Nebraska will seek Big Ten membership

LINCOLN, Neb. — University of Nebraska officials said Friday that they will apply for membership in the Big Ten Conference and expect to be accepted.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman disclosed the plan during a meeting of the university's Board of Regents, proposing that play in the new conference begin in 2011 after one more year in the Big 12. He said he believed Nebraska is more "aligned" with the Big Ten when it comes to academics, culture and athletics.

He also said the move offered stability "that the Big 12 simply cannot offer." The regents approved a resolution supporting the move to the Big Ten.

Nebraska's move comes at the end of a crazy week in college athletics.

On Thursday, fellow Big 12 member Colorado announced it would be moving to the Pac-10. Texas and other schools in the Big 12 South — Perlman told the regents that the Pac-10 had been in touch with many schools in that division — could be the next to leave.

Nebraska's move wouldn't become official until Big Ten presidents give their approval and a spokesman at Big Ten headquarters did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Adding Nebraska would be the Big Ten's first expansion since 1990, when Penn State joined.

"One school leaving a conference does not destroy a conference," Perlman said. "Nebraska did not start this discussion. After the Big Ten announced it planned to consider expansion, we saw reports that Missouri would want to go to the Big Ten, including a statement by their governor, a member of board of curators and chancellor — comments that weren't clearly supportive of the Big 12."

Athletic director Tom Osborne, the longtime football coach, agreed.

"As we read the tea leaves and listened to the conversations, some of the schools that were urging us to stay, we found some of them had talked to not only one other conference or two but even three, and those were the same ones urging us to stay," he said.

To generations of Nebraska fans, going to the Big Ten at one time would have been unthinkable. The school's athletic tradition is built on more than a century of football games against the likes of Missouri and Kansas, dating to the days the team was known as the Bugeaters.

The Huskers, in fact, have been conference partners with Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Kansas State since 1928; with Colorado since 1948 and with Oklahoma State since 1960.

Now the Huskers are on the verge of taking their five national titles in football and three Heisman trophies east, and to start building new traditions, like a border rivalry with the Iowa Hawkeyes and regular trips to Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.

Fatter paychecks also will be coming. Nebraska figures to double its take of conference revenue, from about $10 million in the Big 12 to about $20 million in the Big Ten, thanks largely to bigger television contracts and the in-house Big Ten network.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has said he wanted to add only members that would be considered "home runs." The Huskers' football team struggled in the early and mid 2000s but have returned to national prominence the past two seasons under coach Bo Pelini, who is an Ohio State alumnus.

Regent Tim Clare said in an interview that the football resurgence helped Nebraska's cause in conference realignment.

"We were losing our edge athletically before coach Pelini came back," he said. "His success has resonated throughout the athletic department. The leaders we've got in place, the great coaches we have ... Look at the position we're in now."

As for the Big 12, it never was a comfortable fit for the Huskers.

When the league formed, Nebraska football was at its pinnacle, having won three national titles between 1994-97 and winning 60 of 63 games before Osborne retired as coach.

That success didn't translate to juice when it came to influencing league policies.
Nebraska and the old Big Eight members, all of whom went to the Big 12, believed they were helping out Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor when the old Southwest Conference collapsed.

The perception in Nebraska was that the Big 12's balance of power was held by the South Division, particularly the University of Texas.

Nebraska from day one was against a championship game in football, for fear it could trip up a team bidding for a national title. But even issues ranging from academic admission standards to location of the league office (Dallas) chafed Nebraska.

When the league last week picked Cowboys Stadium to host the next three conference championship football games — after hosting the 2009 and 2010 games — Osborne complained that continual treks south are unfair to fans of the North representative.

And no one in Nebraska has forgotten the controversial outcome of last year's conference title game. It looked like the Huskers had beaten the Longhorns 12-10 when the clock ran out, but one second was put back on, allowing Texas to kick the winning field goal. Pelini yelled outside the locker room that Texas was given the extra second so it could go to the BCS championship game.