MD/Rutgers Theories/Crazy ideas. How does this all shake out in the end?
Now that Maryland is officially joining the B1G, with Rutgers soon to follow, let's get your tinfoil hats out and figure out WHY*
I think my favorite somewhat-crazy idea is that this is a big F U to Notre Dame. When all the conference expansion hoopla was happening everyone pretty much figured that there were going to be 4 conferences left, with 16 teams each. The 4 conference champs get the 4 football playoff spots. Made enough sense.
The question is which of the 5 "power conferences" would get destroyed and join the other 4. Well, the B1G is making a move to insure that the ACC won't survive with any clout. The B1G, SEC, and PAC12 are on great footing and sure to make it. They have their own networks, best financial footings, and (historically) great teams and rivalries.
The BigXII has Texas and Oklahoma after being raided by the SEC. The ACC is getting raided by the B1G.
The SEC is at 14 teams, with room for 2 more to become a Superconference. The B1G will be in the same spot now, and the PAC12 needs to figure out which 4 teams it can get to join them. Texas and Oklahoma are the obvious answers, with maybe Boise and another team I'm not thinking of. The SEC will take FSU and probably Clemson.
ND will have a choice, do they stay in the ACC/BigXII conglomerate with the likes of Duke and Baylor? Or do they become a member of the B1G?
What's your tinfoil hat telling you? How does this all shake out?
*Besides TV markets and Money. because those are the real, boring answers
November 19th, 2012 at 11:17 AM ^
Next move: I bet a school like Louisville joins the ACC, and Boom, the Big East is doomed. Where does UConn end up? They better hope their basketball program is attractive enough. Cincinnati?
November 19th, 2012 at 11:20 AM ^
Why don't we just Louisville and UConn? UL is a good big east football team, both schools made the final four in baskebtall this decade.
Wouldn't be that hard to change the logo from B1G to B16.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
November 19th, 2012 at 12:44 PM ^
Louisville's academics makes Staee look like Harvard.
B1G muckity mucks would burn their leather couches in protest.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
Divisions-
|
East |
West |
|
Indiana |
Illinois |
|
Maryland |
Iowa |
|
Michigan |
Minnesota |
|
Michigan State |
Nebraska |
|
Ohio |
Northwestern |
|
Penn State |
Purdue |
|
Rutgers |
Wisconsin |
Protected Crossovers-
|
East Team |
West Team |
|
Indiana |
Purdue |
|
Maryland |
Northwestern |
|
Michigan |
Minnesota |
|
Michigan State |
Wisconsin |
|
Ohio |
Illinois |
|
Penn State |
Nebraska |
|
Rutgers |
Iowa |
November 19th, 2012 at 11:25 AM ^
Michigan and MSU protective cross-overs go from OSU and Indiana to Minnesota and Wisconsin respectively.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:27 AM ^
much better cross over assignments, but west looks weaker from the current perspective.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:28 AM ^
I like this too, but I just can't see Delany putting OSU, Michigan, and Penn State in the same division.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:33 AM ^
This would be horrible. You have managed to put all of the good teams in the east other than Nebraska. Move Ohio to the west and Illinois or Purdue to the East, and it might work (even if the Geography isn't quite right).
November 19th, 2012 at 11:38 AM ^
Um, no. The only thing that makes this worse is if Michigan and OSU continue to be placed in separate divisions.
November 19th, 2012 at 12:01 PM ^
Yep, you need to swap Penn State and Purdue, or something like that.
In my view the following schools are "premier" traditionally:
Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State (Wisconsin is arguable, but if you ranked 4, these would have to be the top 4 traditionally)
Balance it out from there...
November 19th, 2012 at 12:16 PM ^
November 19th, 2012 at 11:34 AM ^
November 19th, 2012 at 11:19 AM ^
Step 1: Annex middling/struggling team
Step 2: Instruct refs to overtly help said teams to division titles and upset/comeback wins. The teams have 'dream seasons' that ramp interest and insight rivalries.
Step 3: profit
It's working with Nebraska, right?
