It goes deeper than athletic departments and like I said is stronger among Big Ten alumni than non alumni sports fans only. The holier than thou attitude is for your new conference, which you are now in. You should share it and be proud of it. Touting the greatness of the Big Ten culture should not be offensive to you. I'm trying to explain it. There is still hatred on the field, so if your only experience with the Big Ten is 8 Saturdays per year, you might not notice.
You talk a lot but you don't say anything, and you talk in circles. You start off wringing your hands that we don't care about one team, then morph into some nonsensical point about the alumnae of various Big Ten schools feeling camaraderie for each other. Which do you want to talk about?
No circles at all. My point is, if a Big Ten school left the conference after 100 years, the Big Ten reaction would be different than the attitude I've read here, which quite frankly surprised me. "Meh" would not be it. It would be a reaction of regret that things didn't work out, even if it's for the best. I've tried to explain why that is, due to the Big Ten's history and culture. I hope in time Nebraska comes to share that. It has helped the Big Ten survive as long as it has.
So basically your point is based on hypotheticals about a conference you have apparently zero understanding of the dynamics of and a move you've never been around to experience as a fan of a team leaving a conference.
The old big 8 died 15 years ago, so you can give up the 100 years of history arguments right now. That history was thrown out the window when Texas was added and started dictating how the league would be run before they even joined... We've had 15 years to mourn the loss of OU/Nebraska rivalry and I think plenty of husker fans are sympathetic to the bad situation the old big 8 teams are in now, particularly the northern teams. We just left it, we are thankful to be out of there. You're trying to romanticize the history between the programs as if the big 8/12 was the equivalent of the Big Ten. It wasn't and it never will be.
ISU is a perennial doormat, once in awhile they have a good team and/or beat someone surprising, or caught a fluke game like 8 turnovers, but by and large it was a game that for 50 years was something when you saw the schedule you just chalked up as a W and looked at next weeks opponent.
Good post. Of course I have no experience with it, that's why I posted the question in the first place. I don't expect you to have any experience with the Big Ten either. If you're saying the old Big 8 was never quite as good as I imagine, I understand more. I figured since the Big 8 had such a long history, it was pretty close to the Big Ten. If the old Big 8 members weren't all as close I think, it makes a lot more sense now.
Nebraska fans are going to miss playing Oklahoma because there's a rich history there. Year after year after year, those two teams battled in epic games for the conference championship, for a bid to the Orange Bowl where they would often play for the national championship. It was Chuck Fairbanks vs. Bob Devaney, Osborne vs. Switzer, the Triplets and Marcus Dupree, Johnny Rodgers and Jack Mildren, Billy Sims and Tom Ruud. There were so many classic games and classic moments, and throughout the whole thing there was always respect. Husker fans didn't have to worry about beer getting thrown at them when they went to Norman, like they did going to Boulder or Ames or Columbia. Expecting Nebraska to miss Iowa State as much as we miss Oklahoma is like expecting Michigan to miss Indiana as much as they would miss Ohio State. If you can't see that, then you don't understand what that Oklahoma game meant to Nebraska fans - it's possible that if that rivalry hadn't been broken, Nebraska would not have left for the Big 10. It sure would have made it a lot harder.
Anyways, the old Big 8 is completely different from the Big 10. I don't think Nebraska would have left the old Big 8. We left the Big 12. Just because the Big 12 included the schools from the Big 8 doesn't mean anything. They were completely different conferences.