RS, you're a friend and like college football like I do, so I'll state what I've said before.
The problem with the Big 10 (11) isn't their out of conference schedule, it's their conference schedule, something they can't do much about. Outside Michigan (currently down), Ohio State, and Penn State, the other teams are marginal from year to year. Wisconsin has been about as consistent of sorta fielding good teams as any of them. Every 3 or 4 years a Mich. State, or an Illinois, or maybe every blue moon a Minnesota, Purdue, Iowa or NW have a pretty good year. But year after year after year consistent? There's only 3 who have traditionally done that.
My solution remains, one with which you have also agreed: You need a 12th team and a championship game. ND would be the dream addition. But at some point, they need to bite the bullet and get a Pitt or a WVU or a Syracuse or someone. You gotta get something that's going to inject some life into that conference, because no one's gonna watch the Indiana-NW game, not if something exciting like Duquesne vs. Howard is on.
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