Report: Big Ten Makes Expansion Offers To Four Colleges
If this report from a Kansas City sports radio station is to believed, the Big Ten Conference is thinking big when it comes to expansion:
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.
All four are interesting choices, for different reasons.
Notre Dame, of course, is a prize that the Big Ten has been pursuing for years, but it’s always been the one that got away. Given their lucrative television contract and national fan base, remaining independent has always seemed to be to Notre Dame’s advantage. Times are changing, though, and the Fighting Irish aren’t what they used to be. Putting them at the center of a conference where they would be instantly competitive might just be what’s needed to reinvigorate a program still hurting from the Charlie Weis years.
Rutgers seems like a odd choice at first because of it’s geographic distance from the rest of the Conference, but there are two reasons why it makes sense. Under Greg Schiano, the Rutgers football program (and make no mistake, this expansion is mostly geared toward football) has become credible in a way that it never was before. When I attended there in the late 80s and the Scarlet Knights played a rare game against Michigan State, it was an occasion for laughter in Lansing, Michigan. Not anymore. Second, bringing in Rutgers gives the Big Ten access to two of the biggest media markets in the country, which would be a big deal for both football and basketball.
As for Missouri and Nebraska, it’s interesting that the Big Ten would be so brazen about poaching from the Big 12, but both schools would be excellent additions on the football side to a conference that has come to be dominated in recent years by Ohio State and Penn State. Bringing the Tigers and Cornhuskers into the conference, along with Rutgers and Notre Dame, would instantly make football season much more competitive.
All in all, this seems like a smart move for the Big Ten.
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To properly expand, the Big 10 needs to add 5 more schools. I don’t see Notre Dame joining because of their NBC television contract. The other possibilities would be- Pitt, West Virginia, and Iowa State. Iowa is already in the Big 10, Iowa State makes sense. The same can be said for Pitt based on Penn State.
Missouri, Nebraska and Rutgers all make sense for the Big Ten. If Notre Dame says no and the conference wants to expand to 16, it should add Syracuse and Maryland; they, plus Rutgers and Penn State, would give the Big Ten the four BCS programs in the populous, affluent New York-to-Washington corridor. SU and UMd are AAU institutions, which RU, Nebraska and Mizzou are (but ND isn’t), and would aid the Big Ten’s research consortium as well as the conference’s athletic programs.
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