Big 10 looking at Texas?

SHSUHorn

SHSUHorn

Thief
From the Desk of Scott McKinney (Aug. 7, 2007)

The Big Ten has announced that they are close to expansion … again. The league expanded to 11 teams several years ago when they brought Penn State into the fold. Now, the league that should be know as the Big 11 is looking to add another team, making the Big Ten a conference of twelve.

Confused yet? Yeah, me too. But, the decision to add a twelfth team to the league is a smart idea. The NCAA mandates that in order to have a conference championship game in football, you must have twelve football-playing members. The Big Ten can see the financial gain the SEC and the Big 12 enjoys from their conference title games and they want in on the party.

Now comes the interesting part. According to Mike DeCourcey of the Sporting News, the Big Ten is set to ask Texas to leave the Big 12 and join the Big Ten. And, DeCourcey reports that the Longhorns are 85% certain they would accept the offer.

Should Texas turn down the offer from the Big Ten, DeCourcey says the Big Ten would likely turn to Tennessee as their second choice. In either case, if Texas were to leave the Big 12 or if Tennessee were to leave the SEC, that would mean that one of those two conferences would be forced to go out and find a replacement school immediately to remain at the NCAA mandated number of twelve.

Personally, I can’t see Tennessee ever leaving the SEC. The Vols athletic history is tightly wound around that of the SEC. Tennessee-Alabama, Tennessee-Florida, Tennessee-Georgia, Tennessee-Auburn … see what I mean. I just can’t imagine the third Saturday in October being Tennessee vs. Wisconson instead of Tennessee vs. Alabama.

However, Texas joining the Big Ten actually makes some sense. The Longhorns are the bell-cow program of the Big 12 and has been very vocal about the lack of improvement by many of the other athletic departments within the league. Texas officials do not believe all Big 12 schools are as committed to the growth of their athletic programs like the folks in Austin are.

Should Texas leave the Big 12 and join the Big 10, their financial impact would be felt immediately. Instead of receiving $10 million from the Big 12 in the league’s revenue sharing plan, Texas would likely get around $20 million annually from the Big 10.

Can you imagine Texas, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Illinois in the same football conference?

There are changes forthcoming in the landscape of college football, that’s for sure. Could this be the beginning of the proposed “super conference” that has been talked about for so long?
 
Can't imagine Texas or tennessee going to big ten.

ill go on a limb and say pittsburgh or cincinnati, if they expand
 
I know it will never happen, but the key target should be the Golden Domers...too bad they already have their ducks in a row...
 
bigrak, ya too many $$$$$$$$$$$$ already lining domers pockets , so it wont happen. they will stay independent as long as tv money allows... and that looks like for a bit. Does seem the obvious choice if you eliminate the money aspect
 
Exactly...shit...they already have 4 games in the Big 10 as it is...not like it would change the dynamic of their schedule too much...dump the games w/ BC, Duke, and Stanford...pick up NWstern, Illinois, Indiana...etc...maybe keep their 9 win auto BCS bowl bid...still never going to happen...but I would love to see them enter reality...
 
Won't happen Horn. Texas was approached by the Big Ten after the SWC was collapsing. They didn't go then and they won't go now.

First, Big Ten charter requires member schools to be in contiguous states. Texas is....well, farther south.

Second, if Texas joined the Big Ten it would have to play 6 conference games, plus OU, plus A&M, plus a few other Texas/SWC rivalries. That would only leave a spot or two open for unique scheduling year in and year out. Texas won't give up that kind of flexibility.

However, Texas might because moving to the Big Ten means schools on academic par with Texas while the Big Twelve is, um, dumberer.
 
Hey RJ, we got a nice, cozy spot reserved for ya in the Mountain West; looking for that 10th team you know.

'an_horse'
 
Texas in the MWC? Only if you want to crown Texas conference champs for the next 5 decades.
 
This has been thrown around quite a few boards. Basically with expansion Texas would be the best for the Big Ten. Notre dame isn't coming and never will. Geographically it may not make sense but this would be great for both parties involved.

I have some articles I'll dig up later about both this and other expansion ideas. Some other schools being talked about include Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, Missouri and Nebraska.
 
Would moving Cincy (or these other Big East teams being mentioned) to the Big 10 in football mean that they would go there for basketball as well?
 
RJ Esq said:
Won't happen Horn. Texas was approached by the Big Ten after the SWC was collapsing. They didn't go then and they won't go now.

First, Big Ten charter requires member schools to be in contiguous states. Texas is....well, farther south.

Second, if Texas joined the Big Ten it would have to play 6 conference games, plus OU, plus A&M, plus a few other Texas/SWC rivalries. That would only leave a spot or two open for unique scheduling year in and year out. Texas won't give up that kind of flexibility.

However, Texas might because moving to the Big Ten means schools on academic par with Texas while the Big Twelve is, um, dumberer.
Click to expand...

