ESPN Radio Reports on Big Ten Expansion

[dencyguy]

Big Ten makes initial offer to Big 12 pair

 

Money quote:

 

>>The Big Ten Conference has extended initial offers to join the league to four universities including Missouri and Nebraska from the Big 12, according to multiple sources close to the negotiations.

 

While nothing can be approved until the Big Ten presidents and chancellors meet the first week of June in Chicago, the league has informed the two Big 12 schools, Notre Dame and Rutgers that it would like to have them join. It is not yet clear whether the Big Ten will expand to 14 or 16 teams but sources indicated Missouri and Nebraska are invited in either scenario. Notre Dame has repeatedly declined the opportunity to join the Big Ten. If Notre Dame remains independent, Rutgers would be the 14th team. The Big Ten would then decide whether to stop at 14 or extend offers to two other schools. If Notre Dame joins, sources say an offer will be extended to one other school making it a 16-team league.<<

 

Notre Dame makes sense, both in terms of geography and visibility. Missouri would also be a pretty good fit. Nebraska seems like a big stretch, and Rutgers, as is the case for most of its students, seems like little more than a safety school. The Big East has schools that make more sense: Cincinnati (although OSU would probably kill that one in the board room), Louisville, Syracuse, Pitt and West Virginia (especially if WVU and Pitt came as a package) would all be better picks.

 

If the report is accurate, it could start some interesting dominos falling...if the Big Ten/Fourteen is able to poach Missouri and/or Nebraska, does the Big 12 go after TCU? If they lose both, do they try to get Arkansas back? Even if they don't, does the SEC look to expand, and do they do so by going after programs like Louisville and South Florida from the Big East? Whither the Pac 10?

 

Dennis

[CLEVELandMILIDH]

If they went to 14-16 teams I think they would have to split it up like the SEC then have a conference championship game

[dencyguy]

I believe that conferences have to have a championship game if they have 12 or more teams, which is why I'm surprised it's taken so long for the Big Ten to take on another team--even if having their last games played two weeks before the other conferences' championship games made it easy to forget about the Big Ten champ, it also takes away one last shot to move up the BCS ladder.

 

I'm okay with a 12 team conference, but 16 is terrible. Here's why. Assuming a team plays four non-con games, a team in a 12-team conference will play almost 75% of the rest of the conference (about 73%, or 8 out of 11 teams). You get to have consistent opponents (for instance, in the SEC the teams in the east division always play each other--five games), traditional rivalries (Tennessee always plays Alabama), and a rotation for the other two games. Not a perfect system, but definitely acceptable.

 

What happens with a 16-team conference? Let's assume that a team plays four non-con games. That leaves eight games, to be played against 15 opponents. Which means that each team in the conference plays, at most, around 53% of the other teams in the conference. Move to three non-con games (which obviously cuts down on a team's chances to warm up against a lower-tier opponent, bolster their record for a BCS run, or both), and things improve only a little--teams would play 60% of the rest of the conference.

 

That said, competitive balance between teams in the conference don't matter nearly as much to commissioners as the balance of BCS spots and network money between conferences. In the end, I don't think that the people in charge of the power conferences will care too much if they have four or five Vanderbilts and Baylors at the bottom of the conference every year (hey, somebody's got to keep those conference GPAs above the Mendoza line) so long as they get two or three teams into the BCS.

 

Dennis

[ClevelandFanForLife]

as a notre dame fan, i would love to see the irish in the big ten. it would give them a definite conference schedule so that everyone would stop the "notre dame never plays anybody" argument. it would also give them some identity within conferences. they already play 3 or 4 big ten teams a year, it wouldn't be difficult to see them play 6.

 

however, i don't see this happening. nd brass won't want to lose sole ownership to any bowl game money. i think that their contract with nbc is the main reason they won't join though. both parties get super rich off of it.

 

if i was a fan of a big ten school, i would be psyched at the possibility of rutgers joining. they can't compete with the big ten teams (they can barely compete with the big east on a consistent basis). rutgers would give the big ten more expansion to the east coast, but in my opinion, it makes the conference weaker.

[CLEVELandMILIDH]

I have a season on NCAA Football 2010 with Youngstown State. I accepted a invitation to play in the Big 10 3 seasons ago and won the Championship this past year simulating every game. Just saying lol

[FearTheRoo]

I just hope the Big Ten takes some teams from the Big East. Maybe take Rutgers and West Virginia? That means the Big East will need to add some, so put Central Florida, East Carolina, Memphis, Temple, Houston, UTEP, and of course my Akron Zips in that conference and I'll be a happy guy haha I don't have any interest in Big Ten sports I just want my team to move up already we deserve it!