I wrote something about this a couple of months ago about the Big 10 being irrelevant in football consistently since 1970, outside of the 2 Penn State years and 1 by each of Ohio State and Michigan. And though Nebraska Fans have beef about the 09 Big 12 Title Game,but Washington State in the 1998 Rose Bowl and Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl have more. I count Penn State in there if I can count Texas in the Big 12. Whereas in that time frame Nebraska won 5, OU Several, Colorado, and Texas each have won. The Big 12 last couple of years was considered the second best conference behind the SEC (BCS said toughest).
The Big Ten does cater to Michigan and Ohio State an example was a couple of months ago their game of the week was the Nebraska-Ohio State game in Columbus where Nebraska was embarrassed.