A 10 team league works just fine, so long as all member schools want to be part of it.
The problem with the Big 12 having 10 teams isn't that 10 is inherently weak, the problem is the high level of mistrust within the league. A 10 team league isn't weak if it's unified. That's just a media perception thing.
I don't disagree with this if you think there's no reason a 10 team league has to have a 9 game schedule.
The Big Ten was stable at 10 and 11 with an 8 game schedule. As you pointed out it was 10/11 teams that clearly never wanted to leave each other. It was also the same size or larger than most conferences for that period.
The only place having the hardest schedule in the nation every year benefits ISU is in our computer rankings. The few seasons the Pac Ten did it they dominated computer rankings, their teams didn't necessarily thrive on it in terms of cracking human polls though.
9 Big 12 games with no byes including OU and Texas every year + Iowa means ISU on average will have the toughest schedule in the nation over a long enough time frame.
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