Just to kind of throw this out there and see what you think Seth...If we go to 16 teams I'm of the mind that they would probably just split it down the middle 8 and 8.

So for fun I'm assuming the schools are:

Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Notre Dame
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Purdue
Indiana
Northwestern
Pittsburgh
Iowa
Missouri
Rutgers
Nebraska
Illinois

If the divisions were split 8 and 8, the dividing process would probably go something like this:

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Division 1:

Michigan
Ohio State
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana
Notre Dame
Illinois
Missouri

Logic?:

Michigan and Michigan State would have to be together.

I would also think that M and OSU would have to be together.

With M and MSU in the same division I would think that because they are both major rivals of ND, that you have to put them in D1 also.

Purdue, ND, and Indiana are all in Indiana, and Purdue has a Rivalry with ND, and Indiana, so I figured all of the Indy teams should go together.

Then I thought, considering Illinois thinks that they have a rivalry with Michigan, that I would throw them, along with their rival Mizzou to round out the division.

Division 2:

Penn State
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Pittsburgh
Nebraska
Iowa
Rutgers
Northwestern

Logic?

Because I knew one division would pretty much have to contain M, OSU, MSU, and ND, there was no way PSU was going into that same division.

This meant Pitt would also be in this division, and I figured that Rutgers, another team out East, would fit in as well.

Wisky and Minny can't be split up.

Iowa was too good to put in the other group, and they really don't have too many major rivalries in the Big Ten (not on the level of M-OSU, M-MSU, Wisky-Minny, PU-IU, M-ND, Ill-Mizz), so they go in this grouping.

Nebraska I can see becoming a rival for Iowa, and I really couldn't justify breaking up the Indiana trio to fit them in with Mizzou (I don't think they're rivals anyway?) in with the other group.

Northwestern is in this group for the same reason as Nebraska. No real rivals (Illinois, but meh) and couldn't justify breaking up the rivalries in the first group to fit them in.

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I'm not sure how balanced these divisions are.

For basketball D1 looks beastly. MSU, OSU, Purdue are all good. ND and Mizzou are usually a tournament teams, and then you have M, Indiana, and Illinois, who have all been basketball powers in the past and could get their acts together in any given year.

For football, they look a little more balanced, with an edge to D1, due to more depth and the fact that M and ND have higher ceilings than the top teams in D2.

I think that you could swap out Illinois-Mizzou for some combo of Rutgers-Nebraska-Northwestern, to even out the divisions if they were too unbalanced, but this seems ok.

Regardless, I'm of the mindset that we will in all likelihood end up with OSU, ND, and MSU, which would be an extremely difficult division for basketball, and football.

So I'm thinking that regardless of what happens Michigan will probably get screwed, but I guess that's what happens when you have major rivarlies with extremely strong programs.

I think the teams you laid out are a definite possibility, perhaps the most likely combination of teams should Notre Dame consent to leave the Big East, although Syracuse may be substituted for Pitt.

However, the divisions you laid out do present problems. First of all, I would switch Missouri for Northwestern. The reason for this is that Illinois and Northwestern have a running rivalry, as do Nebraska and Missouri. While Illinois-Missouri could develop into a rivalry, it makes no sense to break up two current rivalries in order to form one potential rivalry.

That said, I would not even use eight team divisions, because eight team divisions would make games between teams in opposite divisions too uncommon. Instead, I would use the following rotating four-team pods:

Pod A: Michigan, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Purdue

Pod B: Ohio State, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern

Pod C: Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota

Pod D: Penn State, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Rutgers

There would be a rotation so that Pods A and D would be stationary and Pods B and D would rotate thusly to form divisions:

Year 1-Division 1 consists of Pods A and B; Division 2 consists of Pods C and D

Year 2-Division 1 consists of Pods A and C, Division 2 consists of Pods B and D

Year 3-Division 1 consists of Pods A and B; Division 2 consists of Pods C and D

Year 4-Division 1 consists of Pods A and C, Division 2 consists of Pods B and D

And so on and so forth.

