Well said, Mr. Cook.  Well said.

in the same division?  Not going to happen.

lucre. Empty seats, ultimately, mean less than money in some people's pockets.

Shakes fist in air. 

I am all for capitalism and Making Moar Money and profits and stuff; I'm a business dude myself.  But dammit not like this.  I'm also for the "not-for-profit" sector, which was what the Big Ten is, right? A NOT-FOR-PROFIT!?  Maybe this can be our answer to ESSSS EEEE SEEEEE!!!!  We could chant 'NOT FOR PROFIT! NOT FOR PROFIT!'

...wait until they have to get up for a noon game against Rutgers or Maryland.

And if Maryland is having a hard time coming close to filling their stadium now, wait till everyone gets jacked up for Minnesota, Purdue, Iowa, Indiana, Northwestern and Illinois coming town.

While I don't see it, I'm sure Delany & co have worked their abacuses and done the number sand somehow, due to cable TV revenue, there are few extra bucks for everyone involved.

But from a sports standpoint, it gives me one more reason I'm glad I gave up my season tickets. I'll just scalp a few games I year that I care about and pocket the rest.

What a joke - UMD fans hate the move and B1G hate the move. Result: Do it anyway.

I just want to be on record saying I approve of this move, so in a couple years when we all like it we can look back at this post and you can all e-high five me.

Put me on record for approving this expansion as well. 

At the end of the day, there is a major shake-out happening, whether we like it or not.  One of the BCS conferences will fall away or become irrelevant (i.e., Big East) and the remaining conferences, ACC, SEC, B1G, PAC 12 and Big 12 will become super-regional or national brands. 

B1G is merely trying to get in front of this impending wave.

[FYI - NJ.com says that Rutgers will start playing in B1G in the 2014-15 academic year.]

I think we should go with 3 divisions:

Leaders - Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue

Legends - Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, MSU, Northwestern

Leftovers - Maryland, Rutgers, Minnesota, Indiana 

It's obvious, we will now add two west coast teams: Arizona and Colorado (no reason behind this).  National recruiting advantage!

At this point, let's just blow this baby up!  Total world domination!  The B1G should be calling up every single worth-while institution today and say:

"We are going to 16 - with or without you - you have until the end of the week to put together your 'intention letters'.  If your institution declines our offer, we wish you good luck with your pursuit of a new conference after we drop an A-bomb on collegiate athletics. P.S. To hell with Notre Dame"

Building on the Bo and Woody Era, thanks to Jim Delany, we've aggressively reshaped ourselves so that our conference will forevermore be known as the "Big Four and Little ... 10? 12?"

Well at least you could be assured that the composite SAT scores of the SEC North would be higher than the SEC South in Brian's second scenario.

I am generally unenthused with the idea, though the more I think about it, I'm at least sort of OK with it.  It gives me an extra reason to visit some friends in the DC/NYC areas, and at least they're schools with a long football history (not all of it bad, either).  

The major weird thing for me is that the NFL rules here along the east coast...  it'll take a lot of work to get college ball on the radar of many folks. My bet is that the crowds will look a lot like they do at Ryan field  most of the time.

Rutgers fans seem really excited:

"What a great day for Rutgers. Now let's run the table and hopefully go into the Big Ten in 2014 as back to back Big East and hopefully Orange Bowl champs!!!"

"Perhaps the biggest day in Rutgers athetic history!!!! What a windfall for the school. Perhaps now we can get those canceled sports back too?"

"During my days on the banks, we were an all boys school and our biggest game was Princeton. To see the Scarlet line up against the likes go Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State on a regular basis is a dream come true. We've come a long way baby! "

"In a perfect world, it would have been nice to see Big East succeed, but RU was always the red headed step-child there. Heck, they didn't even want us when they decided to add football - it was years before they let us in for hoops. It was originally and always will be a basketball league first. So is the ACC, which is why they can't pay their teams what the B1G can. Football drives the TV deals."

"I can't believe this...sports culture at RU will completely change overnight. Awesome."

"Rutgers football is already better than many of the Big-10 programs."  [Only 1 flamebait comment so far]

[LINK: http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2012/11/rutgers_to_join_big_ten_once_f.html

Not happy with Delany for adding two more red teams.  Maybe ad Kansas and Kentucky to balance out the color scheme?

Two more teams will come after this for the inevitable 16 team "power" conference status. Who will it be? Virginia and Virginia Tech? 'Cuse and Georgia Tech? Both Techs? Virginia and 'Cuse? Is there a permutation anyone actually likes?

I dislike both teams we're taking in Maryland and Rutgers. They do nothing for my sense of creating a more competitive conference. This only gives off the sense of dilution. Didn't everyone agree the B1G Kool-aid tasted fine with Nebraska? Stop adding water! 

