Oh right, I had failed to mention I was imagining a Texas-less western division. Not to argue with Brian's analysis, but just that my worry is the west will get drawn lacking an anchor team in the west.
As an alum of both Iowa and Michigan (and solidly a Hawkeye, sorry guys) I'd be pretty unhappy if Iowa-Michigan games stopped happening on a regular basis. The triumvate of hate is nice to keep, but it will definitely be different benchmarking our seasons against someone other than the Wolverines and the Buckeyes on a regular basis.
My take is that there's two big concerns:
1) Historic matchups with the heavyweights to the east will be replaced with less compelling new matchups to the west or south - less compelling to the fans and to the media. Iowa was on ABC Saturday night football twice last season (Penn State and Michigan) and on BTN prime time once (Michigan State). I'm sure if there wasn't a November rule against it, Iowa @ Ohio St last year would have been prime time on ABC too. I don't think you could look at a potential western conference schedule and find 3-4 games that might have national interest if both teams were good. It's scary to think that in a good year, Iowa could find itself scraping for national exposure.
2) The west becomes the new Big12 North. As it stands, a Nebraska matchup would be an electric border rivalry with Iowa (both fan bases hate each other despite hardly ever playing). But lets be honest, Nebraska is not what it used to be and Missouri has never been a powerhouse. If the west doesn't develop a great team every year that can and does win the conference championship on a regular basis, then that marginalizes the division and that's *bad* for everyone in the conference.
I think the Big Ten is more likely to avoid the Big12 north situation [e: than the b12 was] - one of Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa will probably produce a good team, but it's still a concern. None of these programs are currently a heavyweight nationally.
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Oh right, I had failed to mention I was imagining a Texas-less western division. Not to argue with Brian's analysis, but just that my worry is the west will get drawn lacking an anchor team in the west.
As an alum of both Iowa and Michigan (and solidly a Hawkeye, sorry guys) I'd be pretty unhappy if Iowa-Michigan games stopped happening on a regular basis. The triumvate of hate is nice to keep, but it will definitely be different benchmarking our seasons against someone other than the Wolverines and the Buckeyes on a regular basis.
My take is that there's two big concerns:
1) Historic matchups with the heavyweights to the east will be replaced with less compelling new matchups to the west or south - less compelling to the fans and to the media. Iowa was on ABC Saturday night football twice last season (Penn State and Michigan) and on BTN prime time once (Michigan State). I'm sure if there wasn't a November rule against it, Iowa @ Ohio St last year would have been prime time on ABC too. I don't think you could look at a potential western conference schedule and find 3-4 games that might have national interest if both teams were good. It's scary to think that in a good year, Iowa could find itself scraping for national exposure.
2) The west becomes the new Big12 North. As it stands, a Nebraska matchup would be an electric border rivalry with Iowa (both fan bases hate each other despite hardly ever playing). But lets be honest, Nebraska is not what it used to be and Missouri has never been a powerhouse. If the west doesn't develop a great team every year that can and does win the conference championship on a regular basis, then that marginalizes the division and that's *bad* for everyone in the conference.
I think the Big Ten is more likely to avoid the Big12 north situation [e: than the b12 was] - one of Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa will probably produce a good team, but it's still a concern. None of these programs are currently a heavyweight nationally.