Long and Suite Preview: The Big Ten

Sophomore defensive end Joey Bosa may be the most complete member of Ohio State's potentially dominant front-7.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) with a cameo from Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

The Big Ten may have actually played the biggest football game in its history in the last decade, though it seems like an eternity ago now.

But since then-No. 1 Ohio State topped then-No. 2 Michigan 42-39 in 2006's "Game of the Century" the conference has gone just 5-10 in BCS Bowl games, including two losses to SEC teams in the title game.

While The Big Ten fancies itself a football power, the results simply haven't been there. In fact, it would be fairer to compare The Big Ten to the Mountain West and now-defunct WAC, who went a combined 4-1 in BCS bowl games over the same span, than to the SEC, who won more national championships (7) than The Big Ten did BCS bowl games (5).

What the conference has done well, however, is brand itself and make money hand over fist. With The Big Ten Network thriving and delivering $44.5 million a year to senior conference members (schools in The Big Ten for six years or more. Sorry Rutgers and Maryland, wait your turn!) beginning in 2017, every football team will have the resources to contend.

But will they?

Long and Suite Preview: The Big Ten/Notre Dame

Few quarterbacks will have more on their plate in 2013 than Nebraska's Taylor Martinez.

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

The Big Ten is done expanding for now, but everyone knows the conference has always coveted Notre Dame.

And why not. The Irish are a bona-fide national brand situated squarely in the conference's geographic footprint, and they already have rivalries with Big Ten schools Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue, along with several historic encounters with Penn State and Ohio State under their belt.

The Irish almost make too much sense in the Big Ten.