because I love sports and want to fangirl, of course

If you have had one ear open to general American sports news, you surely know about the conference reshuffling that will take place next year. In big news, Nebraska heads to the “Big 10” while Colorado and Utah head to the “Pac 10” which becomes the “Pac 12”. I’m not sure if the “Big 10” and “Big 12” are going to be renamed but whatever. The Big 10 already had 11 teams so it was failing in that sense.

The reshuffling was because of college football and football money. However, the football teams aren’t the only ones that switch, and these schools don’t just have football teams that fight for conference titles and national championships. In this first part, I’m going to look at the effect of adding Nebraska to the “Big 10” in the sports that I actually know something about – gymnastics, volleyball, tennis, cross country/track and field, and soccer.

CROSS COUNTRY/TRACK AND FIELD

So, I have to admit to knowing almost nothing about Nebraska’s cross country program. Which probably means they aren’t at the top. The Big 10 is stronger than the Big 12 was overall in cross country, despite the presence of Colorado and Oklahoma State which are pretty much distance-oriented schools. On the men’s side, the Big 10 has Minnesota, Indiana, and Wisconsin as pretty traditional distance powerhouses, while Michigan would be there if they didn’t let their program suck recently. On the women’s side there will also be more depth, though I’m blanking on other powerhouses in the conference besides Michigan (hard to keep all the sports straight sometimes). The conference only comes together for the conference meet, so Nebraska is probably not going to do much here.

In track and field, Nebraska moves from the sprint-heavy Big 12 to the more distance-heavy Big 10 in both the men’s and women’s side. There are a few dual meets but Nebraska is probably not going to be part of it. Instead it will probably just join in during the championships where they might not do so hot considering their strengths match up with Minnesota’s. Though I don’t have the numbers to verify whether Nebraska’s field event performers are better than Minnesota’s. They will probably do much worse in the distance events and much better in the sprints, especially since they don’t have to deal with Texas & Texas A & M.

GYMNASTICS

Nebraska has both a strong men’s and women’s gymnastics program. The men currently compete in the MPSF, the women in the Big 12. The Big 10 conference may be stronger than the MPSF in terms of men’s gymnastics, especially if the Cal program is sacked. While Stanford and Oklahoma may be stronger than any of the Big 10 teams right now, the Big 10 has powerhouses in pretty much every program. Many Olympians and World Championship team members have come out of the Big 10 conference. I don’t know that much about Iowa gymnastics, but Minnesota, while not that strong right now, has a lot of tradition. Illinois, Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State have U.S. national team members and/or internationals.

The women’s team is also very strong. The Big 10 is getting better but it’s still mostly Michigan and sometimes Penn State. Nebraska will probably be near the top, but they will have more teams to compete against within the conference.

However these teams already compete yearly against Big 10 teams so it probably won’t affect much besides the conference championship.

SOCCER

Nebraska only  has a women’s team and I don’t know that much about women’s college soccer compared to men’s. Nevertheless I think the Big 10 has a bit more depth. Either way it looks like Nebraska wasn’t winning that much before and it will probably not win much now.

TENNIS

Nebraska has both men’s and women’s tennis. I really know very little about women’s college tennis, but I believe the Big 10 is pretty strong in both men’s and women’s tennis. There is less parity in women’s tennis compared to men’s, and the strong schools are in the ACC, SEC and Pac-10. The Big 10 is alright, I think. Michigan usually has a decent team. Um, yeah, I really don’t know.

On the men’s side, the Big 10 and Big 12 are structured similarly, but the Big 12 is stronger overall. It does help that there are only 7 teams in the Big 12 that participate and 11 in the Big 10. Both conferences have a top team or two (OSU and Illinois for the Big 10, Baylor, Texas and Texas A & M for the Big 12) and some other guys who can play it close (Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana for the Big 10; Texas Tech, Oklahoma for the Big 12). The Big 10 is improving with better Minnesota and Indiana teams. Nebraska will probably be middle of the pack in the Big 10 as well.

VOLLEYBALL

Nebraska only has a women’s team. A very strong women’s team (though they got beaten up by UW, which was awesome. I kind of root against Nebraska so…) It is only moving to a conference where the 4-time defending champs Penn State play. I think that’s an automatic step up in level. The Big 10 is pretty deep though with teams improving everywhere in Indiana and Iowa. Michigan, Purdue, and Minnesota are definitely a step up from the teams underneath Texas in the Big 12. I actually am not sure which schools have volleyball teams in the Big 12 because I don’t get a Big 12 network and a lot of them haven’t made noise. People in the Big 10 who are fans of volleyball will definitely enjoy having Nebraska in the conference.

So there’s my summary. I think Nebraska’s addition to the Big 10 will make it a stronger conference overall. As for the other things, like cost for travel, TV money, etc., I have no clue. So much is by plane anyway, so I’m not sure how it will all shake out.