College Football - Big Ten Conference
History - Important facts - Teams - Winners
Big Ten History
The conference was first established in 1895 in the Midwestern region of the United States basically from Iowa through Minnesota into the east stretching to Pennsylvania.
By 1896 the very first members of the conference were seven different universities among which were; University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin followed by Indiana University and the State University of Iowa which became part of it in 1899.
Several years later, in 1912, Ohio State joined the conference as Chicago withdrew in 1946 and Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) was added three years later in 1949.
After an extend period of over 40-years, the conference expanded to 11 teams on June 4th, 1990 as it was decided to integrate Penn State into the group.
There are very old rivalries among the Big Ten members on the football field. Each school defend its own trophy, just to mention some there are: Illinois-Purdue (Purdue Cannon), Iowa-Wisconsin (Heartland Trophy), Michigan State-Penn State (Land Grant Trophy), Illinois-Northwestern (Sweet Sioux Tomahawk).
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