“We very much do like the Big Ten Network, and the collegiality and stability of the Big Ten is an enormous improvement (although my alma mater is not blameless on these issues regarding the Big 12). If you asked the fans to vote whether to return to the Big 12 or stay in the Big Ten, my sense is that an overwhelming majority would support the Big Ten, and the Big 12 fraction will dwindle yearly.

“I realize that you write a sports column and most of your readers don't consider academics to play any role in these matters, but let me describe my evaluation of Nebraska's move and the crucial role that academics played in their decision. A popular question in the realignment discussion is ‘Who was the biggest winner in this process? Was it A&M, Rutgers or TCU?’ In my mind, the undisputed winner was Nebraska, and it is not even close.

“Let us recall Nebraska's situation in November 2009. I have a high regard for my alma mater and am grateful for the education I received, but by any objective standard the future was bleak. While the state was not severely affected by the Great Recession, the demographic projections were of a slow, steady decline with respect to the rest of the nation. The university was one of the earliest members of the AAU (the prestigious American Association of Universities), but this status was in grave danger, as the university had been warned earlier in the decade that they faced expulsion unless radical improvements were made (this situation could have been largely remedied if they had slightly revised their administrative structure to allow the medical school research to be attached to the Lincoln campus, but to my astonishment they refused to do so!). The one aspect of UNL that had national recognition, their football team, had experienced nearly a decade of mediocrity, and while the new football coach had made us competitive on the conference level, only the most starry-eyed Cornhusker fan could dream of the return to the glory days of being an annual challenger for national honors; the best we could hope for was to be an Iowa or Missouri. I envisioned only a greatly diminished future for all aspects of the university.

“When the Big Ten announced their plan for expansion, several people suggested that Nebraska was a strong candidate. I have to admit that the first time I heard this proposal I burst out laughing; there was no way that the Big Ten would admit a school with Nebraska's academic record into the conference. Unlike the other conferences, the Big Ten is both an athletic and academic collaboration. The Big Ten takes academic stature (particularly research) extremely seriously; the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which includes the Big Ten schools and the University of Chicago, is an academic partnership, and while it does not dispense funds as do conferences, it is a relatively close-knit group. I cannot recall how many meetings that I attended at my institution where the questions ‘Where do we rank in this area in the CIC? How can we improve?’ arose; there was intense pressure to improve academic standing, and the results were evident in the most recent National Research Council Rankings of Graduate Programs (this is what the Big Ten presidents value, not the US News et al rankings).