Hypothetical: Best fit for 12th Big 10 team?

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by jthardy

A 12th team makes sense to make the big 10/11 more competitive with other conferences...

How would adding another team make us "more competitive with other conferences"?

[JonathanXC]

We don't need another team. I don't want 12 teams because I don't want to have a conference championship game. If we had a conference championship game, then it would just take a lot of luster out of the OSU-scUM game. Either we'd be in the same division with scUM, and that division would be top heavy and scUM and OSU would play every year just to go to the conference championship, or we'd be in a different division than scUM, play them every year for the last game still, and then some years likely play them again in the conference championship. Then when a playoff system in installed, we'd play them a third time in the playoffs. No way...i don't like it. Keep it the way it is.

BUT, which team would make the most sense right now if it weren't Notre Dame? I would go with Pitt. But i'd much rather just get rid of Northwestern because they really don't fit well into the Big 10, and just go back to 10 teams.

Why don't you start a new poll asking which team from the Big 10 we should get rid of?

[ntd]

Originally Posted by buckeyegrad

As of now, the schools of the Big 10 would divide into three tiers of excellence for academics:

Tier 1 (recognized nationally as being among the best in all areas of academics)
University of Chicago
Michigan
Northwestern
Wisconsin

Only problem with this is that the University of Chicago isn't in the big10, although they were a founding institution way back when.

They are in D3 now in a conference with a bunch of other research schools.

I'd like to see Missouri if there was an expansion, but why would they leave one big12 for another? Maybe Pitt, but I don't think they have the facilities, but honestly I dunno, I just think it'd be hard to have everything you need in Downtown Pittsburgh

But I would definitely agree that Miami doesn't fit, it doesn't do enough research

[stagtennis]

I would vote to leave the conference as is.

If we were to add another team, we would in all likelyhood, have to adopt a two division conference and add a conference championship game. This would dilute the importance and the mystique of the OSU v. Michigan game.

If, we had to add on more team (again I pray they don't) I would vote for Rutgers. Ok...A majority of you are laughing, but hear me out. The Big Ten, the Best Conference in the land dominates football throughout the midwest. If we picked up Rutgers, the conference would open up even more recruiting in New York/New Jersey, which is becoming a pretty decent recruiting state. Most top players head to Syracuse, BC or other Big East Schools (now ACC with BC leaving). Rutgers is beginning to play decent football and they have a solid young coach and an AD who is determined to make a quality brand. The stadium seats about 50K so an addition would be needed, but Rutgers is a big school with a huge endowment. This could be done.

I just feel that this fit could work for recruiting and expanding the conference into the New York metro region.

[jlb1705]

University of Chicago is still a member of the academic side of the Big Ten, the Committe on Institutional Cooperation (CIC).

http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/

The Big Ten Conference is the only major athletic conference to have such an academic affiliation. Membership benefits include cooperation and collaberation on ideas and funding.

This gets brought up every time this (stupid) arugment surfaces, and everybody seems to forget it, nobody pays attention, or we just have completely new people agruing this thing every eight weeks. This is the reason you can take 90% of that list and flush it down the crapper. The Big Ten is not just about football and basketball.

Some of those schools just plain suck at sports, and don't belong (Iowa State, anyone?) Most of those institutions do not fit the overall academic profile of the CIC. It's not enough to have strong undergraduate programs (Notre Dame, Miami). They have to be strong in research and graduate study as well.

[stagtennis]

Nice post JLB...

This is another reason to back my Rutgers point. Though undergraduate admissions requirements are not as stong as the elite Big Ten programs, their graduate endowment and research programs are top notch.

[AKAKBUCK]

boy... ntd- I saw that U of Chicago thing coming a mile down the pike....

Where's the honking tractor trailer emoticon?

[Buckeye Maniac]

Originally Posted by MililaniBuckeye

Uh, no...Pittsburgh has never been a member of the Big Ten. In fact, up until they joined the Big Least in 1991, they were independent since they started playing football in 1890.

Mili, they were actually in the conference that became the Big 10 very early in the 1900's