Caven

I would be very surprised if they break up Wisconsin/Minnesota/Iowa or Ohio State/Michigan/Michigan State. I am not sure if they will break up Nebraska and Missouri to put Nebraska with the Iowa trio as a power division offset to the Ohio State/Michigan division. Missouri will be with Illinois. And of course I could be completely wrong on everything but that would be my take on it.

I think that an "offer" has been sent although not an official one. Nothing official can be done until after the B10 presidents meeting here in a few weeks (think it is going on the same time as the B12 meetings)

Man I don't know what rock you live under - but that is FAR from the experience I have had and seen over the past 20+ years. Fry pretty much turned Iowa football into what it is today back in the early 80s and with the exception of a few down years here and there tickets haven't been exactly easy to come by. Is it as hard to get tickets as it is to Nebraska games? Not at all. If you order them early enough you can get single game tickets to pretty much any game on the schedule. But to say it is a bunch of bandwagon fans is way off base. There were exactly 2 years where fan apathy had set in and that was the first 2 years of the Ferentz era because of how the Fry era ended and the fact that the fanbase had wanted to bring Stoops back home since he is an Iowa boy. It was the same type of fan apathy that I saw from the Nebraska fans here in Lincoln for a couple of years during the coaching turnover and they were giving away the last few thousand tickets to each game in order to maintain their sell out streak. As far as tailgating - well I will just leave that alone since I have seen tailgating at both locations. Hopefully when Nebraska join the Big 10 we can get some Nebraska fans over to Iowa City and show them some good tailgating.

I'm doing my part over here. Which one you guys on? Hawkeyenation or one of the pay ones?

sounds like my kind of people. better than dumb arses. Oh we have plenty of those over there too.

If you are talking about OSU, not very well. If you factor the conference as a whole, not as bad as you would like to think. Iowa has done pretty well against ranked teams from the south not named Texas. We like to eat SEC teams

The big thing Rutgers is guaranteed to do is add money through the state of New Jersey. The BTN agreements with the big cable companies have a payout significantly higher for people in a B10 universities state so whether they watch or not that is a big boost in money right there. Any extra eyeballs they get on the games out there is just advertising gravy.

The problem that BYU will always have in getting an invite into a conference is their scheduling difficulties related to their religious views. That doesn't mean that a Big 12 trying to stay alive wouldn't take them and deal with it - but it is a HUGE negative when comparing them to another school.

The Big 10 imposed a 5 or 7 year moratorium on themselves after the Penn State expansion and wouldn't even consider adding anyone. The only school I know of that applied was Texas and they were told sorry, we would love to have you but we can't consider expanding for another few years. That should give some insight into the brains of the people ultimately making the decision and why even with the big push from the athletic/TV side there still might end up being nothing done. I doubt it given the money involved (and even the Presidents know how badly schools need the money right now) but it is always possible.

They will either stay in the Big 12 or go to the SEC. With their academics, those are the only 2 conferences that will take them.

If you follow what the Texas people have been saying on other boards, the academic reputation is VERY important to them. That is one big reason why when the Big 12 was formed they pushed for an overhaul in the recruiting. The Big 12 was also their third choice. They first approached the Pac 10 and Big 10 but when both conferences turned them down for various reasons they ended up settling on destroying the Big 8 - er forming the Big 12.

Well it depends. If the era of the super conferences is to lead to a win your division and the 4 conference championship games are the first round of an 8 team tournament then it no longer matters what your out of conference W/L record looks like. You might end up with top teams scheduling other top teams as a true warm up for the conference title run. You won't get an insane amount of them because W/L will still matter for other bowl slotting to some extent but the big boys who's goal is a NC every year will be more interested in the competitive preparation than the possibility of the extra L.

KU would boost the basketball image for the conference along with Syracuse. Being a KU grad, I would love this but like huskernation0201 said, KU and KSU are a package deal. You can't have 1 without the other. I do not concur, with all due respect. If KUI got a chance to go to the BIG 10 and bring in $15 Million morein TV money, and the alternative was the unknown or a potential big downgrade, I think they would go... The problem might be state law. Someone posted on frankthetank blog an excerpt from Kansas law(or statute or something) that ever since they both were in the Big 8 they are required to stay in the same conference. That may not be true - but the person actually posted a link to the law/statute that I didn't bother to go read. Yes if you post something and put a link there I will likely just believe what you posted without bothering to click the link so let the hijinks begin!

Some good some meh. He does a pretty good job of analyzing the teams but often it feels like he is just reporting stuff that he got from elsewhere rather than really digging in to find his own information.

