Shatel: Big Ten on top of the (sports) world, and Nebraska helped nourish league's bravado
The SEC wanted to be No. 1, the Big Ten wanted to be the Big Ten. Nebraska helped change that, writes Tom Shatel, and the league is winning.
“We expect to win national championships,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said afterward.
This is a Big Ten that Nebraska can learn to love.
When NU joined the Big Ten in 2011, it seemed like an odd fit. Certainly, Nebraskans were not without their bluster. To many, the Big Ten was a strange place where the Rose Bowl was the ultimate pursuit, timid baseball coaches wanted to move their season to the fall and the spirit of competing at the highest level seemed in short supply.
While the SEC desperately wanted to be No. 1, the Big Ten desperately wanted to be the Big Ten. Nebraska brought a spirit of adventure and dreams, though it often struggled to unlock those on Big Ten playing fields.
The awkward fit reached a head in 2020, when Nebraska — along with Ohio State and Iowa — defied the Big Ten’s preference to move the football season to the spring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nebraska, the only Big Ten school that lacked AAU affiliation, was seen as a troublemaker.
But nobody in the Big Ten talks about academics much anymore. Like the time former Commissioner Delany said the SEC was dominating football because the Big Ten had academic standards to fulfill.
These days, the Big Ten is the bully on the playground.
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