Please excuse my delay in posting but I have not been able to overcome Randy Edsall calling the Maryland football head coaching gig his "dream job". But the bad news that the Big Ten has to deal with is that they no longer have Rich Rod to kick around anymore. The haves in the conference have feasted on Michigan the past three years and now have to actually be worried about the game (assuming the Wolverines hire a decent coach) as soon as the replacement gets the team in shape.
Of course the conference as a whole benefits from a reborn Michigan team. Then again, perhaps they need to fall further out of the spotlight. That was the problem with the January 1 massacre of conference squads. Because the conference supplies both television viewers and people willing to travel to bowl games, Big Ten teams are highly coveted for bowl invitations. And so they get invited to better games then they deserve. This was especially true of Michigan, but so too of a few others. Moving up in class because you deliver viewers is no way to win a bowl game (see Notre Dame prior to their recent two-game win streak--when they were not over-seeded).
And so the conference remains popular but disrespected nationally. Unfortunately the two go hand-in-hand.
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