Here is what my guy says:


BIG TEN SHAKEUP: 16 teams, 4 divisions.

The Big Ten divisions: (1) Cuse, Pitt, Rut., Penn St.(2) Mich., Wisc., Mich. St., Minny. (3) Ohio St., Purdont., IU, ILL. (4) Mizzou, Iowa, Neb., Kittens.

My guy had this months ago.

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Interesting. When would this supposedly be taking place?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Why not call it the Super 16 then?


Still don't know why it was called "future mail" either.

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-"God is great. Beer is good. And People are crazy!"

Just a rumor for now... I don't have any other details.

I don't doubt the teams, but I doubt there will be 4 divisions. One of the major reasons for this would be to have a football title game. It's going to be hard to do that with 4 divisions unless it's a four team tournament which would likely require new rules by the NCAA.

I'd personally really like that division because Purdue actually does pretty well against Ohio State as compared to most other good football schools.

My guess would be that 1 and 2 would be combined and 3 and 4 would be combined with the champs in the title game. One other "protected" rivalry so Ohio State and Michigan always play at least one game and then one other floating game.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I like it, let's get it started.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Not so much... but much better than NU, I admit. The lifetime dOSU record against Purdue is 37-12-2. You guys win 24% of the time. That compares against 28% for the rest of the Big 10 and about 26% for all opponents. I'd assume that would be even better when you compared against "good" football programs.

Ut oh, now you have done it Mud.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I just don't see it happening. But we'll see.

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Fire Phil Emery

Don't just leave it with that. Explain why you don't see it? What do you see happening?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Maybe just a failure of imagination. But there's too many moving parts, too many campus presidents, conferences, etc. involved.

I think the Big East is preparing to defenestrate Notre Dame to save their football conference. If that happens, ND might be SOL and have to join. If not that, I could see picking off a single team, most likely Pitt, Rutgers, or Mizzou. But I just can't see the dissolution of two major conferences. But I have no inside info and could very well be wrong.

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Fire Phil Emery

You must have misunderstood me. I believe Purdue is 3-5 against Ohio State since I've been a fan with roughly half of those losses being by a touchdown or less.

Purdue was as bad as Indiana is now for about 3 decades so that 24% isn't really indicative of where they are now.

I'd be surprised if any Big Ten team had a winning record against Ohio State in the same time frame. Therefore, even the best Big Ten team is probably at best 4-4 against them. I'm sure Michigan has a losing record over that time. Penn State is probably just about even.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'd switch Minny to #4, NU to 3, and Ohio State to 2.

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Iowa's two biggest Big Ten Rivals are Wisconsin and Minnesota - I can't see them being broken up. I would love to play Nebraska every year though.

No offense Vince - but if expanding the Big Ten to the extent that is being rumored comes at the expense of ruining Iowa's "biggest conference rivalries", well......you know......yeah.......

Sorry. The rest of the 50 million football fans in the midwest......We'll take it.

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What about Michigan OSU? Would they guarantee that game since they are not in the same division? What about Illinois/NU?

I actually don't believe this alignment would happen. I think it's more likely to get 1 or 3 teams than 5.

I hate this idea. The conference would have absolutely no identity. The football would not even be all that great.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That's a good point. Adding Nebraska/Missouri and Rutgers/Syracuse/Pittsburgh does really seem to make the conference lose some identity. That's a huge geographic region.

Personally, I'd rather see them expand to 14 teams and drop Nebraska and Missouri.

I wonder if this "rumor" is simply an attempt to scare Notre Dame into joining since taking those three teams would cripple the Big East to the point where they may not recover. Losing Pittsburgh and Syracuse and replacing them with Memphis and Central Florida is a big downgrade.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Illinois is 3-5 against OSU in their last 8 meetings with an overtime loss, 3 point loss, and a 7 point loss.

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You know me like that.

I'd think you'd want to find a way to get Illinois and Mizzou together.

I like spmack's lineup best.

So would Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern and Indiana.

They might as well call that group "Big Ten:Slightly better than the MAC division".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

That group would be called The Big 1 and Little 3.

They would rule Women's Lacrosse.

their identity is a number, not a region.

Rumblings out of Big Least that they want the Irish all in....Football, too, or the Irish out.
Big 10 vs. Big Least should be a no brainer for Irish, but who knows how they think down there after two bottles of wine and a trip to the Grotto.

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There goes one over the fence..Tru Link Fence..Beauty, Privacy Security....Call Tru Link.
Murph's Union 76 Truck Stop....A great Thanksgiving Tradition!!!!

WOO LIFE!!!!

I heard from Terry's peeps that they are joining the Pac 10 to keep the USC rivalry.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Interesting info from Illini sports writer Mark Tupper -

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You know me like that.

BTN is an unequivocal success. I've seen it written that if ND accepted a B10 offer, that they would be actually financially better off than their current NBC contract. I'm sure the ND will leverage this in their next negotiation. However, now NBC Universal is a subsidiary of Comcast and I'm not sure Comcast will be as free with the checkbook as GE. Keep in mind that Comcast is a lower-rated (credit quality) compay than GE, which has substantially more resources than Comcast.

I wonder how big things go even with only a minor addition to the conference.

Right now, every cable/satellite provider available to me has BTN and I'm pretty far from Big Ten country(for now). This isn't even true for the NFL Network. It's not available here on my cable system. I think there is a pretty substantial portion of the market here that wants it and makes demand and the BTN will be able to raise rates as it takes advantage of the FIOS vs. cable vs. satellite wars. The BTN is one of those things that people will switch providers for.

What's interesting is that currently a lot of this money is being used to upgrade facilities. Purdue will use it to upgrade the basketball facilities and then upgrade the football stadium. Once that is done, the coaches salaries start to come in to play.

If you look at the SEC, the coaches salaries attracting big names is one of the major reasons why they are so dominant. The Big Ten may not only be able to compete with that but they may also be able to outspend them and over the next decade or so the upgraded facilities and upgraded coaching may close the gap.

The other conferences, outside of the Pac-10 won't be able to compete with either of them on money. It should be interesting.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!