def _get_conference_id(self, conference):
name_tag = conference('<STR_LIT>')<EOL>conference_id = re.sub(r'<STR_LIT>', '<STR_LIT>', str(name_tag))<EOL>conference_id = re.sub(r'<STR_LIT>', '<STR_LIT>', conference_id)<EOL>return conference_id<EOL>
Get the conference abbreviation, such as 'big-12'.

The conference abbreviation is embedded within the Conference Name
tag and requires special parsing to extract. The abbreviation is
returned as a string.

Parameters
----------
conference : PyQuery object
    A PyQuery object representing a single row in the conference table
    which can be used to find the conference abbreviation.

Returns
-------
string
    Returns a string of the conference abbreviation, such as 'big-12'.