Divisional alignments for a 12-team Big Ten

...of your examples, Iowa and Nebraska reside in the same division.  This would permit the annual staging of Farmageddon:

Just think of the potential rivalries. Farmageddon between Iowa and Nebraska. The Barry Alvarez Invitational between Wisconsin and Nebraska. Put Nebraska against Penn State, Michigan or Ohio State, and TV execs will drool.

I don't like shaping divisions based on geography, but Nebraska certainly strengthens the western edge of the Big Ten. While I'd urge Jim Delany to break up the Ohio State/Michigan/Penn State bloc, a division with Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa looks pretty solid.

I like the second divisional split a lot.  I never realized how many rivalries could be saved.  Thank you for pointing that out.

The north division is much tougher than the south.

I agree with the second breakdown - with the East-West divisions, you would have the same problem the Big 12 had with the North-South breakdown, as OU and Texas always battled for MNC bids while the North could, at best, be a spoiler.  

Nice work.

Division alignment: The Big Ten also must figure out divisions in the coming months. Delany listed three main criteria for sorting them out: competitive fairness, maintenance of rivalries and geography. He stressed that competitive fairness is the No. 1 priority, which I believe to be the correct approach. Geography shouldn't determine divisions. You don't want another Big 12 South scenario.

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/23150/more-nebraska-big-ten-...

Take your first set of divisions and switch Penn State with Illinois. This is neutral with regards to keeping rivalries (11 of 13 are still maintained) and allows for greater competitive balance. Meanwhile, Nebraska can develop rivalries with both Iowa (a natural rival) and Penn State.

Penn State-Nebraska would be a great rivalry for several reasons. First of all, they equally prestigious programs. Second of all, they are both relatively recent additions. Finally, and most importantly, both teams contend that they deserve the 1994 National championship (awarded to Nebraska) and in 1982, Penn State won the national championship and handed Nebraska its only loss of the season (Nebraska finished 3rd in the polls).

How many ways are there to divide a 12 team Conference into two 6 team divisions ?

Also if you play every team in your own division once & 3 games from the other division each year that would make 8 games in Conference with 4 games remaining for non-Conference play.  So even if Minnesota was in the other division the Brown Jug could still be contested every other year. 

This Minny partisan could not give half a shit about the non-division teams in your hypothetical N/S split.

I would like see a conference championship game take place of a game on the last weekend between 2 teams that are outright division champs. For example if we use the North/South division the championship would be UM and OSU alot and you use a neutral site and that teams home game gets pushed back to the next year

I'm going to take playing Ohio State every year over maybe playing them for the conference title every once in a while. If you can put them in separate divisions but maintain a rival in an opposing division then I am for it. Otherwise I say we are in the same division.

I was writing up some possibilites for HSR, and I think I have hit upon something in this, using the permanent cross-division rival model which they would never say they were doing the sort based on this, but it totally feels like it works:

The Rich/Poor Divisions (based on the size of the school's endowment)

* Michigan - $6.00 billion
* Northwestern - $5.45 billion
* Minnesota - $2.07 billion
* Ohio State - $1.65 billion
* Purdue - $1.46 billion
* Wisconsin - $1.37 billion

* Indiana - $1.23 billion
* Penn State - $1.23 billion
* Nebraska - $1.15 billion
* Illinois - $1.11 billion
* Michigan State - $1.05 billion
* Iowa - $766 million

Permanent rival games:

Michigan-Michigan State
Northwestern-Illinois
Minnesota-Iowa
Ohio State-Penn State
Purdue-Indiana
Wisconsin-Nebraska

(The only two that would need to be season finale games are Northwestern/Illinois and Purdue/Indiana, which allows Michigan/Ohio State, Minnesota/Wisconsin, Michigan State/Penn State, and Iowa/Nebraska to close the season.)

Am I crazy, or does that work out pretty darn well?

Then you're only missing two each year, like it is now. I think missing three injects too much imbalance into the overall conference schedule strengths.

It's moronic not to do so now that there is a 12 game regular season -- three OOC games is plenty. Just because the SEC, ACC, and Big Nothing didn't have the sense to go to nine games when they should have doesn't mean the Big Ten should repeat the mistake.

I don't mind putting Michigan, OSU and PSU in the same division so much now that Nebraska is in the other division to balance. I think having Nebraska as a rival will boost Iowa and the other teams in the West, so that they can compete consistently. I don't think the Big Ten East will be as dominant as the Big XII South is.

How does scheduling work? Are cross-division games all during specific weeks during the season, or are they randomly spread out through the season?

If Iowa and Wiscy are now, as the MSM percieve them, elite teams, then they will be natural rivals for Nebraska, and the divisions will be balanced on top with UM, OSU, and PSU on one side and Nebraska, Iowa, and Wiscy on the other side.  This really looks as fair as it gets, as long as Wiscy and Iowa continue to hold up their end of the "bargain."

If, further down the road, the BT adds, say, ND and Pitt, Pitt could be in the east and ND in the west.  Then, there would be four tough teams in each division.  If ND doesn't join, I hope Pitt doesn't, either.  I would rather have two elite teams or two non-elite teams join for the sake of balance.  Or, as some wish, two elite teams and two non-elite teams.

At any rate, balance is the key.  It's fair for everyone, and it keeps bitching to a minimum.  I'm "all in" for East/West.

I think it is as simple as an east and west division split!

All 6 teams from each division must play a home and away series every year. East and West division opponents would play each other twice a year with some sort of staggered 3 year home and away series. This would leave two non-conference games. And there will be no cupcakes in the scheduled!  UM would probably play ND and hopefully another BCS non conference opponent. No more MAC teams!  Never again a DIV2 team!  Then of course we'll have the huge big 10 conference championship game in early December...the match up between both divisional winner.  You will never again have some teams slip through with an easy conference schedule!

Rotate the championship game between Ford Feild, RCA dome, metrodome, even STL.

If we add ND in 2012 or 2013 we could add Pitt/MD/Rutgers and place ND in the west and one of the eastern teams in the east!

The PSU locals around here see the Land Grant Trophy for exactly what it is, some weak attempt at forced tradition that pales to the real thing so prevalent in the conference.

I have faith that the Big Ten will do their best to keep as much rivalry games that they can.

any of  the permutations presented.   I believe the OP and the rest of the respondents have excellent ideas but, since the subject is somewhat speculative. Why not consider that conference expansion is not over?  There may be as many as four teams out there that may be penciled in for the Big 10 or whatever it's going to be called.  

split the way the OP has it East/West.  While preserving the current rivalries (which really have a strong locality component in them, so divisions along geographical lines would preserve most of them) unfortunately, I do think that it is fairly imbalanced.

Chosing to divide based on geography is, I guess, as arbitrary as anything.  So, as they use to say in Monty Python, and now for something completely different.  Lets divide the schools according to the US News and World Report rankings (ranking in parentheses):

Brains
Northwestern (11)
Michigan (27)
Illinois (39t)
Wisconsin (39t)
Penn State (47)
Ohio State (53)

Brawn
Purdue (61t)
Minnesota (61t)
Indiana (71t)
Michigan State (71t)
Iowa (71t)
Nebraska (96)

Actually, that really isn't too bad, and we get rid of little brother to boot. But Ohio State in the "Brains" division, I'm just not gettin' that.

I wonder if the league is going to help pay travel costs now? (Or do they already?)  If Nebraska ends up a in non-geographical division, the travel costs for the schools in that division will be much greater than the one without the Cornhuskers.  Still, as long as Michigan and OSU are in the same division I guess I really don't care that much.