Caven

I would LOVE to end up with a rivalry game with you guys. Although I will feel kind of bad that the in-laws never get to see the Iowa/Nebraska game here in Lincoln since I will always be stealing their tickets to that game

Nah - other than the occasional idiot we are pretty nice. The drunk idiots might spout off just like drunk idiots everywhere (and yes there might be a few more drunk idiots than other places) but they are harmless. I have never heard of anyone getting into a fight other than downtown after the game when both parties were drunk and stupid.

At what point do you stop believing the denials? I mean they have to deny it until something official is announced whether it is true or not.

I certainly hope we keep the Big 10 name. As far as recruitment - I am pretty sure that the two conferences are really close to each other now on this issue so even if the Big 10 does have slightly higher requirements it would probably not affect Nebraska's recruiting hardly at all.

50% of revenue over 2 years or 90% over 1 year. So less than the extra amount that would be made in the first year in the Big 10. Interesting that there's no penalty is NU just up and leaves with no warning. Huh? The way I read the rules is that if NU declares we are leaving in 2 years we lose 50% of the B12 conference earnings over those 2 years, if we are leaving in 1 year we lose 90% of conference earnings that year, but if we simply up and leave between seasons we don't lose anything because there will be no conference earnings to take away. Minimum 1 year notice. I believe the notification date is July 1.

50% of revenue over 2 years or 90% over 1 year. So less than the extra amount that would be made in the first year in the Big 10.

While I agree that Mizzou should've gotten a better bowl than us that year, I'm curious how being in the Big 12 is their downfall for not getting into a better bowl? The above quote makes it sound as if Beebe told the Gator Bowl to take Nebraska instead of Mizzou. Was that the case? Anyone care to enlighten me on this? The Big 10 has much tighter rules on their bowl selection than the Big 12 does - however in most years they would still not have helped Missouri. The biggest difference is that a team taken over another team must have no more than 1 game difference between them in record (thus Missouri would not have been able to be passed over for Iowa State last year). I believe that they must also be within 1 place of each other in the final B10 standings although I am not positive on that point.

True and not true. Mostly true, though. Everyone keeps looking simply at population bases, and that's not the only factor. Nebraska is the best example of this, as our TV ratings consistently outpace expectations based on population. Population footprint is definitely something to take into consideration, but it's not the only factor. It isn't the only factor once the network is up and running no. But until the network is up and running and showing what kinds of viewership numbers it can draw, all of the initial money will be due to subscriber fees and that is directly tied to population in your home markets. Based on the Big 10 example, a majority of your subsciber fees will come from home market states and out of market rates/ad revenue will take several years to develop. Thus your early profits from a league network in the Big 12 will be signifcantly lower due to having the smallest home market of any major conference. In time, yes you might end up with a network that could rival others but the problem is that unless the Big 10 decides to become a laughingstock and do nothing you probably don't have that time anymore. And since Texas has shown a complete reluctance to do anything like a Big 12 network anyway due to wanting their own network to keep all the money themselves there isn't really a lot of option for the Big 12. eta: That is the biggest reason why Nebraska is such a good get for the Big 10. They have already gone through the initial growing pains and are already onto the network ratings stage of the network.

There is no way that Iowa would leave the Big 10 - the biggest being academic reasons. The problem with the Big 12 as far as TV contracts is the sheer lack of population in the Big 12 footprint. Add on to that the fact that Texas comprises half of the Big 12 population and that they just want to start their own Texas network rather than share their population base with the rest of the Big 12 and it just isn't possible. Even with Texas on board for a B12 network now it would be too little too late. TCU and CSU could be added to the B12 in a heartbeat - but that still doesn't help the population problem as neither adds anything new in that respect.

Nope - you aren't crazy. I live in Lincoln and go to a couple of games per year here as well as have season tickets at Iowa. Very similar atmospheres. Sometimes Kinnick is better than Memorial, sometimes Memorial is better than Kinnick. It really depends on the opponent and how the team is doing. I have been in both stadiums when you couldn't talk to the person next to you and I have been in both stadiums where you could talk on the cell phone with no problem. In my experience it is easier to take the crowd at Memorial out of the game but when they are in the game they are in it better. eta: The in-laws have season tickets to UNL games so I am at those games when they don't conflict with an Iowa game.

