For months, if not longer, it seemed the division of power in the Big Ten was pretty clear. The East Division had all the heavyweights, while the West lagged behind.

That had been the narrative since the offseason, as it looked like the West faced a real talent gap versus its geographic opposite, one that was growing into one of the toughest divisions in college football.

Now that we're into November, however, the West no longer looks like merely the sickly sibling of the East. Especially after last weekend.

West teams went 4-1 against East squads in Week 10. That record was highlighted by Nebraska's upset of Michigan State at home. The Cornhuskers had been just 1-4 against fellow West teams before knocking off the Spartans. Northwestern also beat Penn State in a fairly even cross-division matchup. The West's only loss to an East team last weekend was Minnesota's 28-14 setback at Ohio State, a respectable effort that saw the Golden Gophers close to within a touchdown late in the game.

For the season, the West is 6-5 against the East. The West also currently has three ranked teams -- Iowa, Northwestern and Wisconsin -- matching the East's trio of top 25 outfits (Ohio State, Michigan State and Michigan). Both divisions have the same amount of undefeated, legitimate playoff contenders.

It would be a stretch to suggest that now the West is best and the East is least. Schedules have contributed to the cross-division record, after all.

Iowa, the top team in the West, has played two East teams that are winless in conference play -- Indiana and Maryland. Wisconsin, which sits in second place in the West, got Maryland and Rutgers as its crossover opponents. Northwestern got stomped by Michigan 38-0. For the most part, West teams haven't been beating the cream of the crop in the East.

Then again, Nebraska did topple Michigan State. And Minnesota not only played Ohio State well, it came within a few inches of taking down Michigan on Halloween night.

So maybe the gap between the divisions is much narrower than we all thought. Are West Division coaches crowing about their success so far? Hardly.

When asked about the cross-division records on Tuesday, Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald and Iowa's Kirk Ferentz had the same initial reaction. They laughed.

"I'd love to tell you I've thought about it," Fitzgerald said. "Maybe 10 years from now, it will be different. But to me, as a Big Ten purist, it's still a little new. I look at it as one Big Ten. I don't look at it as two divisions. It's great for story lines, but really, there's great competition. Anybody can win a Big Ten game every week."

"Nah, I don't make a lot of it," Ferentz said. "There are a lot of good football teams, I think, on both sides of the line."

Of course, the ultimate measure of pride between the divisions will take place on the first Saturday of December in Indianapolis, when the West and East winners play for the Big Ten title. It didn't go so well for the West in year one of the alignment. But if the ultimate league champion comes from the West this year, we'll really have to rethink those notions about the division of power.