Oops, I meant to include this link in my last post.
http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/inter...25/BigTen.html
Penn State was a great team for several years in the Big Ten when they first joined. If it was a matter of them not being good enough for the conference, they would've stunk from the get-go. I think this has more to do with the decline of the coaching and recruiting faculties of Joe Paterno, rather than their conference affiliation.