(01-08-2018 10:53 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(01-08-2018 10:48 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(01-08-2018 10:09 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(01-08-2018 09:50 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  Nebraska could solve much of this problem by adding Oklahoma to the non-conference schedule

I totally agree. It's eventually coming back, perhaps without regularity, but, this was a casualty with the move. And, not just Oklahoma...EVERY Big 8 foe. That's not the Big Ten's fault...Nebraska didn't do its business when it looked for the escape hatch. I'm looking at how Colorado struggled early on in the PAC and had a lot of questions about how those two didn't find each other almost immediately. Quite honestly, renewing THAT game would get Nebraska back on the right track because it puts the darn school back into the "west coast."

I'll say the same of the other three "new" Big Ten members. PSU could have fought harder to retain Pitt, maybe even on its place in the schedule. Rutgers didn't even seem to bother keeping Army and Navy annual things (but, sure, please do keep your MEAC body-baggers), and we know the UMD-ACC nuclear war pretty much destroyed Maryland's bridges to those ACC rivals. And these games are easy money for all. And more likely to find themselves on the dial, rather than relegated to other outlets. Clearly, with the Big Ten trying to mandate its members schedule P5 or "special non-P5 exceptions," the conference gets it. But you can't tell university leaders anything.

Looking at future schedules, they are doing their best to bring both games back:

Oklahoma: 2021, 2022, 2029, 2030
Colorado: 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024

So that's 8 times in the next 13 years, which is a start. I have to imagine Frost wants to bring both games back and if he has a high level of success it makes it easier for the AD to justify scheduling those.

With any luck those 2029/30 games will be conference games......

As a Wisconsin fan, you shouldn't want that to happen.

The larger the Big Ten becomes, the more likely an east-west split becomes. And it's very possible that such a split would leave Wisconsin in the "Nebraska-Oklahoma conference" rather than the far more desirable "Ohio State-Michigan conference".