The Legends and Leaders idea was a failure from the start. Only the biggest fans could sort out the standings without looking at them and the desire to have Michigan and Ohio State play in the regular season and then meet in every other conference title game was misguided. Not only is that type of thinking usually fail--see the ACC with Miami versus Florida State-but you do not preserve the beauty and importance of the regular season rivalry. Once again the SEC got that right by making games like LSU-Alabama and Florida-Georgia meaningful as rivalries and for their impact on the conference divisional races.
But I give the Big Ten credit for righting a wrong. The new divisions are designated geographically and will make it easier for newcomers Rutgers and Maryland to develop rivalries with each other and probably Penn State. Meanwhile the notion that the East is difficult because of the presence of Michigan, Ohio state and Penn State and the West is easier is absurd. First of all, many of the same experts lamenting this predicted that Penn State would be dreadful for ten years. So since they were wrong on that one they now feel that Wisconsin has it easy despite the fact that they did not win anything last year and that Nebraska and Iowa and Northwestern etc will all be pretty good in the near future. We have seen in other conferences that the fortunes of divisions change. The SEC West is a beast now while the East was considered the tougher division 7-10 years ago. The old Big 12 power base shifted from Kansas State and Nebraska in the late 90s to Texas and OU in the 2000s.
The key for the conference is to reestablish itself as the preeminent one on the field. It can deliver plenty of television sets but can it deliver national championship contenders?
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