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Nebraska to Big Ten


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Its official Nebraska is in the Big ten, goes into effect July of 2011

 

From ESPN

LINCOLN, Neb. -- So long, Big 12. Nebraska's membership in the Big Ten Conference is official.

 

The Big Ten's board of presidents and chancellors unanimously welcomed Nebraska to the club on Friday, just a few hours after the school formally disclosed its interest. The move takes effect July 1, 2011.

 

Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman said the Big Ten offers stability "that the Big 12 simply cannot offer."

 

 

After a rocky relationship with the Big 12, Nebraska found a comfortable landing spot in the Big Ten. Story

 

 

It will take some time to get used to the Big Red in the Big Ten. But Nebraska and its new conference are a good match, Adam Rittenberg writes. Story

 

Nebraska is better aligned with the Big Ten academically, culturally and even in climate, ESPN.com's David Ubben writes. Story

 

Nebraska is the Big Ten's first addition since 1990, when Penn State joined, and it comes just six months after the league announced that it was looking at expansion.

 

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said he presumed there would be a Big Ten championship football game beginning in 2011. He also said the conference would "pause" from further expansion during the next 12 to 18 months. He declined to comment on whether Notre Dame or any other school was on the league's radar.

 

Nebraska's departure is a potentially crippling blow to the Big 12 and the biggest move yet in an offseason overhaul that will leave college sports looking much different by this time next year.

 

"We've had a couple disappointing days with the departure of two valued members," Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said during a teleconference. Beebe vowed to work to keep the 10 remaining members together but acknowledged that other Big 12 schools are mulling their options.

 

Perlman said he believed Nebraska is much more "aligned" with the Big Ten than the Big 12 when it comes to academics, culture and athletics.

 

The university issued a statement that said for more than 20 years, Nebraska has compared itself to a list of 10 peer institutions established by the regents. Five of the 10 are Big Ten members; four are former Big Eight schools that joined Nebraska in the Big 12 in 1996.

 

"The University of Nebraska would have new opportunities with membership in the Big Ten -- and I believe the Big Ten would be a stronger conference as well," university president J.B. Milliken said.

 

Nebraska's move comes at the end of a crazy week in college athletics.

 

On Thursday, fellow Big 12 member Colorado announced it was leaving for the Pac-10. Texas and other schools in the Big 12 South -- Perlman told the regents that the Pac-10 had been in touch with many schools in that division -- could be the next to leave.

 

Texas regents have scheduled a meeting for Tuesday to discuss the Longhorns' future in the Big 12.

 

"One school leaving a conference does not destroy a conference," Perlman said. "Nebraska did not start this discussion. After the Big Ten announced it planned to consider expansion, we saw reports that Missouri would want to go to the Big Ten, including a statement by their governor, a member of board of curators and chancellor -- comments that weren't clearly supportive of the Big 12."

 

Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne, the longtime football coach, agreed.

 

Scott Van Pelt

 

CNBC's Darren Rovell explains why the Big Ten is so attractive to schools that are looking to relocate. Rovell also discusses some of the possible financial implications for programs that change conferences.

 

"As we read the tea leaves and listened to the conversations, some of the schools that were urging us to stay, we found some of them had talked to not only one other conference or two but even three, and those were the same ones urging us to stay," he said.

 

To generations of Nebraska fans, going to the Big Ten at one time would have been unthinkable. The school's athletic tradition is built on more than a century of football games against the likes of Missouri and Kansas, dating to the days the team was known as the Bugeaters.

 

The Huskers, in fact, have been conference partners with Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Kansas State since 1928; with Colorado since 1948; and with Oklahoma State since 1960.

 

Now the Huskers are taking their five national titles in football, three Heisman trophies and enthusiastic fans east. They will look to start building new traditions, such as a border rivalry with the Iowa Hawkeyes and regular trips to Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.

 

Watching a football camp at Beaver Stadium, Penn State coach Joe Paterno declined comment Friday. Paterno in the past has advocated for enlarging the Big Ten from 11 schools to 14.

 

"It's just the tip of the iceberg right now," Penn State receivers coach Mike McQueary said of Nebraska. "Unbelievable tradition, the things they've done in that program; academically as well."

