I could definitely live with those teams- a number of solid programs and several natural geographic rivals for Iowa.
For the people talking about 2 X 8 team divisions, the problem with that is you would be locked into playing the other seven in your division every year, then if you played 9 conference games a year, 2 from the other division-- that means if you're Iowa that Michigan is only on your schedule 2 times every 8 years and only comes to your stadium once. Lots of people would find that not ideal.
The 4 X 4 alignment makes it a little more flexible. I would group them like this:
East
PSU, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse
Central
Mich, MSU, OSU, Indiana
North
Minnie, Wisky, Iowa, NW
West (looks like the weakest division on paper, but always paired w/ one of the other 3 as you'll see below)
Nebbie, Mizzou, Illini, Purdue
Then give each team a permanent rival in each of the other 3 divisions that they will play every year. Here's what I came up with:
PSU-- tOSU, Iowa, Nebraska (definitely on of the hardest if not THE hardest currently
Pitt-- Michigan, Wisconsin, Mizzou
Rutgers--MSU, Minnesota, Illini
Syracuse-- Indiana, NW, Purdue (pretty bland, but will still have good schedules)
Michigan-- Pitt, MN, Neb (struggled w/ giving them Minnie, they have a rivalry game)
MSU--Rutgers, Iowa, Missouri (Iowa rivalry has been fairly even recently)
tOSU-- PSU, Wisky, Illini (fairly tough, all these teams have given them some trouble)
Indiana-- Syracuse, NW, Purdue
Iowa-- PSU, MSU, Nebraska (get the future border war + PSU)
Wisky-- Pitt, tOSU, Missouri
NW-- Syracuse, Indiana, Illinois
MN-- Rutgers, Michigan, Purdue (gave them Michigan for little brown jug)
Neb-- PSU, MI, Iowa (obvious game vs Iowa, have a legitmate rivalry w/ PSU)
Missouri-- Pitt, MSU, Wisky
Illini--Rutgers, tOSU, NW
Purdue-- Syracuse, Indiana, MN
So as another poster put it you play all 3 in your division + another division + your remaining 2 protected rivals for a total of 9 conference games. You would rotate thru all the teams in the conference every 6 years.
So Iowa's rotation could look like this:
year 1 & 2 vs the East
PSU/Pitt/Rutgers/Syracuse/MSU/Wisky/NW/Minnie/Nebbie
The East/North winner would play the Central/West winner in conf. title game
year 3 and 4 vs the Central
PSU/Mich/MSU/tOSU/Indiana/Wisky/NW/Minnie/Nebbie
The North/Central Winner would play the East/West winner
year 5 and 6 vs the West
PSU/MSU/Wisky/NW/Minnie/Nebbie/Mizzou/Illini/Purdue
the North/West winner vs the East/Central winner for the title
So looking at my proposed format, the only rivalry that I know of that would get broken up is PSU vs MSU for the land grant trophy (and is that REALLY considered a big rivalry?)[ok just looked it up, I found 17 named rivalry/ trophy games between teams in this 16 team conference; my alignment scheme would preserve all but 2 on an every year basis-- the 2 are the Land Grant Trophy above and the '
Governor's Victory Bell game between PSU and MN, both of these 'rivalries' have only been around since 1993.