Indiana Football: How radical idea would affect the Hoosiers
Realistically there would be only two ways they would split up the divisions. One would be by geography and the other by competitive balance.
If they went by geography lets go by East and West.
West
Michigan
Michigan State
Purdue
Indiana
Miami (OH)
Ball State
East
Ohio State
Ohio
Cincinnati
Kent State
Toledo
Akron
This setup would basically be the Indiana/Michigan schools in one division with the Ohio schools in the other. Miami (OH) would be the only Ohio school in the West.
As a whole, this would not be a great split of the schools. The only school that would be completely happy with this would be Ohio State. They would only have current mid-major programs in their division. Cincinnati is getting better, but the Buckeyes beat them last year 42-0 in a year where the Bearcats were supposed to be competitive.
The West, while easier than the current Big Ten East would still be easily the tougher of the two divisions. It would include four current Big Ten schools along with Ball State and Miami (OH).
Ask any Hoosier fan and they would absolutely take this division over what they are currently in, but would still look at the overall conference and think they got screwed again. When the current Big Ten divisions were assigned it came down to Purdue and Indiana going into the East and the Hoosiers were the unlucky winners of that situation.
Purdue would be in the same boat with them this year, but again the Hoosiers would have to think who did they make mad to be in this division.