The Big Ten was long known as a stodgy conference, reliant on its methods, its style of play, immersed in an older, more traditional way of doing things. So even when the first monumental change in the modern era happened — the addition of Nebraska in 2011 — it was a shift, but one that wasn’t exactly seismic.
Adding the Huskers was similar to adding Penn State in 1990, it was a move that made sense for both the team and the conference. They were programs that were near-perfect fits within the collective they newly found themselves in.
Though 2014 saw the additions of Rutgers and Maryland — two programs that weren’t quite of the same cloth as the Big Ten, but close enough — August 2, 2024 will mark a brand new day in the Big Ten.
Next month, it will be official. USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon will join the Big Ten and it will do so at a time when everything in college football is changing. The College Football Playoff expands from four teams to 12 this year, marking a departure from the 10-year status quo. But now, there’s a whole country between conference opponents, a 2,000-mile difference between much of the extant Big Ten teams and their new rivals. And even so, with the playoff expanding, losing the conference isn’t a dealbreaker when it comes to the national championship picture.
Though the Big Ten and former Pac-12 were kindred conferences, with a marriage consummated with the year’s end Rose Bowl Game, the new four teams are markedly different in the way they operate, the way they exist. The Iowas, Nebraskas, Minnesotas, and Michigans all thrive in a more hard-nosed system, emblematic with their run games and stout defenses. Even though Ohio State is trending more toward a basketball-on-grass style of play, it still has many of those tenets, even if it differs on a yearly basis. But the West Coast programs? Though they also differ yearly, they have a little more panache, more razzle-dazzle when it comes to offensive play, and often, are bereft of defensive play.
These aren’t hard and fast truths every single year. We’ve seen top defenses come out of the West Coast and Oregon under Dan Lanning is building itself in the image of SEC programs. But with the additions, gone is the stylistic symmetry of much of the Big Ten. Seeing USC at Minnesota or Rutgers having to make a midyear trip to Los Angeles to face UCLA changes the dynamic of the conference, entirely.
The conference championship will no longer be East vs. West, too. It will be the top two teams, with the specifics still not yet divulged. The danger of a Michigan vs. Ohio State rematch a week after The Game becomes a real possibility, but there are also some other intriguing matchups that could take place. Perhaps it opens the door more for a Penn State team that’s long struggled to overtake the other big two in the East. Or maybe the potential cannibalism of the perceived top teams ends up giving more opportunities to the mid-tier programs.
We won’t know, and it’s no time to fear the changes. It could produce a better product, or it may diminish that which had been built for more than a century. We’ll know more this fall. But still, this marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.
It will be interesting to see what the new Big Ten brings, for better or worse.