November 19th, 2012 at 11:22 AM ^
November 19th, 2012 at 11:22 AM ^
November 19th, 2012 at 11:50 AM ^
If we're talking Waldo, then we should also be talking about Doyt Perry. My daughter's in grad school at BGSU, so watching UM play in that little band-box stadium would be interesting.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:23 AM ^
Michigan and OSU to the SEC.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:24 AM ^
With Maryland coming, I wonder if we might try to poach two more ACC schools. Let's say Virginia and Virginia Tech. With word that the ACC is losing 3 schools, FSU and Clemson jump to the SEC. ND's contract with the ACC falls through. Big Ten says last chance. If ND doesn't join, then they offer Rutgers.
Then, you have Big Ten East (VaTech, Virginia, Maryland, PSU, OSU, Michigan, MSU, Rutgers/Indiana) and Big Ten West (Indiana/ND, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska).
It also adds 3 lacrosse teams and gets you Big Ten Lacrosse, which adds content for the spring.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:29 AM ^
hearing about M scheduling with a home slate of UVa, PSU, MSU and Rutgers, with two random games against current Big Ten teams (which could very well be Purdue and Illinois).
November 19th, 2012 at 11:26 AM ^
Adding Rutgers is such a terrible idea. There is not one single positive to take from adding them. They don't bring in a market, they have a terrible research endowment, they don't have any top-shelf sports to add. Just a terrible, terrible idea.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:27 AM ^
Now that Maryland and New Jersey have been secured, the next step is an attack down the Mississippi to cut the SEC in two, along with a series of punishing assaults on Virginia to allow the Big 10's industrial might to overwhelm the SEC's grounding in commercial agriculture.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:28 AM ^
LET THEM USE THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO CHANGE THE DIVISION NAMES AND PUT UM AND OHIO IN THE SAME DIVISION!
November 19th, 2012 at 11:29 AM ^
The B1G already added Nebraska and gets the coveted championship game, so I don't see Maryland and Rutgers adding much value there.
I don't think either school brings much to the table in football. Maryland was at its apex under Friedgen and even then wasn't more than a regional player. Rutgers has been a middling Big East school the last decade which was also their apex and might diminish as the residue from Schiano fades more and more from the program.
I wonder if the Big Ten Network might try to bundle itself with the Yankee network (YES) and force itself into the New York cable market that way. Maryland is in a nice metro area, but I don't think they have a very intense fanbase. Without some sort of deal, I wonder if this won't dilute the Big Ten viewership on a per school basis.
I don't see the value in a "screw ND" mentality, either. The ACC will probably just pick up Navy, which actually makes ND's deal with the ACC even better.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:30 AM ^
Look, we already have 4 marquee programs. adding more just ensures one of them slips into mediocrity (and Penn State really does not need the help as it may happen to them anyhow). The conference brands are best served by additions like Maryland and Rutgers, They bring a huge footprint, new recruiting areas and access for east coast alums. These are also huge state schools pumping out thousands of B1G fans per year. The real goal is to colonize the east coast markets. I would guess if we go to 16, your prime targets are the Virginia schools. GAtech, while a great school, doesn't bring a market so i'd say no to them. Mizzou is a potential target, and i do think they would leave the SEC for the B1G, mostly for acedemic reasons.
November 19th, 2012 at 12:03 PM ^
Georgia Tech brings way more of a market presence than Maryland or Rutgers. It's not even close.
November 19th, 2012 at 12:43 PM ^
November 19th, 2012 at 11:34 AM ^
I've been arguing for awhile that the true insight of where things are going is the unique relationship of the Big Ten, Pac Ten and Rose Bowl.
We saw a couple of years ago the Pac Ten tip their hand by making a big play for the Big 12 teams. And we now know that the Big Ten is hungry too. And throughout it all they vigorously defended the sanctity of the Rose Bowl.
I don't know what the exact ideal number of teams is but it wouldn't surprise me to see both conferences push as high as 20 each. If the Big Ten can get a foothold on the east coast, they would give the Big-Rose-Pac coast-to-coast coverage with their network and allow their own miniplayoff culminating in the Rose Bowl championship. That kind of national branding power may yet force whatever outside powers to deeply reconsider their current situations. Texas. Notre Dame. Possibly even SEC powerhouses like Alabama and Florida.
