Upon adding Nebraska as a twelfth team, the athletic conference has redesigned its logo and split the conference into two divisions: Leaders and Legends. The announcement about the changes to the conference's identity was made Monday morning on the Big Ten Network.
Wisconsin will compete in the Leaders division with Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State and Purdue.
The Big Ten also revealed several new trophies named after noteworthy conference alums, including the Ameche-Dayne Trophy, named after Wisconsin's two Heisman Trophy winners, Alan Ameche and Ron Dayne. The trophy will be presented to the conference's running back of the year. The Richter-Howard trophy, named after UW legend Pat Richter and Michigan alum Desmond Howard will go to the conference's top receiver each year. And the Bakken-Anderson Trophy, named after Badger punter and placekicker Jim Bakken and Michigan State alum Morten Anderson, will go to the league's top kicker.
All three versons of the logo appear here. While unspectacular, might the change hint at a future expansion to 16 teams? For purposes of the conferences name, the logo's capital 'G' looks sort of like a zero, but it could just as easily be adapted to a 6 were the conference to add Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Missouri, as previously rumored.
