Geography Be Damned - The Big Ten Realigns

Photo Courtesy of www.bigtennetwork.com

Leaked earlier this morning by ESPN's Andy Katz, and confirmed later this afternoon by the Big Ten, the football realignment is in, splitting into two 6-team divisions that I've named with bad acronyms for lack of better title.

The 'MININUMMS' Division (pronounced 'min-e-numms') - Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Northwestern (NU), Minnesota, and Michigan State

-and-

The 'PSIPILOW' Division (pronounced 'sip-eh-low) - Penn State, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State, and Wisconsin

While I doubt these lame and awkward acronyms will stick (okay, admittedly they suck), but I'll run with 'em for now, since they're better than the 'Division 1' and 'Division 2' the Big Ten gave us today.  Maybe we should go with Heartland and Rustbelt Divisions?

The protected rivalry games (matchups that cross divisions but will be played every year) are as follows:

OSU - Michigan
Minnesota - Wisconsin
Northwestern - Illinois )
Michigan State - Indiana
Penn State - Nebraska
Iowa - Purdue (what the?)

I think its pretty obvious the main driver here in this alignment is that the powers that be wanted Michigan and Ohio State in separate divisions, so that the newest grand money maker of Conference Championship Games can be played (although the current Michigan team certainly doesn't seem capable of reaching this destiny in the immediate future).  Add that to the end of regular season Buckeye-Wolverine tilt, and you've got some serious TV money-makin' going on.

I also think its pretty obvious (and humorous) that Wisconsin and AD Barry Alvarez were the big losers of this realignment.  They were basically swapped out of a geographically more logical Big 10 West for Michigan, and lost their annual rivalry game with Iowa for the Heartland Trophy.  All while the Iowa-Purdue matchup was preserved (sorry, had no idea this was a rivalry - someone convince me).  And just to play in the Big Ten Championship Game, the Badgers will need to get past the Buckeyes on just about any given year.  Despite Alvarez's Cornhusker alum status, Nebraska insisted on being paired with us lowly Gophers in a division, rather than Wisconsin.

And the Gophers? Well, its hard not to paint us as big winners in this whole deal.  We kept all our important and historic rivalries (Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan), and reinstated one from our past (Nebraska).  On a personal standpoint, I'm thrilled that we get to play Northwestern every year, as I've enjoyed going to the last several road games in Evanston, and now I can continue this every-other-year trip.

So hats off to our own AD, Joel Maturi for being able to get the Gophers in a position where we could preserve our historic rivalries, and not have to face Ohio State and Penn State each and every year.  Maybe he worked all the angles and just out politicked some of his Big Ten cohorts.  Maybe Nebraska just wanted to road trip to Minnesota to rout us and visit the MOA.  Or maybe Maturi just had pictures of Barry with that cheerleader he allegedly boffed back in the 90s.

What ever the case, things worked out well for the Maroon and Gold.  Now the next question is - what's going to happen for basketball?