Locked due to no posts in 60 days. Report 1st post if need unlocked New Thought on the Pac-12 Alliance

[DuckTownHusker]

With the new Pac-12 Alliance and the Big Ten's superb bowl alignment, Nebraska finds itself in a very unique position. We're guaranteed a Pac-12 opponent to begin the season and another (most likely SEC) opponent to end the year.

The Pac-12 opponent is a little more shaky, since we could wind up with an Oregon State or Colorado, but the 3 SEC Bowls are virtually guaranteed to be against a Top 25 team.

I'd bet that in most years the Legends division will have Michigan, Michigan State and possibly Iowa in the Top 25. Factor in the cross-over with Penn State and you're looking at 4 games with Top 25 opponents. If the cross over schedule includes Wisconsin and Ohio State (like 2011 & 2012), you pick up two more top tier opponents. Now add in the Pac-12 and SEC teams and you're looking at a schedule with 8 Top 25 Teams. For reference, LSU has beat 8 teams in the Top 25 this season.

Now I'm not saying that a tougher schedule will automatically make Nebraska a better team. Far from it. However, I think that a 2 or 3 loss Nebraska with a monster schedule would have a better shot at a BCS berth than, say the loser of the SEC Championship or an ACC team.

Obviously against tougher competition you have to execute and win games, but I see this move as a huge positive.

 

[Porkchopexpress]

I agree, the deal is nothing but positive for NU. More exposure on the West Coast is a good thing, and like you said, as long as NU avoids the Pizza Bowl, they'll be playing a bowl game down south somewhere.

The only downside, IMO, is travel. Nebraska natives are only in reasonable driving range to 2 B1G opponents (Iowa and Minny), and only 1 of the Pac-12 teams (Colorado). Then throw in a bowl game down south somewhere, and we're talking about lots of travel expenses for fans. The days of driving to Lawrence, Ames, Manhattan, and to some extent Columbia and back in the same day are long gone.

 

[DuckTownHusker]

Very true.

The complete ROUND-TRIP circuit of all Big 12 North schools would be 2,750 miles (from Lincoln). By comparison, the Legends division is 2,725 miles - ONE WAY. As you said, fan travel is a bigger concern in the Big Ten since Iowa is the only realistic 1-day trip. Minnesota could be squeezed into one day, but it'd be one hell of a haul.

School	Miles	School	Miles
Kansas State (Manhattan)	135	Iowa (Iowa City)	300
Kansas (Lawrence)	195	Minnesota (Minneapolis)	430
Iowa State (Ames)	220	Northwestern (Evanston)	525
Missouri (Columbia)	325	Michigan State (East Lansing)	725
Colorado (Boulder)	500	Michigan (Ann Arbor)	745

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The way that college football is heading, fans will have to adjust to longer travel plans. We're still relatively sheltered when you consider that some schools (see: Boise State in the Big East) will travel a couple THOUSAND miles to the nearest opponent (God forbid you play for Hawaii). On a semi-related note, this is why if we ever did adopt any sort of playoff system the first rounds would HAVE to be hosted by the home team and not at a bunch of neutral sites. Either that, or have the whole thing at a central location like March Madness.

 

[70county]

how can this be view as a positve? having your boss, not you keep in mind, dictate whom you schedule. we will know whom is scheduled USC/WSU in advance so our strength of schedule will not be any better as we may have to move around the likes of tennessee, miami or any other team that we would have liked to schedule. we now have someone else scheduling for us so it cant be anything but more difficult to schedule top teir teams in the future that arent in the pac 12....and we have already played CU, USC, UW, UCLA(2012) in resent years....i would much rather see new teams come to lincoln