New Divisions

According to Teddy Greenstein of chicagobreakingsports.com, the new divisions in the Big Ten will be as thus:

According to a report on ESPN.com -- ESPN/ABC is a Big Ten television partner -- and also reported by the Associated Press, Division 1 will have Northwestern, Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State and Minnesota.


Division II will be made up of Illinois, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue and Indiana.

The Big Ten will officially disclose its six-team divisions -- and 2011 and 2012 schedules -- at 6 p.m. Chicago time during a 90-minute show on the Big Ten Network. Commissioner Jim Delany will be in studio.

The Ohio State-Michigan game will continue to be played at the end of the regular season, according to the Associated Press. [Man, is that a shocker or what.  I would never have dreamed that!]

The other yearly cross-over games reportedly will be:Northwestern-Illinois, Penn State-Nebraska, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Purdue-Iowa and Indiana-Michigan State.

Perhaps the only better scenario for PSU would have been to swap Nebraska and OSU, but since we already have OSU as a dedicated team, the schedule would look pretty much the same anyway--i.e. we would play both every year anyway.