College Football Insider: Welcome to the Big Ten Nebraska!

With the 2010 college football season coming to an end, the start of some of the shuffling going on in college football can begin. As we eased into the season, the Nebraska Cornhuskers decided to leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten in a move that was made to bolster the school’s marketability and make Nebraska more competitive (in what many consider to be one of the best football conferences in all of college football).

Because Nebraska joined the Big Ten, those in charge of the conference went ahead and realigned the conference adding two new divisions and a conference championship.  The new divisions are the Legends and the Leaders and Nebraska will be part of the Legends division (which includes such teams as Iowa, Michigan and Northwestern).  It’s going to be a change for fans of both Nebraska and the Big Ten but was it a wise move?

Nebraska’s arrival to the Big Ten means that there should be some good rivalry games that develop between them and the teams in their division.  Imagine how many fans will attend games between Nebraska and Iowa?  Those will be hotly contested games and ones that gain a lot of attention and fan support.

With Nebraska poised to have a strong season in 2011 they could upset several teams on their way to leading their division and possibly even winning the Big Ten Championship.  Wouldn’t that be something, a first year team winning the Big Ten.

Big Ten football is a different kind of football than what you see in the Big 12.  For the most part, Big Ten teams use the running game to grind it out and play ball control offense whereas most teams in the Big 12 like to pass the ball a lot (but are nearly equal in rushing to the Big Ten but have bigger and better offenses than the Big Ten).  The Cornhuskers did have a lot of success with their passing game in 2010 and will bring that to the Big Ten next season.

There are other teams that will be moving to other conferences this year and next.  Some of them are doing it for a greater market share while others, like TCU are doing it so they can qualify for the BCS title game if they can do what they have been doing over the past few seasons and go undefeated.  That kind of move does make sense but perhaps it would make more sense to adjust the BCS or come up with a playoff system rather than have teams moving out of their conferences.  

The move, by Nebraska, to the Big Ten will certainly help the school but it may not necessarily help the Big Ten except financially which is all that matters to some but perhaps not to those who are fans of both the Big 12 and the Big Ten.

Losing Nebraska causes some of the rivalries that had been present in the Big 12 to fade away.   We won’t be seeing games between Nebraska and Texas, Nebraska and Missouri and Nebraska and Oklahoma often if we ever see them again.  Fans of the Big 12 loved having Nebraska in the conference but they won’t have that joy any longer.

So please, enjoy having Nebraska in your conference Big Ten.  You have gotten a team that will always be a contender and one that could be one of the tops in the Big Ten for years to come.