My thoughts in red. If you do plan on roadtripping here is a site from a group of fans in Milwaukee that hit all the Big 10 stadiums last year and talk about things to do and see in the places in addition to giving full run downs of game atmosphere both before, during and after the games. http://www.thebig10tour.com/

We take our leagues history very seriously - probably why regardless of the number of teams we end up with we will still be called the Big 10...I hope. Not that history isn't important to you guys as it is very obvious that is the main reason why a move to the B10 would be hard. That and we have been running the expansion numbers for several months now so we have covered a lot of the ground on various message boards that you guys are just now starting to think about since only recently did it really become a topic of vital interest to Big Red fans. I have been hoping for a Nebraska inclusion in expansion since day 1 so that I could go to the games and see teams I know and follow rather than teams I don't really care about. I love the atmosphere at the Nebraska games almost as much as the Iowa games (yeah I am a little biased...) but man you guys need to learn to tailgate better There is a really good blog that has a pretty high level of discussion that some of you might have seen. frankthetank.wordpress.com He has been writing about expansion since January if anyone is interested.

It depends on the ultimate end game for the B10. A multi-stage announcement spanning the next several months could happen in order to try and get dominos to fall. If the ultimate goal is 16 and you want to give certain schools (Texas, ND) some political maneuvering room you go to 13 with the initial announcement. Obviously 13 isn't any better than 11 so you are signaling that you are in no way done. Now that the B12 is destabilized you can make a play for Texas and A&M to give Nebraska and Missouri some additional history (granted it might not be the history that you would prefer...) in the league. If Texas wants to finalize the expansion with 5 B12 teams you add Kansas and the 2 Texas schools and count on the 3 new national names (Texas and Nebraska in football and Kansas in bball) to boost the BTN. If Texas is OK with 4 B12 teams then you are at 15 and you give ND one last shot. If they say no you add Rutgers and are done. If Texas still isn't interested then you add Rutgers and either Syracuse or Pitt to go to 15 and still give ND their one last shot. In both cases if ND still says no then you add 1 of Kansas/Syracuse/Pitt and be done. I haven't heard much of anything about Kansas going to the Big 10. You think that's a possibility? (just curious, cause I have seen literally nothing about them) If the B10 ends up with 3 B12 schools and none of them are from Texas then Kansas is the logical 3rd school to solidify the midwest and get a national basketball school. I would consider them to be an extreme long shot though (just a gut feeling from all the reading I have done on expansion)

So the odds of Nebraska getting Oklahoma to play OOC would be slim to none since Stoops has already said he didn't see how it would be possible to schedule both OOC.

I always figured they would 1) Join the SEC, or 2) form a new conference in which they are, once again, the King. They could form the All Texas Conference and, with the other schools in Texas, lock-down all the homegrown talent. They had that - it was called the SWC and it failed The problem with the SEC and Texas that I have been seeing is the academic issue. Texas sees itself as a major academic/research institution and at the administrative level probably wouldn't accept going to a conference where there were only 2 AAU members/research schools.

If Oklahoma and Texas end up in different conferences the odds of OK playing both Texas and Nebraska would be pretty slim I would think. Which team do you think Oklahoma would prefer to continue the game with - or do they start alternating the two teams on a 2 on 2 off basis?

It depends on the ultimate end game for the B10. A multi-stage announcement spanning the next several months could happen in order to try and get dominos to fall. If the ultimate goal is 16 and you want to give certain schools (Texas, ND) some political maneuvering room you go to 13 with the initial announcement. Obviously 13 isn't any better than 11 so you are signaling that you are in no way done. Now that the B12 is destabilized you can make a play for Texas and A&M to give Nebraska and Missouri some additional history (granted it might not be the history that you would prefer...) in the league. If Texas wants to finalize the expansion with 5 B12 teams you add Kansas and the 2 Texas schools and count on the 3 new national names (Texas and Nebraska in football and Kansas in bball) to boost the BTN. If Texas is OK with 4 B12 teams then you are at 15 and you give ND one last shot. If they say no you add Rutgers and are done. If Texas still isn't interested then you add Rutgers and either Syracuse or Pitt to go to 15 and still give ND their one last shot. In both cases if ND still says no then you add 1 of Kansas/Syracuse/Pitt and be done.

Welcome to the conversation. We've been discussing the financial side of this for days now. Financially, Nebraska makes as much sense as anybody mentioned so far due to TV ratings across several sports. There, fixed it for you. Volleyball, women's basketball, gymnastics, bowling... these are just the most recent examples of teams at Nebraska that have succeeded nationally. Nebraska volleyball usually pays its own way, and baseball has made money in the past few years as well. It's simplistic to just think of Nebraska as a one-sport school. Be better than that. I am guessing he was making the point that the only sport that truly brings in TV revenue is football. It doesn't really matter how good you are at other sports other than bball because other than in the Big Ten with the BTN most other sports are never on TV. That would be another benefit to being in the B10 though - all of those non-football olympic sports events that will be shown.