 

THE RICH GET RICHER

Only 7 schools in FBS history have won 800 games. With Nebraska moving to the Big Ten, the conference holds 4 of the 7 winningest schools in major college football history.

 

School Wins

Michigan 877

Texas 845

Notre Dame 837

Nebraska 827

Ohio State 818

Alabama 813

Penn State 811

At Iowa State, a Big 12 school rarely mentioned in realignment discussions, officials sent an open letter to boosters expressing disappointment in the moves by Colorado and Nebraska.

 

"But as all of the discussions about conference realignment illustrate, the future of college athletics appears to be less about academics and competitive success and more about money, as measured by television viewership and the associated revenues," the letter said.

 

Fatter paychecks will be coming to Nebraska, eventually. Nebraska received about $10 million from the Big 12 in 2009, half the $20 million received by Big Ten members (thanks largely to bigger television contracts and the in-house Big Ten Network).

 

The Big Ten told Perlman that no current member would receive a reduced share of revenue from the conference because of the addition of a new member. Perlman said Nebraska has been assured it would not receive less than it did in the Big 12, however, if it joins the Big Ten.

 

"This is not a financial windfall," Osborne said.

 

Delany has said he wanted to add only members that would be considered "home runs." The Huskers' football team struggled in the early and mid-2000s but have returned to national prominence the past two seasons under coach Bo Pelini -- an Ohio State alumnus.

 

As for the Big 12, it never was a comfortable fit for the Huskers.

 

When the league formed, Nebraska football was at its pinnacle, having won three national titles between 1994 and 1997 and winning 60 of 63 games before Osborne retired as coach.

 

That success didn't translate to juice when it came to influencing league policies.

 

Nebraska and the old Big Eight members, all of whom went to the Big 12, believed they were helping out Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor when the old Southwest Conference collapsed.

 

The perception in Nebraska was that the Big 12's balance of power was held by the South Division, particularly the University of Texas.

 

Nebraska from day one was against a championship game in football, for fear it could trip up a team bidding for a national title. But even issues ranging from academic admission standards to location of the league office (Dallas) chafed.

 

When the league last week picked Cowboys Stadium to host the next three conference championship football games -- after hosting the 2009 and 2010 games -- Osborne complained that continual treks south were unfair to fans of the North representative.

 

And no one in Nebraska has forgotten the controversial outcome of last year's conference title game. It looked as if the Cornhuskers had beaten the Longhorns 12-10 when the clock ran out, but one second was put back on, allowing Texas to kick the winning field goal.

 

Pelini yelled outside the locker room that Texas was given the extra second so it could go to the BCS Championship Game.

 

"This is not about any type of vindictiveness," Osborne said. "You don't make a decision of this size based on where you're going to play Big 12 championship games."

 

Nebraska entered into its shotgun marriage in 1994 with the Big 12 in a cranky mood and left it Friday with barely the politest of farewells. The Huskers had been a leader in the Big Eight and for 16 years never seemed comfortable with how power in its new home emanated from Austin.

 

Harvey Perlman and Tom Osborne made a convincing case for moving to the Big Ten.

By contrast, the announcement Friday that Nebraska would leap into the waiting arms of the Big Ten could be described as nothing more than a lovefest. And if you think about it, there's no university outside of South Bend, Ind., that fits into those Big Ten arms better than Nebraska.

 

"We are stronger today," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a Lincoln, Neb., news conference. "Nebraska is an unbelievable program with an unbelievable legacy. It will make us better than before they joined the Big Ten Conference."

 

If you're keeping score, the Big Ten now has 12 teams, and the Big 12 now has 10, at least until the Texas regents meet Tuesday. The board will decide, for all intents and purposes, whether the Big 12 will live or die. If Texas leaves, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State appear sure to follow.

 

Where Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State and Baylor end up is anybody's guess. Maybe the American Red Cross will set up a shelter.

 

Nebraska, judging by the comments of athletic director and resident legend Tom Osborne, assumed they will need one.

 

"One school leaving does not break up a conference," Osborne said at the Nebraska board of regents meeting Friday. "Two schools does not. Six schools leaving breaks up a conference."

 

Like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the rumors of impermanence that have floated for weeks off the Big 12 coast rolled ashore over the last 36 hours and brought disaster with them. Colorado left for the Pac-10, but no one much flinched.

