What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

A Big Ten Expansion rumor with smoke?

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.
 
As a Big Ten alum, I hate this idea. This is exactly why everyone in the nation hates UTexas. They demand, and usually get, unequal treatment. The Big Ten is all about balance and equity. If you start making special caveats to attract a few big names, you are selling your soul. The average Big Ten school will end up getting screwed, just like all the old Big 8 schools in the North.
 
One more thought... Mizzou better pray this doesn't go through. They've burned too many bridges now to end up staying in the conference. I doubt they'd have much support going forward from other members. Sure, it seems like half of the Big XII is rumored to leave, but Mizzou has been the one in the papers talking up the virtues of the conference they desire to join.
 
Sorry to dominate this thread. But I learned that this report has been corroborated by Yahoo's Tom Dienhart via Twitter today. Of course every new "leak" has yet to be substantiated, but it adds another twist to the saga...
 
Lol, I'm not sure if Dienhart's tweet was corroboration, or just a glorified way of using non-traditional news media to report unverifiable message board stories. The fact that his tweet came AFTER the Spartannation story that Delany got pissed makes me suspicious that Dienhart knows anything more then the rest of us that have been following the internet rumor mongering closely. That said I have a tough time believing that Michigan and OSU would be willing to sign off on this much extra treatment for Texas and ND.
 
The bigger "non-story" in the post was the belief of getting 13 games in a season if they don't hold a conference championship game. That's the first I've heard of that, but it might also be why the Big Ten timeline is still 6 to 12 months away.

In any case, Nebraska has been in heavy rotation among people claiming to have inside information. Maybe they are stealing Mizzou's thunder as the top candidate from the "west". The Tigers only hope in the above scenario is if the Big Ten goes to 16 and adds 1 to the west and 1 to the east.

And I agree on Dienhart, he seems to be a "rumor-whore" trying to get his name attached to every little tidbit.
 
One more thought... Mizzou better pray this doesn't go through. They've burned too many bridges now to end up staying in the conference. I doubt they'd have much support going forward from other members. Sure, it seems like half of the Big XII is rumored to leave, but Mizzou has been the one in the papers talking up the virtues of the conference they desire to join.

This is why I'm so glad at how CU has handled their rumors. It's pretty obvious if someone looks closely enough that the Buffs are unhappy and are pining for a Pac-10 invite. However, we've been pretty classy about things and haven't set fire to everything connecting us to the Big 12. But Mizzou has and, if this latest news is true, I'd be all for the Big 12 simply booting the Tigers as a big EFF YOU. At that point, if NU and UT bolt, the Big 12 is looking for new schools anyway, so might as well expel them.

What would be funny is if Missouri State were closer to being D-I capable. If I'm a Big 12 school, I get the other schools together and start a fund to bring MSU up to code so they could be invited just to stick the middle finger up at Mizzou. They'd hate that.
 
As a Big Ten alum, I hate this idea. This is exactly why everyone in the nation hates UTexas. They demand, and usually get, unequal treatment. The Big Ten is all about balance and equity. If you start making special caveats to attract a few big names, you are selling your soul. The average Big Ten school will end up getting screwed, just like all the old Big 8 schools in the North.

Big 10 fan or not, everyone should hate this idea because no schools should be given preferential treatment by being allowed to play a limited conference schedule. What's next, they only have to play at the tough road sites like Columbus once every 10 years?? I could see a conference like the Big East, Conference USA or someone like that doing this, but I wouldn't expect one of the majors like the Big 10 to fall for this type of crap.
 
This rumor was getting play on the sports talk radio down here in Austin today. Unfortunately, I don't have too many details as I came in the backside on the conversations.

Seems like everytime I changed to a different station for more info, they were just wrapping up the coverage.:pissed:
 
Other than the Big 10 wanting ND, and possibly UT in the conference, I don't believe any of the other aspects. I don't see Ohio State and Michigan or any other team voting for any special exemptions regarding schdule, and I'm pretty sure Ohio State and Michigan fan would never be in favor of a 1 loss ND or UT team getting the automatic BCS invite over anyone else in conference that might also have 1 loss.

Finally, I don't think fans of Ohio State and Michigan fans that pack 100,000+ into a stadium every Saturday give a rats ass about UT and their demands. The Big 10 already has a great TV deal that will not be up for renewal for several years. Ultimately the Big10 is looking to expand for the sole reason of a conference championship game. There are dozens of teams that would join the Big10 in a heartbeat simply for the equal revenue sharing on the TV deal. Why would the Big10 waste any time with teams wanting to make special demands.
 
Back
Top