It won't happen based on the fact wherever Texas goes Aggie must follow but it is interesting to look at.

I know Texas is getting fed up that the other schools haven't raised there standards in academics. Players Texas can't even recruit jump right on over to OU or Okie St in a heartbeat.

Also the TV market is pretty shitty in the old Big 8 region.

The biggest reason why this won't happen is based on probably the travel. You would have to charter your womens' volleyball game on tuesday in ann arbor isn't really cost effective.

I wouldn't like the idea because now Ohio St and Michigan would be tearing into Texas recruiting and Texas schedule would be ridiculous with OOC games vs OU & A&M.

I'd still much rather travel to away games in Madison as opposed to Manhattan.
 
Remember that some years back Texas acceptd an offer to join big 10 if TAMU and TT would be able to come along....

i.e. the superconference
 
B.A.R. said:
Remember that some years back Texas acceptd an offer to join big 10 if TAMU and TT would be able to come along....

i.e. the superconference
Click to expand...

Yes Aggie is just too much fun to make fun of to not have around. Its like when you were kids and you had that one goofy kid always around to be the brunt of the jokes.

Also after posting this some Ag will jump on here and post 12-7 (last years score). Its kind of their moto right now regardless that's the only game they've won in almost 10 years against Texas.
 
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany re-opened speculation of the conference's possible expansion to 12 teams Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, when he said the league would have to revisit the idea within the next year. The Big Ten Network appears to be driving this bus, and the aim is a few million new TV sets to add to the league's 27 million currently in the eight-state footprint.
If you're thinking contiguous states -- West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Louisville or Missouri -- start thinking outside the box. Way outside.
Texas is known to be displeased in the Big 12, both because of a low revenue stream and a dearth of big-market, high-academic-profile schools such as itself. I would bet anything that if Delany and the Big Ten presidents can't court Notre Dame in a third try, UT would be a great fallback position. Six million TV sets in the state of Texas.
And former Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg's recent move to the Big Ten Network only adds to the intrigue. He knows about Texas' TV clout better than anyone.
And if not Texas, stay south. Florida? It's by no means out of the realistic realm. More snowbirds are from the Midwest than any other area. Think UF wouldn't move? Think again
 
Nebraska gets talked about a lot in expansion talks but their academics are way below any Big10 school
 