 

Nebraska, however, is the anchor of the league's North Division. University officials scoffed at the idea that staying in the Big 12 would be as secure, financially and otherwise, as moving to the Big 10.

 

Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman said at the regents meeting that Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe asked him Wednesday for the university to commit to the league through 2016. Perlman responded by calling Delaney to see if he thought love might blossom.

 

"Neither Tom nor I felt that was a very long-term commitment for the Big 12," Perlman said. "We thought our obligation to the University of Nebraska was to protect it from the vulnerability of being without a conference altogether. At that point, we re-engaged the leadership of the Big Ten."

 

Tom Osborne had a sometimes contentious relationship with the Big 12.

Delany and his conference presidents offered long-term security, a more prestigious academic environment, and, yes, more money. But they also offered a collegiality that Nebraska struggled to find in the Big 12. The headbutting had nothing to do with personality.

 

"Some of those people we've had an association with for over 100 years," Osborne said. "If some of them end up in unpleasant circumstances, we are really sorry for that. We do have good feelings about the conference and its membership. But we are really looking forward to the Big Ten."

 

The Big 12 formed as a marriage of convenience. Texas and its Southwest Conference buddies had TV sets and a state full of recruits. Nebraska and the Big Eight lacked clout in the media marketplace. The union, consummated in 1994, didn't survive the honeymoon without a couple of fights.

 

Osborne, then at the peak of his Hall of Fame coaching career, wanted the league to allow its members to accept academic non-qualifiers under the NCAA's requirements for incoming freshmen.

 

As Osborne wrote in his book, "On Solid Ground," the conference presidents tabled the matter until the spring of 1996, only to hold a conference-call vote in December 1995. The vote went 11-1 to ban the non-qualifiers, with Nebraska the lone dissenter.

 

That vote has stuck in Osborne's craw to this day, one former colleague said, even though the NCAA banned non-qualifiers from all FBS schools soon after the Big 12 vote.

 

The league also voted 11-1 to establish a championship game, with Nebraska again the holdout.

 

Life in the Big 12 became smoother. The league is the only one of the six automatic-qualifier conferences to apportion half of its revenues based on television appearances. That works in the favor of Texas and Nebraska. So does the vast recruiting territory of the Lone Star State, which may become more difficult for the Huskers to harvest now that they won't play any games there.

 

In the end, Nebraska set that aside to join a league in which it felt at home. Late in the news conference Friday, Delany described a Big Ten that does business in a different manner.

 

"Inside the Big Ten, there aren't a lot of votes taken," Delany said. "Harvey brought up a lot of 11-1 votes. Our people bring up ideas. They are reluctant to make changes unless [there is consensus]. I don't even remember deciding anything on a 6-5 vote."

 

Huskers football coach Bo Pelini dismissed the idea that he would miss Big 12 rivalries.

 

"I'm not a real emotional guy," Pelini said before breaking into laughter.

 

No, Nebraska won't be looking back with remorse, regret or nostalgia at its time in the Big 12. The Huskers have a new home. Their partners are as happy to have them as they are to be there. Love is a beautiful thing

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Neb is a mid west team....it's a perfect match. Missouri would be a good fit....further west or south isn't a good fit...ND and a eastern team need to round out the slate.....Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers(a stretch).....maybe dip south a bit for Louisville or WV.

 

 

 

Once the league is full, it will be interesting to see how they split the divisions and how they rotate games outside of the division.

 

 

 

 

Good stuff here....college football is making moves....IMO the beginning phase of opting out of NCAA rules and starting a new athletic union/governing body.

 

 

It's about time.

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Neb is a mid west team....it's a perfect match. Missouri would be a good fit....further west or south isn't a good fit...ND and a eastern team need to round out the slate.....Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers(a stretch).....maybe dip south a bit for Louisville or WV.

 

 

 

Once the league is full, it will be interesting to see how they split the divisions and how they rotate games outside of the division.

 

 

 

 

Good stuff here....college football is making moves....IMO the beginning phase of opting out of NCAA rules and starting a new athletic union/governing body.

 

 

It's about time.

 

 

I dont see WV jumping ship any time soon. They have benefited from other schools jumping out of the Big East and into the ACC.

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