Big Ten Expansion Talk Heating Up Again

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We'll grow these leagues and realize they are all too big, then we'll split them geographically and end up basically where we started.
 

I don't understand people's moaning and complaining about the league expanding at this point, circumstances have changed and the B1G needed to adapt to the new landscape. Its such a tired cliche to say "let's just invite everyone in the country lol."

You think the ACC would have been done growing at 14? Hell no, they would've been after Penn State and Notre Dame if we had let them put a flag down in the northeast. Delany did what he had to do to ensure the league survived and thrived. How screwed would the B1G had been if Penn State jumped ship and the white whale of expansion in ND had gone east?

A league that stretches from Lincoln to Camden and Minneapolis to Tallahassee is better than the alternative of a stagnant 11 team league that would have just lost its 2nd biggest footprint state. Instead Delany is setting up the B1G to be the preeminent college power for the next century, and ensuring that no program under his watch is left out in the cold.

Think about all the talk this time last year in regards to Iowa State's future. They were uncertain if they were going to have to apply to the MOUNTAIN WEST or not. Thank your lucky stars everyday that Delany is in charge here, because a lot of other commissioners in this game have already been completely outmaneuvered by him.
 

SJUgopher said:
We'll grow these leagues and realize they are all too big, then we'll split them geographically and end up basically where we started.
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Well, it'll probably be more organic than that. Some school(s) will feel like it's not getting the same treatment as tOSU or MI, and start looking for another conference.

Or tOSU, NE, MI and/or PSU will think they can do better by not sharing revenue with the other schols and either be independent or convince some lesser conference to give them the world (like Texas did to the Big 12). Or they combine with Alabama, LSU, USC, Texas, ND, etc and make a super ultra mega powerhouse helmet school conference worth a trillion dollars.
 




westcoastgopher11 said:
I don't understand people's moaning and complaining about the league expanding at this point, circumstances have changed and the B1G needed to adapt to the new landscape. Its such a tired cliche to say "let's just invite everyone in the country lol."
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Didn't the Big Ten LEAD all this change? Adding PSU in the early 90s (announced before GT went to the ACC) and adding Nebraska before TexA&M/Mizzou went to the SEC??

You think the ACC would have been done growing at 14? Hell no, they would've been after Penn State and Notre Dame if we had let them put a flag down in the northeast. Delany did what he had to do to ensure the league survived and thrived. How screwed would the B1G had been if Penn State jumped ship and the white whale of expansion in ND had gone east?
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So were we being reactionary to something that hadn't happened yet or were we leading the charge? We didn't get ND anyway and they're still independent, so that mattered not.

A league that stretches from Lincoln to Camden and Minneapolis to Tallahassee is better than the alternative of a stagnant 11 team league that would have just lost its 2nd biggest footprint state. Instead Delany is setting up the B1G to be the preeminent college power for the next century, and ensuring that no program under his watch is left out in the cold.
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Stagnant = bad? I don't understand the notion that growth is inevitable, healthy, and required. The Big Ten was a successful brand and conference for years without expansion (from MSU addition through PSU in the 90s, and again for another nearly 20 years before Nebraska). I'm really not looking forward to a "conference" of teams where a flight is required to visit.

Think about all the talk this time last year in regards to Iowa State's future. They were uncertain if they were going to have to apply to the MOUNTAIN WEST or not. Thank your lucky stars everyday that Delany is in charge here, because a lot of other commissioners in this game have already been completely outmaneuvered by him.
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...And would that have been a problem if not for all this realignment in the first place? Iowa State had been a member of the Big 8/12 since 1907 (1 year after inception).

The problem isn't instability in revenue streams causing conferences like the Big 12 or Big East to teeter and fail and then other conferences pick up the pieces. It's the other way around - conferences luring schools to join them based on lucrative TV money and the result is the teams left standing in the other conferences are potentially boned. I don't understand how this is good for college football at large as it consolidates power/money in to fewer schools. In turn, the remaining schools have a harder time supporting their programs. We see a slightly elevated product at the consolidated schools but overall worse football at the rest.
 

