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Hypothetical: Best fit for 12th Big 10 team?

Best fit for 12th Big 10 team?

  • Notre Dame

    Votes: 147 58.8%
  • Missouri

    Votes: 15 6.0%
  • Pittsburgh

    Votes: 37 14.8%
  • Iowa State

    Votes: 8 3.2%
  • Bowling Green

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Marshall

    Votes: 2 0.8%
  • Miami (OH)

    Votes: 7 2.8%
  • West Virginia

    Votes: 24 9.6%
  • Northern Illinois

    Votes: 1 0.4%
  • Syracuse

    Votes: 9 3.6%

  • Total voters
    250
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?
 
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buckeyegrad said:
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
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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MililaniBuckeye said:
How would adding another team make us "more competitive with other conferences"?
Adding a 12th would enable the Big 10/11 to establish a conference championship giving the conference more exposure. This in turn could help in recruiting. This is what I meant by being more competitive.
 
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While looking at this issue of Big Ten membership, I found a great history of the conference: http://bigten.collegesports.com/trads/big10-trads.html

While it may not verify that Pittsburgh was never in the Big Ten, there is nothing to confirm it either. My guess is that the absence of Pittsburgh suggests it never was a member.

To follow-up with the significance academics plays in determining membership, it is important to note that it was the Council of Presidents that had to approve Penn State's membership to the conference 10 years ago.
 
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Several people have brought this up now - what in the hell is adding a team gonna do for recruiting? It would certainly help a team like Rutgers, but who else could it possibly help. No offense, but Rutgers has a long, long, long way to go to being a Big Ten School.

I can't believe that people would be so short sighted to think that adding a Big Ten member from NY/NJ/Missouri/etc. would really have a real impact on Ohio State's recruiting. That's pretty moronic. If you want to say that, they why don't we just look at adding FAMU and San Diego State? The only thing you guys could be supposing is that NY/NJ/Missouri/etc. would transform into "Big Ten" country, in which case, ALL Big Ten teams would stand to get some sort of bump.

Think about this for a moment: Ohio State recruited well enough to send FOURTEEN young men through the NFL Draft last season - all without the "benefit" of a conference championship game. Miami has had about a billion first round picks the last five years - without a conference championship game. Pete Carroll is able to gas up his jet every damn day - without money or exposure from a conference championship game. I've never heard a recruit around these parts say they chose a school because their last game of the season was sponsored by Dr. Pepper.

There is no way the Big Ten is looking at adding teams based on recruiting. That's a joke. If they were looking, they'd base it on athletic prestige and competitiveness, academic prestige and competitiveness, geography, tv ratings, money, etc.

In order for the Big Ten to add a school, it has to benefit the rest of the conference, not just the school that would be added. Rutgers doesn't bring anything to the table athletically, and academically I'd guess the best thing you can say for them is that they don't really affect the reputation of the CIC positively or negatively.
 
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JLB...This is a discussion. I agree with exactly what you are saying, but to call me moronic for bringing up a discussion point is a bit harsh.

All I'm saying is that from a money standpoint it works adding a team from the NY/NJ metro region, period. I agree that Rutgers isn't as strong athletically, but the school has an infrastructure that could promote Big Ten athletics, meaning they could develop into a better program. Look at the strides they've made since joining the Big East. To say that adding a school in the NY/NJ region would not help recruiting, you are being ignorant. This is the hotbed for high school basketball.

Like I said in my initial post, I don't want the expansion. I just wanted to bring about a bit of a discussion.

Notre Dame would obviously bring the best opportunity to the table, but there are other possibilities to discuss.
 
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Stay with the girl that brought you to the dance...

as the old adage states "if it isn't broken don't try to fix it." we don't need another team to join the big 10 especially if it reduces the importance of the osu/meatchicken rivalry. but if it becomes a "must" then i would like to see louisville become the 12th team. it's in the region, an outstanding basketball power, first rate athletic department, scholastically a wonderful school, becoming a strong football power...i think it would be a great fit.
 
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i say leave it as is. when did PSU join? must've been right around 1992 and i guess i've come to accept them as a big ten team...but Bowling Green??? come on! and why BG as opposed to Toledo? that would be interesting having another big ten team in Ohio though...but then think of the joke the rivalry would be. us playing toledo every year. we'd either smoke them constantly, undermining the whole premise of them joining the big ten....or we'd ultimately lose a few games to them, which i never want to see happen...

also BG is a third tier school ..period. osu has made great strides in improving our academic reputation....we need big ten schools to help w/that. so it would have to be like a notre dame or miami of ohio...but then miami of ohio is not a good peer...too small....

windycitybuck said:
"if it isn't broken don't try to fix it." we don't need another team to join the big 10 especially if it reduces the importance of the osu/meatchicken rivalry. but it becomes a "must" then i would like to see louisville become the 12th team. it's in the region, an outstanding basketball power, first rate athletic department, scholastically a wonderful school, becoming a strong football power...i think it would be a great fit.

hey, windycitybuck...are your initials BC?
 
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I apologize for the language - that was over the line.

As for the Rutgers thing, the Big Ten is good enough that it doesn't have to make a move, and it certainly doesn't need to add any up-and-comers. You're right, that area is great for HS basketball. Adding a Rutgers isn't going to help recruiting that much, when you consider that you first have to go through the big boys who can recruit anywhere (Dook, UNC, UK, KU, etc.) Then you have to go through all of the other strong programs in the region (Seton Hall, St. John's, UConn, etc.) And I'm sorry, I don't mean this as a personal attack on you, but if Jim Delaney came out tomorrow and announced that the Big Ten was adding a team to get on TV in a certain region to boost recruiting (incrementally), I'd call that a bad move by the Big Ten. If Big Ten teams want to boost their bball recruiting, they'd be better served to take care of business in their own current backyard (ahem, Hairston and Crawford, ahem!)
 
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