evilxs wrote:I left off Ohio and Indiana because they are so far east from here. I know they're technically the midwest but most folks in the midwest dont consider them the midwest....
That's insane. Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin - basically the Great Lake States - are the core of the Midwest. Both in terms of culture and population. In fact, the Midwest is basically just the Old Northwest Territory. Its there that the populations first boomed and the prototypical "Midwestern" culture developed. Back in the country's formative years anything past St. Louis was just vaguely conceived of as "the West." Our institutions are littered with remnants of that notion. The plains states just got added to the Midwest region as an administrative afterthought. I'd even go so far as to say I consider Western PA far more "Midwestern" than South Dakota.
Also, athletic conferences originally formed through social as well as geographic similarities. The Big 10 is clearly the Midwestern conference, and its no coincidence that its firmly entrenched in these same states, not Kansas and Nebraska.