I honestly feel the B1G will be much better next year compared to last year. Then again, it's not much harder for a power conference to have a worse year than last year, but nonetheless i think as a conference our pre-season record and bowl records will be improved. That will result to better rankings for the conference teams!
I must be in the minority, but I never thought the conference was all that bad. Was it great, no, but not that bad. The national percenption of the big 10 hinged basically on week 2 of the season. After Meechicken got killed by 'Bama, which I really expected, in week 1. The next week NU loses to UCLA, Wisky loses to the Beavers, and someone else loses to Utah St. I think. All those teams ended up being decent FB teams. Its just that it all happened at once.