Tim Griffin
San Antonio Express-News
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney is one of the 1,000-pound gorillas of college athletics. Whatever he wants, he usually gets.
The Big Ten rules the collegiate roost. And when its commissioner even implies he is considering expansion, it makes for more than merely a series of juicy newspaper headlines.
When Delaney starts talking about expansion, even in its most abstract terms, it should send some shock tremors jolting through the Big 12's leadership.
Because if the Big Ten chooses to expand - whether in the immediate or distant future - it's likely that several Big 12 schools would be among those most likely to be considered.
The Big 12 should be among those with the most to fear when speculation starts about Big Ten expansion. The reasons why are obvious.
Delaney told the Des Moines Register last week that the conference needs to look at expanding in the next season. He hinted that moving his conference to another state would provide added value for the conference's fledgling television network, which is having difficulty gaining traction in almost every location because of its lack of reach.
"The broader (the network) is distributed, the more value (expansion) has," Delaney told the newspaper. "We have eight states. With expansion you could have nine."
Although he backed off from his comments several days later at the Big Ten's media days, it's clear that his talk about addition was more than idle speculation. Or else why would he be so open to talking about it in the first place?
If the conference were to expand to 12 teams, there are several different ways to look. The speculation about each potential school is intriguing - even if it might be years from happening.
Before Delaney ever decides to look in any other direction, he needs to be absolutely, positively sure about the prospects of being able to land Notre Dame. If the Irish decide they want to join the Big Ten, it's the certain best choice. The school already plays many of the schools in football and basketball. It's also the most geographically sound move.
But Notre Dame administrators have turned down the Big Ten once before and it's unlikely that NBC would ever want the program to leave its independent status for any conference. Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White is said to be adamant about staying independent in football - which is the reason he's cutting deals with stadiums across Texas and Florida to get his program into these recruiting-rich areas in the future for non-conference games.
If Notre Dame decides to still say no, the Big Ten has some other fallback candidates. The most intriguing would be a couple of Big 12 schools - and not merely because former Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg was just hired to head up the Big Ten's television network and knows the speed-dial combinations for every president in the conference.
To say that Weiberg knows a little about the Big 12's sometimes dysfunctional family would be an understatement. One of the major reasons that Weiberg left the Big 12 for the relative safety of moving back to the Big Ten was because he was tired of refereeing the big school/small school battles that marked the end of his Big 12 tenure.
So Weiberg would know the pressure points better than anybody in case the Big Ten needed to court any specific Big 12 schools.
Missouri would fall easily into the Big Ten's footprint, but would add little in terms of national stature. The Tigers are the preseason North Division favorites in football this season, but remain a school that has not won a conference football championship since 1969.
Missouri is one of the largest states nationally in terms of population with only one state school playing Division I-A football. But the feeling always has been that the St. Louis metropolitan area already looks to the Big Ten as much to the Big 12 because of its proximity to Illinois. So the Big Ten wouldn't really be adding that much in terms of another television market.
Iowa State would also be a simple geographic addition, balancing the East and West divisions in the Big Ten. But ISU, which last won a football championship by sharing the Missouri Valley title in 1912 and had a recent 22-year lapse between bowl visits, makes even less practical sense than Missouri.
Iowa is already the least populated state in the Big Ten and adding another school in the state would additionally fragment that limited base.
If anything, adding ISU would cut the Big Ten's support rather than grow it. And the thinking here is that if the Big Ten expands, it wants to garner as much splash as it could muster.
That's why two Big 12 teams probably make Big Ten officials salivate at the mere thought of adding them.
Nebraska and Texas are the two of the biggest powers in the Big 12 in terms of national football presence. The schools butted heads over almost every issue when the conference was formed. Now, they are strong allies in the big vs. small battles that made Weiberg's last few months of working with the Big 12 difficult.
Nebraska would be almost as easy a fit as Missouri from a geographic standpoint, providing delicious immediate natural rivalries with Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
And while Nebraska wouldn't add an immediate boost in terms of population of the actual state, the Cornhuskers have a true national perspective in terms of their support. Cornhusker alumni arrange for their games to be broadcast across the nation - from Phoenix and Denver to Seattle and Sioux Falls. Think that devoted group might have some interest in buying the Big Ten cable network if it had a few more Cornhuskers games?
But the thought is that Nebraska would truly have to receive more than just a huge payday. It would be hard to see the school do away with traditional rivalries with schools like Kansas, Missouri and Iowa State that date from the early days of the Big Eight.
But if Delaney wants to truly think outside the box and make his conference the best in the country, the most intriguing choice might be found about 973 miles southwest of the conference's Chicago offices to Austin.
Some critics would say that speculation is fueled by lunacy. But the same criticism abounded when talking about Penn State shortly before the Nittany Lions moved into the Big Ten.
Remember that UT officials flirted with the Big Ten in the final stages of the Southwest Conference in the early 1990s. The most obvious reason for the original interest in both parties was that the academic missions of those 11 schools match UT's.
Part of what makes the Big Ten unique is that it is also an academic partnership of research-based schools. And UT has been a member of the invitation-only Association of American Universities since 1929. All of the Big Ten schools are members of that group.
The distance between UT and the rest of the Big Ten makes it impractical. Travel costs in the Big Ten would skyrocket. And fans would have a hard time following their favorite Longhorn teams.
The result would be a bizarre sense of isolation for UT fans in their new conference. They no longer would have the traditional rivalries against Texas A&M or Texas Tech or Oklahoma except for an occasional non-conference game.
College sports are so successful because they are built on regional, traditional rivalries. The Big Ten and the Southeastern Conferences have been the two strongest conferences in recent history because of their tightly knit fan bases. And adding UT or Nebraska would be a complete departure of that strategy for the Big Ten.
 
"Can you imagine Texas, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Illinois in the same football conference?"

No love for the Bucks I see

 
I must say, we could use a new rival..South Canada isnt getting it done anymore
 
Wouldnt the easy answer be to get a team from the Big East to join the big ten???

Pittsburgh?
Rutgers?
West Va?
Louisville?

these teams are right in the area and theyd get so much more credability by joining a more powerful conference.
 
i just dont see how this move would be possible, for 2 reasons....

1. geographical- texas football travelling might not be that big of a deal, but it doesnt make sense for the smaller sports.

2. texas' football non-conference schedule- if texas moves to the big10 they have 2 options.... keep TexAM and Oklahoma as non-conference rivals, and which would essentially replace their annual non conference games against a sun belt team and rice, or drop one of their traditional rivals, which i dont see happening. neither of those options seems feasable
 
Adam...those are obvious stumbling blocks..and prolly do prevent it...but remember the biggest thing...$$$$$$$$$$$

I think the Big ten actually already has the team..the more and more I read..which one is it..or I should say school...I dunno...but a lot of rumors last few days it nebraska
 
adampeck said:
i just dont see how this move would be possible, for 2 reasons....

1. geographical- texas football travelling might not be that big of a deal, but it doesnt make sense for the smaller sports.

2. texas' football non-conference schedule- if texas moves to the big10 they have 2 options.... keep TexAM and Oklahoma as non-conference rivals, and which would essentially replace their annual non conference games against a sun belt team and rice, or drop one of their traditional rivals, which i dont see happening. neither of those options seems feasable
Click to expand...


adam, I doubt they are concerned about renewing their contract with Arkansas St.

They have 4 non-conference games which could easily be OU & Aggie and whomever in the other two.

I don't think it'll happen for reason one in your post. This was the same issue when they looked at joining the Pac 10 once.
 
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