First of all, welcome to the Big Ten! I'm a Badger fan and excited to see Nebraska come "home" where they belong. I can't wait to travel to Nebraska to see Wisconsin-Nebraska soon.
Potential divisions is an interesting topic and one I've mulled a lot over the last few days. First of all, can we just scrap the Bo-Woody BS? Seems like a Barry division is a little more appropriate on this side of the conference. But I digress...
The Big 10 is obviously going to move to divisions in 2011. From a geographic/demographic/travel standpoint, there's no way the B10 is splitting up Minnie, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska. We're talking about the land of milk & honey here. And while we're at it, can we just scrap some history here? Michigan is not good and won't be for awhile after what Dick Rod has done to that program. And Iowa, Wisconsin and Northwestern -- hell, even Minnie -- for the better part of the past decade is far better than anything the B12 North had to offer (including, with apologies, Nebraska).
On the other hand, a pure geographic split with the 3 existing "marquee" teams is not ideal (see the former B12). I personally think swapping the 2 Michigan schools for the 2 Illinois schools makes sense. As for storied histories, you've got Michy and Nebraska in the West and tOSU and PSU in the East. That makes the West a little tougher with Wisconsin, Iowa, and MSU in the West and only Minnie as a "doormat". The East would have Northwestern and Purdue as mid tier opponents and Illinois/Indiana as the bottom feeders. They can keep tOSU and Michigan as annual rivals in opposite divisions and hope that Michigan actually becomes good again for an occasional B10 championship game.
Personally though, I see Wisconsin and Nebraska competing year in and year out for the West title. Should be a hell of a lot of fun.
