether Notre Dame is included).

They might not even call them conferences anymore - go with divisions (East, South, Midwest, West).
Two teams from each division go into an 8-team playoff bracket.

I could see something like that happening.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
So bottom line, if NEB goes, then the B1G either has to get rid of another team and go down to 12 teams, or find a replacement to stay at 14.
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Did we forget that the Big Ten had 11 teams when Penn State Joined?

ACC has 15 teams this season, and the AAC has 11 teams.

No reason to punish another school for Nebraska's problem.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
realistically, if there is any more realigning of conferences, it would be into some type of regional setup that results in 4 main conferences instead of five.

that winds up with 4 super-conferences each with 16 teams (depending on whether Notre Dame is included).

They might not even call them conferences anymore - go with divisions (East, South, Midwest, West).
Two teams from each division go into an 8-team playoff bracket.

I could see something like that happening.
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End games of this form have often been hypothesized by conf realignment nerds.

It seems too perfect that there are 64 P5 teams now, and that divides evenly into 4 groups of 64.

One difficulty is always how to get teams like Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, etc. into conferences like the PAC and ACC. You’re taking teams literally in the middle of the continent and flinging then to one coast or the other.
 

If P5 moved to 4 conferences, I would have to think there would be massive realignment around location. Now, obviously, it's not super simple since you don't want to break up a ton of longstanding rivalries, but you'll have to break a few.

If that happened I think we'd see a lot more permanent "non-conference" games (like Iowa/Iowa State) to keep those rivalries going.
 



What would make sense to me would be for the 64 to — somehow — come together under a single, equal revenue sharing, TV deal. I can’t see how that wouldn’t maximize the per school revenue over the 4 or 5 piecemeal conference deals.

The problem is ... as soon as you break those conference bonds ... what’s to stop the top 15-25 from saying “hey ... we generate most of the value here, why are we sharing with the rest of these losers??”
 

I'll take a crack at 4 16 team conferences:

Midwest:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

East:
Boston College
Clemson
Duke
Florida State
Louisville
Maryland
Miami
North Carolina
NC State
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
West Virginia

South:
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Baylor
Florida
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Vanderbilt

West:
Arizona
Arizona State
California
UCLA
Colorado
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Oregon
Oregon State
USC
Stanford
TCU
Texas
Utah
Washington
Washington State

Independent:
Notre Dame

I cannibalized the Big-12 for this. I tried to keep the other 4 conferences as is making changes mostly based on geography and trying to keep rivals together. I think this works out pretty well? I think you'd have to go to 4 divisions or pods per conference for games played every year giving you 3 guaranteed games each year. You could then play 2 teams from the other 3 pods on a rotating basis giving you 6 additional games to bring you to 9 conference games, leaving 3 for non-conference.

Obviously, kicking out Maryland and Rutgers would lose the TV footprint they were initially added for, but I decided to put geography over that in this case, things get a bit more tricky if you have to keep the Big Ten, ACC, SEC, and PAC-12 exactly as they are and just add Big-12 teams where there are holes.

What do you think?
 


swelna said:
I'll take a crack at 4 16 team conferences:

Midwest:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

East:
Boston College
Clemson
Duke
Florida State
Louisville
Maryland
Miami
North Carolina
NC State
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
West Virginia

South:
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Baylor
Florida
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Vanderbilt

West:
Arizona
Arizona State
California
UCLA
Colorado
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Oregon
Oregon State
USC
Stanford
TCU
Texas
Utah
Washington
Washington State

Independent:
Notre Dame

I cannibalized the Big-12 for this. I tried to keep the other 4 conferences as is making changes mostly based on geography and trying to keep rivals together. I think this works out pretty well? I think you'd have to go to 4 divisions or pods per conference for games played every year giving you 3 guaranteed games each year. You could then play 2 teams from the other 3 pods on a rotating basis giving you 6 additional games to bring you to 9 conference games, leaving 3 for non-conference.

Obviously, kicking out Maryland and Rutgers would lose the TV footprint they were initially added for, but I decided to put geography over that in this case, things get a bit more tricky if you have to keep the Big Ten, ACC, SEC, and PAC-12 exactly as they are and just add Big-12 teams where there are holes.

What do you think?
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If you’re starting from scratch, something close to this is the right answer, I think.

The tricky version is, how do you chop up the Big XII such that teams get placed into the existing four confs? Lot of ins, lot of outs. Rivalries, state politics, old histories, etc.
 