The other things pods do is allow you to play every team in the conference more often at the expense of the number of teams you play yearly. With 2 divisions of 8 teams you end up playing teams in the opposing division only twice every 8 years in a 9 game schedule. With pods you only play 3 teams every year vs. 7 but you play every other team twice in 4 years vs. twice in 8. It helps keep the conference closer by playing each other more often.

We have actually been really frustrated that Iowa and Nebraska travel so well to bowl games because until last year there were something like 3 years in a row that the Alamo bowl matchup should have been Iowa/Nebraska but one or both teams got picked higher due to awesome fans. I have been wanting to play when we were both good ever since we played during our 2 worst seasons in my lifetime. Both teams are longshots at making the MNC game this year though so I am holding out hope for an Iowa/Nebraksa game down in Arizona!

I'll bite. 70/30 That's a fair guess. I'm a pessimist, but I'll still say 60/40. This rumor is easy to quash by anybody in Nebraska's administration, and to date we've heard nothing contrary to Nebraska joining another conference. I say 10% less than Nexus because there's so many crazy logistical things to iron out. But it's not unlikely. That's how I see it. Given the money involved and the NE brass attitude towards Texas I would go so far as to say 82.3638/17.6362 . I would have gone slightly higher but that might just be personal preference.

Thanks! Been reading it for a while now. Living here I want to be able to know what is going on with the team so that I can take part in intelligent conversation with friends and co-workers. Now that there is Big 10 talk going on here I figured I could actually contribute a little bit rather than just lurk I have been joking with my family that instead of rooting for Nebraska to win once or twice a year I would now have to root for them to win 7-8 times a year since most Big 10 fans cheer for other Big 10 teams in non-conference games. I hope Nebraska fans (and any fans of teams that join the conference for that matter) take up this attitude. It always baffles me to hear Nebraska fans rooting against Colorado in non-conference matchups. I mean, I HATE Michigan with a passion but I still root for them in every single non-conference matchup since it can only improve the conferences perception to have them winning against outside competition. Quite a bit of talk on the Hawk forum this morning about Nebraska and being able to easily see it becomming one of our top 2 favorite rivalry games within a few years assuming that we don't tank in the near future and Nebraska fans look at it the same way.

Iowa City, IA. = 301 mi. (4hrs 57mins) Bah - have done it in 4 hrs and 10 mins when running late for a game I just hope that when Nebraska finally does join the Big 10 it doesn't correspond with another of Iowa's nosedive seasons that we seem to get every few years. Would stink to finally play you guys on a regular basis only to get demolished the first few seasons. Minneapolis, MN. = 433 mi. (6hrs 54 mins) We have already claimed this as Kinnick North so you guys will have to claim Ill or NW as Big Red East!

Illinois will be paired with Missouri as they already have that rivalry thing going on. We are 95% certain that Michigan/Ohio State/Michigan State would be kept together as would Iowa/Minny/Wisky. Then Penn State would be put with the new eastern teams since that is what Papa Joe has always wanted. That leaves Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana and Northwestern to fill out the pods. The Indiana schools and the Illinois schools don't actually have much in the way of rivalry hatred going on so either pair could be broken up safely. With one power pod already existing it would make sense to make another power pod to always stand opposite them and play them as cross divisional games leaving the 2 other pods to rotate. If that is what they end up doing then adding Nebraska in with Iowa and Wisconsin would make a decent power opposite to Michigan/Ohio State/Michigan State. The problem with that of course is that Nebraska loses Missouri as an every year game and it becomes like Oklahoma in 2 out of 4 years. Granted the 2 years that you would have them would be divisional games with more meaning. eta: When I say we in this context I am referring to several Big 10 fan boards that have been debating this type of thing for a while now.

As an Iowa fan I can say that yes you would be correct that Nebraska would come in third behind Wisky and Minny - but we will also readily admit that Nebraska would be much more fun to play than at least Minny. Granted in 10 years after we have played on a yearly basis and probably have a nice 5-5 or 6-4/4-6 split between the two teams (I hope) that would probably change. As you all know - 100 years of rivalry is tough to jump in front of in only a few years.