As a native New Yorker now living in CT, neither of these teams will influence my decision to (or not to) purchase the Big Ten network. In fact, they make me less inclined to do so. Before, the Big Ten at least seemed a little bit exclusive. Now, it's a crap "uber"conference with, more-often-than-not, crappy weekly match-ups.

All I know is that the inclusion of these two new teams is terrible for Penn State, which used to own both Maryland and Rutgers heads-up for recruits (given the draw of playing on the Big Ten stage). So now this new "power" conference allignment also weakens the "attractive" eastern Big Ten school to create weak-sauce parity. Guhhhhh.

Can OSU, Michigan and Nebraska join the Big 12? That would be cool with me.

I can't wait to see Delany's shit-eating grin as he talks out of his ass in explaining how Maryland and Rutgers are outstanding additions to the conference. 

until they have destroyed everything that was once great about college football and the Big Ten.

True, 11 teams was a wobbly config.

Adding Nebraska brought value, though perhaps less than what people could easily see: Fantastic football tradition, questionable performance in other sports (baseball, basketball, hockey, track, wrestling), but in general a good university. This add-on didn't occur without some tremendous tradition losses.  Like the once white-hot Nebraska-Oklahoma series, and the growing hate between Nebraska and Texas since the teams started meeting each other more regularly in the Big XII.

Adding Maryland (an ACC school as long as I can remember) and Rutgers (once and independent turned Big East) to the Big Ten? Well just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  

I don't see the incremental value other than maybe Maryland basketball. And if Georgia Tech comes on board, then Boston College has to be the next ridiculous add on, right?

Not only does the Big East look more doomed and non-sensical than ever before, the Big Ten is losing it's identity as a Mid-West conference.

I should have seen all of this coming, but it doesn't make me any less depressed.   

In organizations, bigger is not necessarily better.  The real danger is that you lose the many little things that made the sum seem that much greater. 

I see all this and sometimes I miss the SWC.  It had a geographic identity. It had Texas, Arkansas and Texas A&M.  This was where the veer and wishbone evolved with Bear Bryant, Broyles, Royal, Emory Bellard, and a little known coach named Bill Yeoman (veer).

Now it's dead and the pieces are shuffled all over the national board.

I have to ask this question: How long until the Big Ten abandons Indiana or Minnesota, and starts looking for new girlfriends?  Alabama?

Before Friedgen, the last time I remember Maryland being any good at football was 1976. Block M copyright attorneys got right on that.

With respect to the SEC, it's big, fat and obscene, but at least geographically and "culturally" it all makes sense.   When you say "SEC champion" I know what that means.

"Big Ten Champion" with 14 or 16 teams spread out all over god's green acre? This is just dumb.

Let's call it what it is: the dumbest decision ever made by the Big Ten commissioner.

You're all just nervous because they're going to challenge Michigan for B1G championships. Stop being pussies. Yeah, they have traditionally strong football programs, but...

...oh wait, I thought we added Notre Dame and Oklahoma. Nevermind, I'm pissed off now.

M and OSU should screw the Big Ten.  Grab PSU and Nebraska, get USC, Oregon, ND, Texas, Alabama, Florida and the rest of the blue blooded football elite and all go independent.  Have a scheduling alliance between the big boys, negotiate our own TV deal with ESPN/Fox/the highest bidder and let all of the conferences fend for themselves without the cash cows around to support the Purdues and Indianas of the world.

The big name programs generate the revenues that the Delany-type tools exploit.  Its time to take back college football from his ilk.

The problem with this whole plan is that Delany is thinking too small.  He's limiting himself to domestic markets and doing nothing to increase the Big Ten's appeal in the foreign market.

Instead, Delany should be looking to add teams in the UK or Europe.  Given the football traditions at Maryland and Rutgers, the fact that these colleges will not have actual football  programs in place should not be an insurmountable problem.  Adding either Cambridge or Oxford would make the Big Ten the undisputed masters of the London market, while inviting Heidelburg (and I don't mean the one in Ohio) would give us access to both Berlin and Munich.

Okay, maybe the logistics and travel would be a little much.  How 'bout McGill in Montreal?  They play football with 12 guys on the field up there.  Might give Ohio a fighting chance against SEC teams at least...

run by the greediest bastards who may have ever lived, maintains some semblence of tradition and regional/geographical identity in their conferences.

Green Bay, Chicago, Minnesota, Detroit.

This is frozen tundra, rust belt, working class, kick ass pro football.

At one point Tampa Bay was in the old "NFC Central", and appropriately horrible and out of place.

When the NFL went to 32 teams somebody  at the head office had the common sense not to shake the snowglobe and throw the Green Bay Packers into the NFC West or the Chicago Bears into the NFC East.  

Gee, why didn't they?  What a golden opportunity! What if we could....?

Because it would have been wrong, that's why. 

Why would Pitt not be on the radar? Brian said they would definetily not be an option, but i did not see a reason.