... Ten" is that 12-team conference in the Midwest, while the Big 12 will soon be the 10-team league in the nation's Central Time Zone.

The decision of the Big 12 to play nine conference games in 2011, after the departure of Nebraska and Colorado, was made out of necessity in an emergency situation. The decision of the Big Ten to play 9 conference games was a long time coming.

 

Big Ten

In fact, the Big Ten tried a nine-game, full round-robin schedule back before the "Great Demographic Shift" became part of the conference's concern. By the 70s the conference dropped to eight games to exert a larger presence in the American West and South.

After the expansion to a 12-game schedule in 2006, the ma...

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