Now, each team in Pods A and D would have permanent rivals with one team in Pod B and one team in Pod C. This would mean that in the years that Pod A is not in a division with Pod B, they would still have a permanent rival with a team in Pod B, meaning that Michigan would still play Ohio State every year. Finally, each team in Pod A would rotate on a three year schedule (or six year schedule, but it doesn't really matter) for playing a game against teams in Pod D. The same would hold for teams in Pods B and C playing each other.

Now, here is what II think the teams you laid out are a definite possibility, perhaps the most likely combination of teams should Notre Dame consent to leave the Big East, although Syracuse may be substituted for Pitt.

However, the divisions you laid out do present problems. First of all, I would switch Missouri for Northwestern. The reason for this is that Illinois and Northwestern have a running rivalry, as do Nebraska and Missouri. While Illinois-Missouri could develop into a rivalry, it makes no sense to break up two current rivalries in order to form one potential rivalry.

That said, I would not even use eight team divisions, because eight team divisions would make games between teams in opposite divisions too uncommon. Instead, I would use the following rotating four team pods:

Pod A: Michigan, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Purdue

Pod B: Ohio State, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana

Pod C: Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota

Pod D: Penn State, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Rutgers

There would be a rotation so that Pods A and D would be stationary and Pods B and D would rotate thusly to form divisions:

Year 1-Division 1 consists of Pods A and B; Division 2 consists of Pods C and D

Year 2-Division 1 consists of Pods A and C, Division 2 consists of Pods B and D

Year 3-Division 1 consists of Pods A and B; Division 2 consists of Pods C and D

Year 4-Division 1 consists of Pods A and C, Division 2 consists of Pods B and D

And so on and so forth

Now, each team in Pods A and D would have permanent rivals with one team in Pod B and one team in Pod C. This would mean that in the years that Pod A is not in a division with Pod B, they would still have a permanent rival with a team in Pod B, meaning that Michigan would still play Ohio State every year. Finally, each team in Pod A would rotate on a four-year schedule for playing a game against teams in Pod D. The same would hold for teams in Pods B and C playing each other.

Now, here is what I would use for the permanent rivalries:

A-B Rivalries

Michigan-Ohio State

Notre Dame-Illinois

Michigan State-Northwestern

Purdue-Indiana

A-C Rivalries

Michigan-Minnesota

Notre Dame-Nebraska

Michigan State-Wisconsin

Purdue-Iowa

B-D Rivalries

Ohio State-Penn State

Illinois-Missouri

Indiana-Pitt

Northwestern-Rutgers

C-D

Nebraska-Penn State

Wisconsin-Pittsburgh

Iowa-Missouri

Minnesota-Rutgers

The result would be the following four-year conference schedule for Michigan (not in date order):

Year 1: Notre Dame (A), Michigan State (A), Purdue (A), Ohio State (B), Illinois (B), Northwestern (B), Indiana (B), Minnesota (permanent C rival), Penn State (D)

Year 2: Notre Dame (A), Michigan State (A), Purdue (A), Ohio State (permanent B rival), Nebraska (C), Wisconsin (C), Iowa (C), Minnesota (C), Pittsburgh (D)

Year 3: Notre Dame (A), Michigan State (A), Purdue (A), Ohio State (B), Illinois (B), Northwestern (B), Indiana (B), Minnesota (permanent C rival), Missouri (D)

Year 4: Notre Dame (A), Michigan State (A), Purdue (A), Ohio State (permanent B rival), Nebraska (C), Wisconsin (C), Iowa (C), Minnesota (C), Rutgers (D)

The only deficiency here for Michigan is that we would play Penn State 25% of the time, which is unfortunate but not terrible. Similar problems exist for teams like Iowa and Wisconsin, who would only play OSU 25% and so on and so forth. However, these problems would also exist in an eight-team division system as you described, only more teams would be played less often.