Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[Buckeye Maniac]

I would love to see University of Chicago back, and yay for there no longer being an infuriatingly absent last page to the thread. . .

I do find the current rumors compelling, if none before them. It seems to have been, according to the Spartan reporter, vetted three times over. We'll see. . .

It's Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

 

[kinch]

They are already in the "academic Big 10" or the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. Although their football program could be a step up from Syracuse I guess

I understand that but would welcome them to join the athletics programs. I believe (no research) that they left in 1950 or so and then we added Michigan State, the Fredo of Michigan. . .

 

[muffler dragon]

Who the hell would really be worried about N_tre _ame going 7-0 in the Big Ten?

The likelihood of that happening is the same as Pope Benedict stripping the sex-offending bishops of their titles.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking was most likely simply by virtue of the fact that ND has been playing annual games against Purdue and MSU. But, from the Notre Dame standpoint, I think you'd like to have at least one protected conference rivalry against a program of similar caliber to your own. And from that standpoint, as well as a general entertainment standpoint, what I would probably prefer to see would be for Penn State and ND to dispatch with their annual games against MSU and take on an annual game against each other. They can call it The War of Independence, or something like that. If anything, it beats The Land Grant Trophy.

Like I said, Sparty and Purdue.

 

[BuckTwenty]

The Big Ten holds all of the bargining chips in this one, whether Texas, ND, or whomever else believes it or not. The Big Ten has a ton of things to offer a prospective school that their current conference isn't offering them and these schools only have a couple of realistic options each for joining a new conference (the Big Ten being one of those two). I'd be hard pressed to think Delany's going to be an easy nut to crack to accept any "list of demands" from that prospective school too. Ohio State and scUM get just as much money as Northwestern and Indiana. No one school is bigger than the conference. It's a beautiful thing.

These schools can beat their chests about how they consider themselves too good for our conference, but they would be silly to bypass this opportunity to be in a better situation than what they are currently in.

 

[BigJim]

You're right. I read it too fast and didn't comprehend what it whas actually saying. What it says is a little more ridiculous than guaranteeing an extra slot.


They're actually trying to give the guaranteed game to the 7-0 conference runner-up in the hopes that an 8-0 conference champion could also get an at-large, but the conference champion would not have a guaranteed BCS bid.

I guess I don't know what to say if you think that is more ridiculous than the B10 thinking they could get 2 guaranteed BCS bids.

 

[woofermazing]

Will Notre Dame keep its independence? - College Football - Rivals.com

Some Notre Dame fans worry about what joining a conference might mean for the football team's schedule, including its rivalry with Southern California, not to mention which games would be on television and which games would be worth traveling for.

"The idea of playing Iowa and Indiana every year doesn?t particularly appeal to them," Sperber said.

But playing Western Michigan, Tulsa, Navy, and Army does! The stands were empty for the Washington State game in Texas last year when they were 5-2 and had hope of a BCS appearance. They'll be empty for Army in Yankee Stadium this year.

 

[BB73]

tOSU AD Gene Smith talks about the possibility of his alma mater joining the Big Ten.

CBS

Ohio State AD has personal preference on Notre Dame-Big Ten connection

CHICAGO -- The Notre Dame cred doesn't get any bigger than with Gene Smith.

The man won a national championship as a player (1973) and a coach (1977) in South Bend. Somewhere beneath the scarlet-and-gray apparel he wears as Ohio State's athletic director beats a heart of blue and gold.

The Notre Dame love poured out Tuesday as Smith, unprovoked, basically made a plea for his alma mater to join the Big Ten.

"If they end up being one of the schools," Smith said during a break in the conference's spring meetings, "I hope that they would consider what a conference championship means to a young person. I was blessed to be at Notre Dame when we won national championships, one as a coach, one as a player.

"The landscape has changed. ... One of the challenges we have is celebrating conference championships. Our men won a Big Ten [basketball] championship, our women's basketball team won the Big Ten championship. We wake up the next day and you guys are writing about what seed they'll be.

"Our teams went through a gauntlet to win Big Ten championships and we're not celebrating that. To me, a Notre Dame football player winning a conference championship and having that conference ring is a memorable experience -- and then chasing the national championship. You can do both."

Smith's voice was the most refreshing during a week when expansion talk droned on with no clear direction. Notre Dame is an option for the Big Ten, though seemingly not much of one. The school's leaders seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. They want their independence but are leaving a slight door open for conference affiliation if, say, the Big East falls apart.

At least Smith knows what he wants. He played defensive end for the Irish team that won a split national championship in '73. From 1977-1981 he was an assistant coach. Smith remains one of the most respected ADs in the country running the country's second-richest (next to Texas) athletic department.