MplsGopher said:
If you’re starting from scratch, something close to this is the right answer, I think.

The tricky version is, how do you chop up the Big XII such that teams get placed into the existing four confs? Lot of ins, lot of outs. Rivalries, state politics, old histories, etc.
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Yeah that's the tricky one...here's what I have:
Add to the Big 10:
Iowa State
Baylor or Texas Tech or TCU

Add to the ACC:
West Virginia
Baylor or Texas Tech or TCU

Add to the SEC:
Texas
Baylor or Texas Tech or TCU

Add to the Pac-12:
Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State

Iowa State and West Virginia were obvious. I figured Texas would want to be in the SEC meaning that the Big Ten, ACC, and SEC all only had one slot left. This pushes both the Kansas schools and Oklahoma schools to the Pac-12 to keep the instate rivalries in tact. At that point you just have Baylor, Texas Tech, and TCU left. They really don't have a good argument for any of the remaining slots so you could just randomly assign them. I bolded the combination that I think minimizes the sum of the distances the schools have to the geographic centers of their conferences (though I didn't actually check).
 

No one can say for sure until/unless it is actually tried. But even with the three “obvious” ones, there are problems that have more to do with politics, emotions, old rivalries, and other things that might blackball them.

WV is not loved by the Virginia schools and Pitt and is seen as too low academically for some in the ACC. Iowa State doesn’t do anything for TV for the Big Ten. SEC would love Texas (so would any conf), but they are a liberal campus/town that identify with Boulder/Berkeley more than the Southeast culture. And they have a serious attitude problem where they think they should get an unequal revenue share.

Nothing is easy. But good on you for giving it a crack!
 

MplsGopher said:
No one can say for sure until/unless it is actually tried. But even with the three “obvious” ones, there are problems that have more to do with politics, emotions, old rivalries, and other things that might blackball them.

WV is not loved by the Virginia schools and Pitt and is seen as too low academically for some in the ACC. Iowa State doesn’t do anything for TV for the Big Ten. SEC would love Texas (so would any conf), but they are a liberal campus/town that identify with Boulder/Berkeley more than the Southeast culture. And they have a serious attitude problem where they think they should get an unequal revenue share.

Nothing is easy. But good on you for giving it a crack!
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I'm having a bit of fun with it so I figured why not. To address some of the problems you bring up here's another spilt:

Add to the Big Ten:
Iowa State
Texas

Add to the SEC:
West Virginia
Baylor

Add to the ACC:
Kansas Schools or Oklahoma Schools

Add to Pac-12:
Kansas Schools or Oklahoma Schools
TCU
Texas Tech

Adding Texas to the Big Ten expands the market (barring Texas's attitude problem) and put them in a more liberal conference than the SEC overall. In addition, bot Iowa State and Texas are AAU so that's another thing. Only other school you could add with AAU is Kansas, but that involves splitting up the Kansas schools and would probably replace Iowa State in that case, so i felt it wasn't worth it.

Adding West Virgina to the SEC gets around the Virginia schools' issues with them.

At this point it gets messy because now none of the schools are remotely close to the ACC. At this point I felt that moving the Oklahoma or Kansas schools to the ACC and adding TCU and Texas Tech to the Pac-12 would work OK. Since neither pair has a good argument for the ACC I said either pair could go. ACC would probably want the Oklahoma schools to get Oklahoma in the conference but so would the Pac-12.

Regarding Texas, you could also put them in the Pac-12 to get them in an arguably more liberal conference. At that point to preserve theTexas market for the Big Ten, you could swap Texas Tech or TCU in.

Again, not perfect, but I'm having fun so who cares. Happy to discuss more if anyone wants to!
 

Texas might well just go independent. They have their own channel, without a conference.

But anyway, will be interesting to see what happens going forward. TV contracts coming up again in a few years for a lot of these confs.
 

Again - my theory - pipe dream - does not keep the current conferences.

It is an entirely new structure for the top tier of D1 FB Teams. by eliminating the conferences, you eliminate some of the objections that Team X does not fit in Conference Y.

Sure, some traditionalists will squawk, but that is where you hold out the big, juicy carrot - the 8-team playoff.

And, of course, this would have to be done in conjunction with the TV networks/Steaming services.

Chance it happens - maybe 5%. just something fun to think about.
 

MplsGopher said:
Well right. Mason coached against Osborne for a number of years, as the HC at Kansas. I'm sure got his teeth kicked in a number of times.

That's what he remembers.
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good thing Mason's wife is a dentist!
 