Someone over on the Hawk boards dug up the expansion process from when Michigan State joined in the 50s and Penn State joined in the 90s. Basically what it comes down to is the Big 10 doesn't "invite" a school but the school applies to join. So what this potentially means is that everyone is telling the truth that there have not been any offers extended and they have not been invited to join - but they very well might have been told fill out the application so the Big 10 presidents can approve your application at their meetings in early June. Once an application has been submitted and approved, THEN an official invitation to join is extended. In the past there has been a long evaluation period AFTER the school has applied to join but I would guess that this time the evaluation period was done first so that the Big 10 would know who to have submit applications. Both Michigan State and Penn State submitted applications on their own to start the process in the last 2 expansions. As a side note both Michigan State and Penn State joined the conference effective immidiately for academics when they joined and it was 3 years later when their althletics started to compete as part of the conference.

Those are both going to be big.

Thanks - I try to be nice I really like the billboard at the border.

Any Iowa fan that thinks nobody can beat us just needs to look at last season. Best season we have had in a long time and we still won by the skin of our teeth most games. Lately it seems we to like to play to our competition and keep things interesting good or bad. That is better than just getting taken to the woodshed but man I don't see how any of us can claim no one can beat us. I would say we can beat anyone but anyone can beat us. Hell Northwestern has OWNED us in recent years.

Iowa does not have the overall history of winning that Nebraska does you are correct. We were good in the 20s and then for the latter half of the 50s but we didn't get consistently good until Hayden Fry took over the program in 1978 and rebuilt the team. From the early 80s through now we have been a significantly better team. We have had some down years but overall the programs quality under Fry and now Ferentz is much better. However, over the past several years I would say Iowa has probably been the better team most of the years. The nice thing if Nebraska joins the Big 10 is we no longer have to play these what if games. I will be surprised if the modern record doesn't end up closer to 50/50.

yeah - and since half the time I would be part of the group needing to wear it, maybe something else would be better

It just makes that New Years trip to California, Florida or Arizona that much more enjoyable!

Every fan of the losing team has to wear one of those stupid corn heads to the game the following year!

610 sports Sounds like they have their own little rivalry going on down there in KC.

Sure! Kansas State Long frigging way! Kansas Long frigging way! Iowa State Long frigging way! Iowa Long frigging way! Missouri Long frigging way! Oklahoma State Long frigging way! Minnesota Long frigging way! Colorado Long frigging way! Oklahoma Long frigging way! Wisconsin Long frigging way! Illinois Long frigging way! Northwestern Just fly to Chicago! Purdue Long frigging way! Indiana Long frigging way! Baylor Long frigging way! Michigan Closer than from Nebraska but still a long way Michigan State Closer than from Nebraska but still a long way Texas Tech Long frigging way! Ohio State Farther than I would want to drive but closer than everything else Texas Long frigging way! Texas A&M Long frigging way! Penn State Not too far away Hope that helps!

School dist. Time Closest Major airport Distance from airport Kansas State 135 2:39 Manhatten in town Kansas 195 3:36 Kansas City 0:55 Iowa State 223 3:38 Des Moinses 0:30 Iowa 301 4:56 DesMoines/Cedar Rapids 1:45/0:30 Missouri 325 5:24 Columbia in town Oklahoma State 408 6:44 Oklahoma City 1:13 Minnesota 432 6:54 Minneapolis in town Colorado 506 7:39 Denver 0:34 Oklahoma 455 7:32 Oklahoma City 0:24 Wisconsin 493 8:01 Madison/Milwaukee in town/1:40 Illinois 519 8:34 Chicago/Indianapolis* 2:15/2:25 Northwestern 529 8:45 Chicago in town Purdue 625 10:07 Indianapolis 1:24 Indiana 637 11:05 Indianapolis 1:15 Baylor 724 11:36 Dallas* 1:45 Michigan 745 11:58 Detroit 0:45 Michigan State 782 12:33 Detroit 0:25 Texas Tech 724 12:39 no clue Ohio State 826 13:23 Columbus in town Texas 824 13:25 Austin in town Texas A&M 815 13:28 Houston* 1:45 Penn State 1072 17:30 no clue a few hours at least *Might be one closer that I missed So the Kansas schools have no comparison in the Big 10 as far as travel and Penn State is just hard to get to. For the others you end up with: Iowa instead of Iowa State Minnesota instead of Oklahoma State Wisonsin instead of Colorado Illinois and Northwestern instead of Oklahoma (yeah this one is a sucky trade off in that distance) After that you are into long drive times in both the Big 10 and Big 12. Purdue/Indiana for Baylor Michigan/Michigan State for Texas Tech Ohio State for Texas/Texas A&M eta: I had it all spaced out nicely and then it just stripped out all of the spacing when I hit post. Sorry