RailBaronYarr said:
Didn't the Big Ten LEAD all this change? Adding PSU in the early 90s (announced before GT went to the ACC) and adding Nebraska before TexA&M/Mizzou went to the SEC??st.
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Tech entered the ACC in 1979, well before PSU entered the Big Ten for the 1993 season. You may be thinking Arkansas and South Carolina entering the SEC, that occurred in the 1991 season. Don't disagree with some of your points, but to say that the B1G is responsible is to ignore the facts. The B1G may have moved first in this latest round with Nebraska, but there have been plenty of other recent raids (see VaTech, BC, Miami to the ACC) in the past decade. I am a traditionalist personally, but this is the way things are heading, we can't unscramble the egg. If I had a way back machine I would use it to stop the consolidation (along with betting on the 87 Twins to win the World Series, stopping the acid wash jeans craze of the 80's and preventing the Cooperall travesty that marked my high school hockey days), but alas time moves on and we "move forward" (a relative term).
 

RailBaronYarr said:
Didn't the Big Ten LEAD all this change? Adding PSU in the early 90s (announced before GT went to the ACC) and adding Nebraska before TexA&M/Mizzou went to the SEC??
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Just saw Weddings post. You can add this:

- Penn State was an independent when the Big Ten added them in 1993 It didn't break-up any conferences. If that isn't the point then:

- Florida State, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Miami, Syracuse, Temple, VT, and West Virginia were also independents when they formed the Big East in 1991.
 

Even though the creation of the Big East started all the movement maybe it all got out of hand when the SWC disbanded, That was in 1996. The "money" schools joined the Big Eight or like Arkansas fled before things came apart. When the SWC went down a lot of traditional rivalries went down too.
 





RodentRampage said:
Colorado did leave first, but that seems like a technicality, they know that Nebraska was going to leave.
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And I doubt even if if their move wasn't in response to Nebraska that the Big Ten made the grab at Nebraska because it was afraid of a Pac 12 with Colorado and Utah...
 

Weddings and Steak Frys said:
Tech entered the ACC in 1979, well before PSU entered the Big Ten for the 1993 season. You may be thinking Arkansas and South Carolina entering the SEC, that occurred in the 1991 season. Don't disagree with some of your points, but to say that the B1G is responsible is to ignore the facts. The B1G may have moved first in this latest round with Nebraska, but there have been plenty of other recent raids (see VaTech, BC, Miami to the ACC) in the past decade. I am a traditionalist personally, but this is the way things are heading, we can't unscramble the egg. If I had a way back machine I would use it to stop the consolidation (along with betting on the 87 Twins to win the World Series, stopping the acid wash jeans craze of the 80's and preventing the Cooperall travesty that marked my high school hockey days), but alas time moves on and we "move forward" (a relative term).
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Sorry, you're right. To be fair, PSU joined the Big Ten as a full-member in everything but football in 1990, football in 1993. Florida State did the same in 1991 with football following the year after. They were AFTER the Big Ten courted PSU.

In any case, I think it would be a very hard argument to make that the Big Ten has been 100% reactionary in all the moves to "remain a viable, leading, stable" conference. I could easily argue that the Big Ten has led or at least been part of leading these changes that have CAUSED so many schools to be fearful of their conference stability.

I'd also argue that while TV contracts and revenues remain top-notch for the Big Ten, it hasn't done anything for quality on the field or depth of the league. The Big Ten has won a collective 2 national titles in the past 26 years, is 0.462 in BCS bowl appearances, and has a huge national reputation problem. What has all this accomplished for us?
 



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Those are really poorly put together future conferences.

The Big XII is in a better situation to remain a power conference than the ACC. Not sure if Utah St, Nevada, Hawaii, San Jose St, and Fresno St are going to get booted from the MWC or see the writing on the wall and go back to the defunct WAC.
 

Those are old maps. A&M & Missouri are in the SEC.
 

Buttcheeks McGaffigan said:
Those are really poorly put together future conferences.

The Big XII is in a better situation to remain a power conference than the ACC. Not sure if Utah St, Nevada, Hawaii, San Jose St, and Fresno St are going to get booted from the MWC or see the writing on the wall and go back to the defunct WAC.
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MaxyJR1 said:
Those are old maps. A&M & Missouri are in the SEC.
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I was trying to do a search on the history of realignment and came across these. I thought they had nice colors and were kind of funky. Total throw away post. Hell I didn't even read them. Sorry.:)
 

station19 said:
I was trying to do a search on the history of realignment and came across these. I thought they had nice colors and were kind of funky. Total throw away post. Hell I didn't even read them. Sorry.:)
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Don't be to hard on yourself, it wasquite pretty.
 

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