MSU would ultimately
Alvarez says the Big Ten is using a variety of measures to look at team performance since 1993. The precise measure they use doesn't really matter much. If you draw the line at 1993, as opposed to going back 3+ decades, the bottom line is that Iowa and Wisconsin aren't going to look that much different than Michigan, Nebraska, and Penn State. Any "competitive balance" advantages from swapping Penn State for a westside team are then going to look relatively minor compared to the downside of at least two teams losing annual match-ups against their historical/geographic rivals. Adding a 9th conference game, as Jim Delaney discussed at Big Ten Media Days, would help in terms of maintaining rivalries, but would also lead to a built-in scheduling disadvantage for, say, whichever team from the west has to play Ohio State every year.
You do have to take Alvarez's comments with something of a grain of salt, though, given that he has a vested interest in Wisconsin avoiding either of the outcomes that would result from moving Penn State to the west: (1) being stuck with Penn State, Nebraska, and Iowa all in its division or (2) getting moved to the east and having at least one of its natural rivalries (Iowa/Minnesota, plus a potential rivalry with Nebraska) disrupted.
Given that MSU would ultimately benefit from screwing with the natural geographic alignment, I'm OK with just about any plausible outcome here. It'll just be interesting to see whether Delaney has enough confidence in his ability to project ideal championship game match-ups that he's willing to push for an
tanker alignment that clearly inconveniences a couple teams from a competitive/historical/travel perspective.
