Dave Feit: Risky Times for Nebraska and the Big Ten

The conference's northwest conquest leaves the Huskers on safe footing, but watch out for what might happen down the road

© Chris Pietsch/The Register Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK

Do you remember the board game Risk? In the "game of strategic conquest," players competed to take control of the entire board and dominate the opposition. Conference realignment feels like one big game of Risk. Leagues take turns trying to capture territories, TV sets and brand names

On Friday, the Big Ten rolled sixes and marched their armies into the Pacific Northwest, taking Oregon and Washington. The move - combined with last year's additions of UCLA and USC - leaves the Pac-12 conference in shambles.

Maybe this is all for this round. Or maybe the Big Ten looks to gobble up academic (and Olympic sport) giant Stanford. Or maybe they wait to see if Florida State can escape the ACC's ironclad grant of rights. Or maybe the Big Ten finally lands its white whale: Notre Dame.

And so it goes. For many Nebraska fans, Conference Realignment Theater is their favorite reality show / soap opera. We constantly refresh our Twitter feeds, laugh at the memes and wonder when the Big Ten will release the "Flex Protect Plus-Plus" scheduling model for the 2024 season.

As Husker fans, it makes sense to sit back and watch the chaos unfold. We lived it. We survived it. And as members of one of the Big Two mega conferences, we won it.

But what happens when the next phase of realignment starts?

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Money.

That has been the driving force for every realignment decision ever made.

How do schools get more money? In the early days, it was about conquering markets and population centers. Nebraska was an outlier, but their name - especially in 2010 - had enough cachet to drive viewership and subscription models.

The most recent realignment rounds have either been about getting the most "brand names" under one umbrella (Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC; USC and UCLA to the Big Ten) or getting enough above-average teams to stay afloat (the Big XII adding UCF, Cincinnati, Houston and BYU).

As I type, leagues are stripping the Pac-12 for anything of value before leaving the scraps for the Mountain West.

But the goal has always been the same: construct the best all-star lineup of teams you can, so ESPN, FOX and others will pay you billions of dollars for TV rights.

That will never change.

But the way those lineups are constructed may change.

* * *

At some point in the future, a school - and let's be honest, it's going to be Texas - will ask why they (seventh in all-time winning percentage at .701) are splitting money with Vanderbilt (100th place at .485). Why not form a new conference without the bottom feeders and keep more money for themselves?

It's a valid question. People aren't tuning into ESPN to watch Vandy play Mississippi State (95th, .495) or demanding more games between Indiana (123rd, .420) and Northwestern (114th, .447).

A day will come where membership in the highest-earning leagues will require more than saying "we've been here for 100 years." The power brokers in the game will realize that fewer bad schools equals more money. If you don't believe me, just ask Oregon State or Wazzu about their membership in a "Power 5" conference.

The good news is Nebraska (10th in all-time winning percentage at .681, five national championships, etc.) has a very strong résumé.

The Huskers currently do not have the same level of respect they had in 2009, but they would definitely survive the first cuts that would likely eliminate teams with all-time records at .500 or below (Indiana, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, Vandy, Duke, Rutgers, Mississippi State, Kentucky and Illinois).

But as we get closer to a day where bad programs in great conferences are not safe, it is more important than ever to win some dadgum games. Nebraska is over 25 years removed from its last national championship and hasn't sniffed a division title for almost a decade.

Would the Nebraska program of 2019 have been invited to join the Big Ten? What about the program at the end of 2022? The things that make Nebraska valuable to the Big Ten - fan support, TV ratings and a legitimate desire to be a championship contender - won't last forever. At some point, some on-field progress needs to occur.

Thankfully, Nebraska appears headed in the right direction. Matt Rhule's first season may be rocky (I'll be thrilled if they make a bowl game), but the long-term direction of the program is finally headed in the right direction.

Just in time.