The Big Ten's addition of Notre Dame would be one of the biggest stories in college athletics. Its independence goes back to the days when the older Western Conference, the forerunner of the Big Ten, wouldn't play the Irish. The program resorted to a barnstorming philosophy, playing all over the country to keep the program relevant. The philosophy exists today.

"I've always struggled with my alma mater," Smith said. "I love 'em. I love 'em deeply. The things I enjoy in life today are because of the experiences there. My feelings run deep, really deep. I've always struggled with the quality and experience in this landscape of football players."

Cont'd ...

 

[IronBuckI]

I guess I don't know what to say if you think that is more ridiculous than the B10 thinking they could get 2 guaranteed BCS bids.

It's only slightly more ridiculous, but guaranteeing an extra slot from a super conference, when you're actually crippling another BCS conference isn't contradictory. Telling an 8-0 Big Ten Champion that they're the "real" conference champion, and that the 7-0 Conference team is the runner-up, and then turning around and giving the prize for winning the conference to the 7-0 team is contradictory.

Both are ludicrous. I guess I'm just commenting on which version of that rumor is more ludicrous.

 

[jwinslow]

The pre-expansion b10 is almost guaranteed two BCS bids. Toss in ND, Texas, Nebraska and that trend will continue, if only for the traveling fans & ratings.

 

[BayBuck]

The pre-expansion b10 is almost guaranteed two BCS bids. Toss in ND, Texas, Nebraska and that trend will continue, if only for the traveling fans & ratings.

Plus, I could see the formation of a super-Big-10 with those teams prompting a revision of the current 2-BCS-max rule. $$$!

 

[zincfinger]

The pre-expansion b10 is almost guaranteed two BCS bids. Toss in ND, Texas, Nebraska and that trend will continue, if only for the traveling fans & ratings.

Agreed. While an 8-0 conference team isn't "guaranteed" a BCS bid in that scenario, as a matter of probability they essentially would be. That being said, it seems like a pretty major concession to offer such a guarantee to a 7-0 Texas or ND, at the expense of everyone else. Not so much in practice (the situation where one of those two teams goes 7-0 and another team goes 8-0 would arise very rarely), but in principle. As I believe DBB said, if it's a transitional arrangement, it would seem to me ok. But as a permanent arrangement, it would seem a bit much.

 

[Buckeyefrankmp]

The pre-expansion b10 is almost guaranteed two BCS bids. Toss in ND, Texas, Nebraska and that trend will continue, if only for the traveling fans & ratings.

No doubt. There were only three years since the BCS started that the Big Ten had only one team going to a BCS bowl game. With the addition of the three teams mentioned, second place in the Big 14/16 would be an automatic At Large bid. In the past, second place (in their leagues) Ohio State and Texas have gotten At Large bids because of their fan base and ratings boost. A two loss Iowa team got an At Large bid last year.

 

[BB73]

No doubt. There were only three years since the BCS started that the Big Ten had only one team going to a BCS bowl game. With the addition of the three teams mentioned, second place in the Big 14/16 would be an automatic At Large bid. In the past, second place (in their leagues) Ohio State and Texas have gotten At Large bids because of their fan base and ratings boost. A two loss Iowa team got an At Large bid last year.

And those were all when there were only 8 BCS bids; the Big Ten has had 2 teams every year since they added the 5th Bowl after the 2006 season.

 

[BB73]

I didn't remember that the WAC had 16 teams for a little while in the '90s.

SI.com

What the Big Ten can learn from failed 16-team WAC experiment


Major college athletics' first superconference made a bold boast with its first logo. Unveiled in June 1995, more than a year after Western Athletic Conference presidents had voted to enlarge the league to 16 schools, the logo of the new WAC proudly bore the slogan "Poised for the Future."

WAC leaders may have been correct. Massive conferences may indeed be the future of college sports. Though Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has tried to tap the brakes on runaway speculation, his conference is examining expansion models that could grow his league from 11 to 16 teams. If that happens, other power conferences might follow suit.

Unfortunately for the WAC, the world wasn't ready for a 16-team league in the '90s. Because of financial, geographic and structural issues, the arrangement crumbled in 1998 after only two years in practice. The presidents of BYU, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado State and Air Force met secretly in the Denver International Airport and decided to break away.

Over a period of weeks, they added New Mexico, San Diego State and UNLV. It was decided that after the 1998-99 school year, the league would split in half. The defectors called their new conference the Mountain West.

So why, if the 16-team concept failed once, would one of the nation's most successful conferences consider trying it again? And if the Big Ten -- or any other conference -- decides to supersize, what can be done to eliminate the issues that doomed the expanded WAC?

Cont'd ...