Big Ten Championship Game Set as Nebraska Wins Leaders Division, Set to Play Wisconsin

Photo by Matthew Hurst [h/t Corn Nation]

The Wisconsin Badgers made their entry into the Big Ten Championship Game a few weeks ago, basically by default. The Penn State Nittany Lions and the Ohio State Buckeyes are both ineligible for postseason play this season and the Badgers were the third best team in the Legends Division, so, they will earn another trip to Indianapolis. 

On the Leaders Division side, however, there still remained a tight race. The No. 19 Michigan Wolverines and No. 14 Nebraska Cornhuskers both had the Big Ten Championship berth on their minds heading into this week. Nebraska played Iowa today in the Heroes Game and, of course, Michigan will play Ohio State tomorrow morning. With a victory, the Huskers could go to their first Big Ten Championship Game and vie for their first berth in the Rose Bowl since 2002.

That is exactly what they did.

While they didn't have the most superb performance on offense, the Cornhuskers defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes 13-7 en route to winning the Legends Division. They supplanted the Wolverines, whom they had a tiebreaker with since they defeated them in their head-to-head meeting a few weeks ago, and are now stamped to play at Lucas Oil Stadium next Friday against the Wisconsin Badgers (7-4; 4-3).

This is certainly a great day to be a Cornhusker fan, and this Nebraska team has done a great job as of late. This is their sixth consecutive victory on the season and that's a feat that they haven't accomplished since the year 2001. They, as noted, will play for the Big Ten Title and the chance to be back in the BCS fray for the first time in a decade. 

Their transition to the new conference is certainly working out, eh?