Submit your Big Ten Division Names here

Plains and Lakes would be good if it made sense.

Unfortunately, that's all I've got. In the months and months of hearing these, I've never heard one that was both good and made sense. It's easy to see how the conference over-thought it all the way to "Legends" and "Leaders." I'm really not sure what a good solution is, either.

The Lakes makes sense, as every Big Ten state except Iowa and Nebraska, borders a Great Lake, and fall into the Great Lakes Region. Plains is a bit of a stretch, since the Great Plains Region technically don't include Iowa, but prairies/plains are a dominant feature of the Midwest.

File:Great Lakes Region.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
File:Map of the Great Plains.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Grain Belt v Rust Belt (or Grain and Iron/Steel) wouldn't be bad either. Agriculture and manufacturing are still the major industries, and what we're best known for anyway. Although, admittedly, it would be difficult to use, as we aren't really split in this fashion, and it would be hard to justify why the Michigan schools are in the Grain Belt, or why half of the Grain Belt is in the Rust Belt.
File:CornBelt.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
File:Rust belttFULL.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
mninms vs pipiow

Do you really want a division to be pronounced as "pee-pee ow"? ;)

But I do see what you did there. I did actually, try to come up with something using the names of the schools in each division, but couldn't come up with anything meaningful.

MIN vs POWI?
 
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The thing about "lakes and plains" that I don't like is that it ends in "S" just like leaders and legends. that just does not sound right to me at all.

I would be all for naming the divisions after last names I used to love the old NHL divisions.
 
It's a delicate issue when you take into account that geographic names are almost impossible to apply to every school correctly, hence the names "Legends," and "Leaders," were created so as to represent every school without neglecting academic standards and historical importance. By that same token, Agriculture and Industry would be names that would be misrepresenting teams like Northwestern and Wisconsin.

The point attempting to be made is that these names, Legends and Leaders aren't perfect, however, given the divisions what they are, descriptive names may be the only direction to go while adequately showcasing each school.

The following are a couple suggestions found to meet these criteria;

- Hammer and Steel
- Tradition and Prestige
 
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Rotell-Haas (I think that is the avacado company)
Cowboys-Indians
Dogs-Hydrants
Steers-Queers
Dirty Doctors-Naughty Nurses
Pool Cleaners-Lonely Housewives
Heroes-Villians
Tastes Great-Less Filling
Sucks-Blows
Kings-Queens
Winners-Whiners
Us-Them
Peanut Butter-Jelly
Dudes-***** (oops - apparently D ikes is a bad word ;))
 
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Big-10 missed an opportunity to have fun with this in the first place...i.e. have a contest....have a poll...if many same names (which is likely)....have a random drawing for tickets to next year's champ game.

Instead, we get pontification, which turned out, sorta sucked.
 
Cripes, just go East and West. How difficult is that?

Then, without really thinking too hard you could figure out who was in what division...because IT WOULD MAKE SENSE.
 
How about Slackers and Scholars? It would require a little rejiggering of the conferences, but I would line it up like this to reflect the academically strong schools in the B10 and the others:

Scholars:
Northwestern
Michigan
Wisconsin
PSU
Purdue
Illinois

Slackers:
Michigan State
Ohio State
Iowa
Indiana
Nebraska
Minnesota

I think it gives good balance for FB and men's BB as well as roughly appropriately grouping the schools on academic terms.
 
And while I'm on it....they really really really should have a contest for the new logo....good gracious the proposed one bites.
 
Stagg/Paterno

If it's good enough for the championship trophy, it should be good enough for the divisions.

Plus it has an old-school NHL vibe.

I realize Paterno is still coaching and Penn State hasn't been in the Big Ten forever. Well, U of Chicago isn't in the Big Ten anymore, but no one is complaining about Stagg. Between the two guys, you're talking about coaching football from 1890-2010 with only a four-year gap(Stagg retired in 1946, Paterno started in 1950). You can write a pretty thorough history of college football through just those two guys. OK, so they weren't in the Big Ten for their entire careers-- but JoePa's already been in the Big Ten for as long as Bo Schembechler coached at Michigan. And JoePa's win record will never be broken. I'd say you can safely name a division after him without hurting too many feelings.

When you try to come up with names that don't break any "rules," you end up with Legends and Leaders.
 
I say the Big Ten makes some money on the naming of the divisions. Sell the names to sponsors....Visa Division and Master Card Division. The money then is divided up to the schools. More money for our members which makes the Big Ten schools even better and richer!
 
East / West.

And why not. I mean, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have 12 teams in a league called Big Ten either. So let's just be simple and say East - West.
 

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