The biggest change for faithful Nebraska fans next year will be in their gas bill for travel to away games. They may think that Joe Pa and Happy Valley are about as far as College Station, but they aren’t. They are 400 miles farther (meaning even Tallahasee, Florida is closer).
That’s a big difference for Omahans who are used to driving less than four hours to four of their Big 12 conference opponents, Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State. The only close conference opponent in the Big 10 will be Iowa.
But while Husker fans are shelling out the dough to BP and Conoco, the school hopes to be raking it in, with more money coming their way from a Chicago TV-market-based Big 10 conference.
Competitively, however, Nebraska may find itself in remarkably the same boat as the one they’re abandoning after this season.
The preliminary Big 10 talk is that the conference will be split east and west, putting Nebraska in a western division of Wisconsin and Iowa, and placing Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State in the east.
That sound familiar? That east division looks remarkably strong like the Big 12 South with three very good programs. That west division looks much like a Big 12 North division, with Iowa and Wisconsin instead of a Missouri and a Kansas. So, can we expect before long the opponents in the Big 10 will look at Nebraska like the Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech’s have been perceiving the Huskers? In other words, Nebraska has it easy?
The Big 10 East schools will probably like having Nebraska around to whip up on in their conference championship in Indianapolis each year. Soon Nebraska will tire of being outcast as the country bumpkins out on the plains with little influence over conference machinations.
Of course money soothes all ills. And although Nebraksa may not getting any more say than they did in Big 12 country, and may not be any more successful winning conference championships, Tom Osborne may be hailed as the guy who brought more money to the bank account.
Maybe Tom can give the Husker faithful some travel vouchers.
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