Good bet. There are several reasons why the conference will not get 12 bids: 1) Remember for every game played, someone loses. The top teams are starting to separate from the pack (Illinois 6 game winning streak, iowa 5 game and Maryland 3 game). As teams get hot, other teams will sbe losing and dropping down in the ratings. 2) The committee will get pressured to add 2nd teams from lesser conferences rather than give a bid to a .500 Big Ten team. 9 is the ceiling, 7 is the floor.
The thing is that many of these lesser conferences don't have much of a chance at getting a 2nd team. Someone like Liberty might have been in play, but just had two awful losses in a row. Northern Iowa has a couple of bad losses in conference and can't afford to slip much more (and unless Loyola Chicago almost runs the table until the title game, they aren't getting in). Akron might have an outside shot, but they can't take more bad losses like that Toledo loss at home.
The committee never really gets "pressured" to do anything. They select who they feel are the best 36 at-large teams, irrespective of conference. The B1G's ceiling is definitely higher than 9. What we have going for us is that the teams at the bottom of the conference standings are the ones that had tremendous non-conference performances (Michigan and OSU). Those teams could slide in at 8-12 with the current landscape.
I still think that 10 is most likely, with 11 more likely than 9 (though those two are almost a toss-up). It would have to be a perfect storm for 12, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility if the parity continues in the league (and everyone keeps beating up on Nebraska and Northwestern).
