The latest news on Big Ten division re-alignment bodes well for the Gophers. According to ESPN.com's Big Ten Blog, the league's athletic directors plan to go with geographic divisions -- "East" and "West" -- for 2014, when Maryland and Rutgers join the conference, and the only lingering debate is whether Purdue or Indiana joins the West.
The divisions have yet to be named, but they would look like this:
"WEST"
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Indiana or Purdue
"EAST"
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Rutgers
Indiana or Purdue
By 2014, there will be eight teams in the Eastern time zone and six in the Central time zone, so one of those eastern teams needs to play in the West division. Previously, there had been talk of moving Michigan State to the "West" in order to help competitive balance.
Based on recent history, playing Purdue or Indiana every year should be a lot easier for the Gophers than Michigan State. And for the conference, this would allow the Michigan/Michigan State rivalry to continue right inside the same division.
Nothing has been made official yet, but the Big Ten Blog also reports that the league will likely move to a nine-game conference schedule starting in 2016. So that would mean six games within each team's division and three crossovers.