Nebraska has won five national championships in my lifetime, that seems significant.
 

HoustonTXGopher said:
Nebraska has won five national championships in my lifetime, that seems significant.
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They were good in the 90’s. Natty in 94, 95, and 97. (Where are you getting five?)

That was 20-25 years ago.
 


Many of us were indeed born before 1970.

Apologies, I only looked at Osborne’s career.

Obviously the 1970, 71 natty’s are even more meaningless than the 94, 95, 97 natty’s, at this point.
 

MplsGopher said:
Many of us were indeed born before 1970.

Apologies, I only looked at Osborne’s career.

Obviously the 1970, 71 natty’s are even more meaningless than the 94, 95, 97 natty’s, at this point.
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I was born in 1965. I think even the Bo Pellini era was not that bad, but it certainly has gotten worse for Nebraska. The truth is, that there are less than ten programs in the last ten years that are truly legitimate year after year, or current blue blood status for me:

Alabama
Clemson
Ohio State
Oklahoma

Georgia
Oregon
Notre Dame


LSU
Wisconsin
Mich St
 

MplsGopher said:
Bolded: how so? What does that even mean, then? They don't recruit like they're a top 10 team. No kid from Dallas who is a high 4* or 5* is passing up Norman to go to Lincoln.

They're only a blue blood ... around Nebraska. They have a great diehard base within a few hours drive of Lincoln, who buy tickets no matter what. People who grew up idolizing/romanticizing the Osborne Huskers, won't change their minds, fine. And that's the same trap that Delaney fell into. But the new generations are seeing them as the Illinois quality that they're sinking into.
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Actually when I was talking to Nebraska fans at BWW last year and in Lincoln the year before I was amazed at how many other states were represented. In Lincoln, at our hotel, was a couple from Illinois and you would think they were from Nebraska. In BWW last year before the game, I could not find a Nebraska resident, the Husker fans I talked to were all from MN. It seems like a national brand at that point.
 

swelna said:
I'll take a crack at 4 16 team conferences:

Midwest:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin

East:
Boston College
Clemson
Duke
Florida State
Louisville
Maryland
Miami
North Carolina
NC State
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
West Virginia

South:
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Baylor
Florida
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Vanderbilt

West:
Arizona
Arizona State
California
UCLA
Colorado
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Oregon
Oregon State
USC
Stanford
TCU
Texas
Utah
Washington
Washington State

Independent:
Notre Dame

I cannibalized the Big-12 for this. I tried to keep the other 4 conferences as is making changes mostly based on geography and trying to keep rivals together. I think this works out pretty well? I think you'd have to go to 4 divisions or pods per conference for games played every year giving you 3 guaranteed games each year. You could then play 2 teams from the other 3 pods on a rotating basis giving you 6 additional games to bring you to 9 conference games, leaving 3 for non-conference.

Obviously, kicking out Maryland and Rutgers would lose the TV footprint they were initially added for, but I decided to put geography over that in this case, things get a bit more tricky if you have to keep the Big Ten, ACC, SEC, and PAC-12 exactly as they are and just add Big-12 teams where there are holes.

What do you think?
[/QUOT
Only changes I would do is put Irish in Midwest, move PSU to East, and Louisville back to AAC. conference
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swelna said:
Yeah that's the tricky one...here's what I have:
Add to the Big 10:
Iowa State
Baylor or Texas Tech or TCU

Add to the ACC:
West Virginia
Baylor or Texas Tech or TCU

Add to the SEC:
Texas
Baylor or Texas Tech or TCU

Add to the Pac-12:
Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State

Iowa State and West Virginia were obvious. I figured Texas would want to be in the SEC meaning that the Big Ten, ACC, and SEC all only had one slot left. This pushes both the Kansas schools and Oklahoma schools to the Pac-12 to keep the instate rivalries in tact. At that point you just have Baylor, Texas Tech, and TCU left. They really don't have a good argument for any of the remaining slots so you could just randomly assign them. I bolded the combination that I think minimizes the sum of the distances the schools have to the geographic centers of their conferences (though I didn't actually check).
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Only changes I would do to your list is put Irish in Midwest, move PSU to East, and Louisville back to AAC.
 


Apparently I’m in the minority but I think the addition of Nebraska fit the Big Ten like a glove. I love having them and their football brand in the league, especially in our division. One of my favorite games each year.
 

Wasn't Nebraska complaining that they had the hardest B1G schedule with the original schedule? So why did they expect their schedule to be easier?
 

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