Hello, Huskers: Nebraska joins the Big Ten

Today my old man took the day off and did what he usually does on vacation: sleep. He was in his room, snoozing away with the TV on. When I walked in to see what he was up to, the Big Ten Network was replaying a classic Nebraska football game.

Nebraska? I thought. On the Big Ten Network?

Yep. Exactly where they belong now.

Today the Cornhuskers officially joined the Big Ten. However, you would never know it besides the replays of Orange Bowls of yore and the corny (literally) programming ads with the school’s stylized “N.” None of the network idents feature the Nebraska logo and many of the conference commercials still use the old conference mark with the hidden “11.” Way to go, guys. (You would also not know the Big Ten Network rebranded itself “BTN,” though I am unsure when that officially goes into affect.)

After the long, drawn-out drama of expansion speculation and the slight reshuffling of the college sporting landscape, the Big Ten (or “B1G” as everyone seems to be referring to it now) finally has its twelfth member. Now the 1.8 million Nebraskans can enjoy the wonders of countless “Top Ten _____ of the Big Ten” and “Greatest _____ of the Big Ten” lists (all of which do not feature any Nebraska players) as they patiently while away the remaining two months before college football kicks off on September 1.

Happy happy, joy joy.

(On a side note (I am really feeling the parentheses today), Nebraska has the flat out lamest looking state flag. According to the flag’s Wikipedia page, “The Nebraska flag was rated in a survey by the North American Vexillological Association as 71st out of 72 U.S. and Canadian flags, making it the second worst flag in the survey. The worst-ranked flag, the flag of Georgia, has since been changed.”)

Though I welcome the Huskers’ rich sporting tradition and whatever they bring academically (because we all know academics played no part in expansion), I cannot help thinking this will mess with my head for a while. For someone like myself, who started following college sports hardcore in 1992, the Big Ten has always had 11 members; that hidden “11” has always been there. It was easy for me to accept Penn State into the conference family since, for me, I never knew the Big Ten without it. But this is my first real experience with conference expansion, and I have to say it has yet to sink in. Nebraska in the Big Ten? Though it has been written in stone for a year, it still sounds weird.