re: Where do you see the Big10 headed?

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Besides OSU and Penn State and Mich, How many teams have even been to a BCS game?? ILL???

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Besides Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan, 4 Big Ten teams have been to a BCS game (Wisconsin (twice), Purdue, Illinois (twice), Iowa).

But to address the original question, there has been a recent development that should benefit the Big Ten. A few months ago the SEC passed a new rule limiting recruiting class sizes to 28 per year. The conference has also gone ahead and proposed that it become an NCAA-wide rule.

This is significant because since 2002, the Big Ten has been the only conference with a self-imposed oversigning limit. It may or may not be coincidence that the timing of that rule's passage (2002) and of the beginning of the Big Ten's recent downturn (2006) are about 4 years apart (meaning pre-2002 recruting classes were all but completely absent from the recent struggles).

The Big Ten's rule limits oversigning to 3 per year along with the requirement that a detailed explanation for the oversigning be sent to the conference for approval. As I understand it, this means that the Big Ten's rule is still more restrictive than the SEC's rule since a program usually has fewer than 25 available scholarships. Also, as far as I know, the SEC does not require any explanation for the oversigning. I could be wrong about that, but it is what I have gathered from the reports I have read. Either way, if the SEC version does become an NCAA rule, that should at least help level the playing field.

This is an issue that does not receive a lot of attention, but it has had a big impact on the landscape of college football.