AMID GROWING speculation that tradition-resistant Big Ten Conference commissioner Jim Delany is prepared to blow up the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry as presently constituted, the fate of the Land Grant Trophy game must seem like small potatoes.
With the addition of Nebraska as the Big Ten's 12th member beginning with the 2011 season, the hottest topic of discussion involving league institutions has been how the new six-team divisions will be determined, and how those lineups will affect longstanding rivalries, the most storied of which is the annual, regular-season-ending showdown between the Buckeyes and the Wolverines.
If the rumors are to be believed - and there is ample reason to believe they are - Ohio State and Michigan will be placed in separate divisions when Delany announces the alignment plan in mid-September, which would effectively bring an end to their mid- to late-November blood feud. The rivalry still would be "protected," meaning the schools would continue to play every year, but the strong likelihood is that the game would be scheduled sometime in October because television executives would, (a) want to keep open the possibility of the teams squaring off in the Big Ten championship game, the first of which takes place at the end of the 2011 regular season in Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium, and (b) don't want them to vie in back-to-back weeks.