In the matter of a few days the college sports world went from having five power conferences to four. In the same stretch the Big 12 rose from the ashes, the Big Ten became the bully in the room, and there are those suggesting that the SEC is now on the backfoot. And even with the seismic shifts, “Conference realignment,” a term that covers a wide range of sins, doesn’t seem to be over. In all this chaos a core question still feels unanswered: How does the Big Ten actually make this work?