ScottyBuff
Well-Known Member
...a friend who works for the Big Ten here in Chicago. According to him, the Big Ten has focused their efforts on and is getting hot with three schools: Notre Dame, Texas, and Nebraska.
Second, the Big Ten, Texas and Notre Dame are discussing a special rule to accommodate both of those schools. Instead of playing 8 games, both Texas and ND would play 7 to enable each school to play 6 out of conference games. That's apparently the caveat that brought both to the table, and Texas and ND also want to play each other every year. The tradeoff is that an 8-0 Big Ten team would always trump a 7-0 ND/Texas as conference champion, which is a potential logistical sticking point for the Big Ten and these teams. But apparently ND and Texas value the extra OOC game more than the conference championship potential, and ND and Texas want to play each other every year making the tie between two 7-0 teams impossible. They're also looking at potentially giving a automatic BCS slot for a 7-0 ND/Texas Big Ten team that loses the conference championship to an 8-0 team as a carrot, where the 8-0 team could still get the at-large but isn't guaranteed.
http://northwestern.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?SID=901&fid=57&style=2&tid=142885732&Page=1
The Big Ten office
On a message board called the Wildcat Report on May 8, 2010, a poster put a message up. He claimed to have been with someone from the Big Ten office who gave him information on the expansion efforts.
Not a big deal, people go on message boards all the time and say things. What made this a big deal was the reaction of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. According to my source that works at the Big Ten who spoke to Spartan Nation on the condition of anonymity because of Delany’s comments in this meeting, “The Commissioner was livid. He called a staff meeting for the office and that isn’t normal at all. In fact, it is a rare thing. He likes to meet in small groups if he meets at all. He cited this post and said if he found out who it was he would fire the person for talking or anyone else for speaking. All of us walked out and wanted to read the post because as angry as he was it had to hit home. One of my coworkers even said to me 15 seconds after we left the room, I can’t wait to read it.” The source went on to add, “There has been so much S***(fecal matter) thrown around about expansion and he didn’t really get to fired up until this. This one hit home. Clearly, Notre Dame and Texas are in play.” I have hence heard about the Delany meeting from three other sources with knowledge of it, and all of their accounts match the above.
http://spartannation.com/?p=12002
Obviously still "internet chatter" "friend of a friend" talk.
But, a Big Ten with Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Texas would be freaking huge. A&M would either go with them or be setup in the SEC as Texas politicians wouldn't let them be left in a shell of a Big 12.
The prospects of the Big 12 if we lost the "big dawg" in the North and in the South divisions are not good.