jlb1705

I am a little worried about the bolded part....that is kind of creepy sounding. Hey kids, want a lollipop. Look at my gold pants charm. Isn't it nice? What on earth is a gold pants charm? They mean like MC hammer? From Wikipedia: * Gold pants A gold miniature charm depicting a pair of football pants is given to all players and coaches following a victory over the Michigan Wolverines. The tradition began as the result of a comment to reporters by newly hired head coach Francis Schmidt on March 2, 1934: "How about Michigan? They put their pants on one leg at a time, the same as we do!" The first gold pants, which were a creation of Simon Lazarus (president of the Lazarus chain of department stores) and Herbert Levy,[23] were awarded that year for a 34-0 defeat of the Wolverines.[24] One example: I'll also add that I agree with the comments about not wanting to see manufactured rivalries. They've done that with Penn State-M*ch*g*n State with the Land Grant Trophy. Who cares about that. I think there will be a natural interest regionally or even naturally in seeing Nebraska-Iowa and Nebraska-Wisconsin, but there's no need to do anything contrived around either of those. Just play the games, have the fans interact and let things develop.

I think the East/West split is pretty close. I think a more nuanced approach would be to take those divisions, and have Penn State and Northwestern switch sides. Penn State would then be the only geographical outlier between the two divisions (Northwestern's location allows them to fit in wherever you want to put them), and you'd have a little bit better balance. Penn State is also the easiest to justify as a geographic outlier, since they are also relatively new to the conference and their rivalries aren't tied as deeply as some of the others that need protected.

I think Lucas Oil Stadium is a lock to at least be in the rotation. Ford Field would be OK too if it weren't in Detroit. I'd love to see Lambeau Field and Soldier Field used as sites. I think football is best outdoors, and the Big Ten could really play up the smashmouth Big Ten lore angle. As a resident of Cincinnati, I'd vote against Paul Brown Stadium. The field is typically substandard, and I don't think Cincinnati as a city would be a good host. Somebody mentioned Three Rivers Stadium (I think they meant Heinz Field), and I'd also vote against that one because of their lousy field.

Others have already covered this to one extent or another, but the BTN is great. YES, there technically can be instances where a game will be on PPV - but only if you're on the road and playing against a team that won't warrant coverage on ABC/ESPN and won't lease the broadcast rights to the game to the BTN. That's really more of a concern for fans of schools like Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, etc. If Nebraska schedules like Ohio State does, the only OOC road game you schedule are marquee matchups that will be picked up by ABC/ESPN without a doubt. It has also been mentioned that there is a guaranteed number of games that will be on BTN. That is also true. Each team will definitely have at least two games on BTN each season, and one of them will be a conference game. Sometimes too, the BTN will exercise their conference game option for your team in a pretty good matchup. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one Ohio State-Wisconsin game that has been on BTN - one that you would normally think would be a lock for ESPN/ABC. The overall TV deal is great for bigtime fans, which it appears Nebraska has no shortage of. I live in Cincinnati, so getting the Buckeyes every week is no problem. If you live outside of your schools regular viewing area, the options and availability are going to be much better than they ever were before. You can count on every game being broadcast nationally. As has already been mentioned, even the games that are regional on ABC/ESPN are mirrored on one of their other networks, essentially upgrading the regional games to national distribution. It's something that the other conferences don't really enjoy in their TV deals. It's also great if you travel. I went to San Antonio for a week last year, and was still able to easily find a place to watch OSU-Indiana. As a bonus, I even got to see M*ch*g*n choke against M*ch*g*n State - all on BTN. I'll be out of town for the OSU-IU game again this year (if you have to pick one game to be out-of-town for, that's the one) and have very little doubt about being able to get my Ohio State fix while I'm in Hawai'i. Finally, this being my first post here, I want to say welcome to the Big Ten! I've always had respect for Nebraska and especially the fans. I've always been impressed with the way Nebraska fans travel, and I'm sure I'll be seeing you guys in large numbers at The Shoe really soon.