Barry Alvarez speaks, and what he seems to say is Iowa and Wisconsin are headed for different divisions

One person in the Big Ten who has been unafraid to speak his mind on expansion and other topics is Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez.

Hey, you win three Rose Bowls and turn a dormant football program into a monster, you sit at the front table at all Big Ten dinners.

Alvarez had no problems tipping some of the conference's hand when it comes to how the divisional alignment for football will come about when it comes about, which will be very soon.

This Madison.com story says plenty. Rather, Alvarez says plenty. Excerpts:

Alvarez implied that it shouldn't be hard to figure out how the 12 schools will be arranged in the two divisions. He said there are four distinct tiers of teams, led by the four that have won national championships in the past 25 years: Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska and Penn State.

The next level has UW and Iowa “within a hair” of one another, according to Alvarez. ...

Alvarez: “If you go with competitive equality, you divide it up and basically you seed it. Then the next thing is saving rivalries. You can't get all of them, but you can get close.”

From the story's writer, Andy Baggot: It seems certain that UW and Minnesota will be in the same division, meaning they'll be able to continue playing for Paul Bunyan's Axe as part of the most-played rivalry among Football Bowl Subdivision schools (119 games dating back to 1890).

Even though the Badgers and Iowa will be in different divisions doesn't necessarily mean their trophy game - the Heartland Trophy goes annually to the winner of a series currently led by the Hawkeyes, 42-41-2 - will be disrupted.

“We're all going to protect one rivalry,” Alvarez told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “We've decided that and we're going right back to what we've talked about, competitive equality.”

So this deal could be a wilder scramble than most (like me) would ever have guessed.

Jon Miller of Hawkeyenation.com, KNXO-AM and the Big Ten Network has fears Iowa will wind up in an Eastern division with Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Indiana and either Illinois or Northwestern. Go toward the bottom of his essay here to see how he has drawn this conclusion.

That would sit about as well in Iowa as corn bores. Sure, Iowa could keep Wisconsin as its "rivalry" game, but that would mean the Hawkeyes wouldn't play Nebraska and Minnesota on an annual basis.

Which would be (take your pick) crazy/strange/disgusting/curious.

But more than one school and its fan base won't like what the league decides. And at least some of it will be in an effort to place Ohio State and Michigan in opposite divisions.