The Legends and Leaders Divisions.
Those are the names for the Big Ten Conference's divisions, announced Monday by commissioner Jim Delany.
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin will make up the Leaders Division. Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern will make up the Legends Division.
The division names were needed when the Big Ten added Nebraska as its 12th member for the 2011-12 season. The inaugural Big Ten football championship will be held Dec. 3, 2011, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Delany said the names were chosen by looking "to our history and look to our future," Delany said. "There was no way we could put geographic names on these."
The league also announced the winner of the Big Ten football championship will receive the Stagg-Paterno Championship Trophy, honoring Amos Alonzo Stagg and Joe Paterno. The championship game MVP receives the Grange-Griffin trophy, in honor of Red Grange and Archie Griffin.
December 13 2010 Last updated at 12:45 PM ET
Big Ten Divisions: Legends, Leaders
By Brett McMurphy
Senior NCAA Writer | Follow on Twitter: @BrettmcmurphY
Read More: Big 10 Big+Ten+Division+names, Big+Ten+Divisions, Big+Ten+Divisions+named, Jim+Delany, new+big+ten+logo
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Comments (Page 1 of 5)
So now the Big 10 is the Big 12 and the Big 12 is now the Big Ten???
That's $$$$$$$$ for you!
This is too funny. The Big Ten (12) can't count and you have a president at Ohio State that can't help but antagonize and alienate presidents from other schools and now you have the "say what" naming of your conference divisions. Hey Big Ten(12) coaches, good luck in trying to recruit players to the "Leaders" or the "Legends" sub-conferences. As a Pac-10, soon to be Pac-12 (see how easy that was) fan I am just in amazement at the witlessness of the B1G-10 decision makers.
Get real timjofred. The Big Ten will have no problem landing top notch recruits. Personally I have no problem with the conference keeping the Big Ten name, as the name is synonymous with the history of college sports. If you have some sort of anal retentive hang-up about a conference's name matching up with the number of teams it contains, that's your problem, not mine.
Look at it this way: Northwestern and Minnesota barely qualify as big time collegiate sports programs, so it really is still the Big Ten lol!
Congrats, timjofred, for an "argument" based on total bias and NO sense. Making fun of the Big Ten for not making the same "see how easy that was" change in name as Pac-10 to Pac-12 is beyond stupid--the Big 12 name was taken already...d'oh! And to say the names of the divisions would have ANY sway over recruiting is more than a little lame. Yeah, Legends and Leaders are hokey names, but the rest of your points are nothing but hot air.
Who cares...
What a stupid name for divisions in college football. Legends maybe, but leaders? J delaney is the worst commish in any conference, pro or college. You see Ohio St is leading the leaders division? how dumb
I would also like to wish congrats to K. Ferentz of Iowa, for winning the Big ten coach of the year award for the 10h year in a row. (as voted on by J Delaney)
Nah, Dan Beebe of the Big Texas Conference is the worst. He kisses Texas' butt on a regular basis.
Those are stupid names. Should be called : Teams beaten by the SEC and Teams who are going to be beaten by the SEC.
Paul... you obviously don't know what you're talking about because in bowl games, Penn State normally beats up on SEC teams
Rusbrok, I do remember Penn st against Alabama. Ohio St's 0-9 record in bowl games against SEC teams doesn't count?? And they are in the "leaders division"
Legends and leaders? Youve had 6 months to come up with names and this is the best you can do? Come on Big Ten+2, thats pitiful.
It should be Leaders and Losers with Nebraska, the back-end of the Big 12 in the Losers division.
I agree! These are worse than the temporary names given a few months ago, the X's and O's divisions. If the Big 10+2 didn't want to use geography per se, they could have used names like the old NFL; Century, Capitol, Coastal. Or taken a page otu of the old NHL with the Adams, Norris, etc divisions, and named them after Bo, Woody, Joe Pa, etc. Bad move Big 10+2
The names should help differentiate the divisions, it doesn't work for me! Hope they drop it for something like East West, North South, East North West, whatever, not Legends and Leaders, that just sounds to dumb and we are going to have to hear it repeated time and time again all during the year, have you all thought of that yet?
Bingo
WTF ???????
I like the championship and MVP trophy names but those division names must be changed to something that makes sense..... Name them colors or after two of the Beatles -- anything is better than this BS they just came up with....
Bo and Woody must be rolling over in their graves.
Cool dude, your completely right, it shuld have been named for Bo and Woody...Joe Paterno is a nuby in the so called Big 10...I've been a fan of Michigan and Ohio State for over 70 years...I can't understand the boneheaded Commish running to Big 10 organization... The names of the two divisions (Leaders & Legends ( sounds like some sort of Nintendo game) is just plain STUPID...If divided properly, it could easly have been named East and West Divisions...(see how simple that is and everyone wouldn't be confused by dumbkoffs.....
I like it, but I must say, it'll be OSU - NEB for the title game every yr. I love that Nebraska is in the B-10. Having the RED SEA as part of the B-10 will definitely help.