Of all the many entities in the college football landscape, the Big-Rose-Pac is the only one that really has any chance at total domination. I know it sounds crazy...but everything they've done in the pastfew years is pointing in that direction.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:35 AM ^
Why not have a little patience, wait till the B12 disintegrates a bit and take Texas and Oklahoma? By then hopefully Texas stops insisting on its own network.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:36 AM ^
Welp, Maryland does offer two very important things. Crabcakes and football.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:45 AM ^
Winter and Spring "live programming" will now have more basketball and lacrosse. Bring in Duke and UNC to join Maryland and from the ACC and we are at 16 and we have created more "must see TV" with strong academic schools.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:49 AM ^
Long time listener, first time poster. Wouldn't it have been advantageous to go after Pitt before they jumped to ACC? Rival with Penn St and close to Ohio as well.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:52 AM ^
I agree, and I would include Syracuse as well. I think those two schools would be a natural geographic partner for PSU, Mary, and Rutgers. But it's all about footprints, and supposedly Pitt already falls within the network footprint.
November 19th, 2012 at 12:03 PM ^
The academics at Maryland and Rutgers may not compare favorably to Duke, Virginia, Georgia Tech, UNC or Virginia Tech, but if the Big Ten were interested in raiding the ACC, shouldn’t that have been considered at the time Nebraska was added and Notre Dame was continuing to hedge its bets? The ACC recently added Notre Dame (for all sports but football), Pitt and Syracuse. They could move to add Connecticut to replace Maryland, if they’re not interested in expanding beyond 14 schools.
Rutgers and Maryland may not bring much to the table now when it comes to athletics (except perhaps for Rutgers women’s basketball and Maryland men’s lacrosse.) But what they do bring are two large metropolitan areas that have concentrated money and political power.
Big Ten football games involving Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska can be played at FedEx Field and MetLife Stadium in order to handle the alumni groups from those schools. Likewise, Rutgers can play some of its home basketball games at the Prudential Center in Newark, and Maryland can play some of its home basketball games at the Verizon Center in DC. New York City/Northern New Jersey and Washington, DC may not care about Rutgers or Maryland, but there should be more than enough Big Ten alumni in those cities to take care of ticket sales for Big Ten sporting events there.
As for a Big Ten lacrosse conference, there’s going to be some incentive for Michigan State and possibly Illinois to upgrade to Division One lacrosse in order to have at least six Big Ten teams playing D-1 LAX. (This assumes that Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Purdue will stay at the MCLA club level for the foreseeable future, and that Northwestern is content with focusing on women’s lacrosse and Wisconsin has no interest in spending any money on men’s spring sports.)
November 19th, 2012 at 12:09 PM ^
I expect you will see the Big 12 take Cincinnati and Louisville from the Big East to get to 12, maybe even Boise St. and San Diego St.(gets them into California). Have to think they have to make a move to protect themselves seeing how its unlikely the Pac12 will sit still. The Pac12 could go after K-State and Kansas. With Missouri, Colorado and Nebreska gone there is very little tying them to the Big12. If the Big10 indeed goes to 16 and GT is number 15 who becomes 16. BC? Clemson (no idea what their academics are like, but it would allow them to get into the Carolinas and there is no state school that they would have to take with them)
November 19th, 2012 at 12:40 PM ^
First I think the 16 team super conferences will be the norm within the next few years, a feeling I have had for a while actually and it makes sense in the grand playoff type scheme when conference champs and a few at-larges play out.
But I am curious if it has ever been postulated that we pulled some more midwest teams in like maybe Kansas and K-State? A current football heavyweight (and no I dont mean Charlie Bag O'Donuts) and a perennial basketball powerhouse.
I can understand the RU and MD move (plus I can go see Big Ten games in person as I live not too far from RU) although from living over here and going up and down the area VaTech is a much more attractive team from a football perspective and just visibility (I see the VT stuff everywhere between NJ and DC.
Just food for thought.
November 19th, 2012 at 12:48 PM ^
November 19th, 2012 at 2:37 PM ^
we just added 2 crappy programs, only 1 of which was a potential ND opponent in maryland. ND doesn't care what the B1G does. Now that they have a decent team again they will be able to reup with NBC and continue to rake in enough money to preserve their beloved independence.
This is nothing more than a short sighted panic move by Delaney. We have finally seen the man behind the curtain and he is no wizzard.