RE: Berry Tramel: Would the Big Ten welcome OU?
There are no more "natural fits" for expansion with the original Big Ten. The Great Lakes region only has a handful of strong academic institutions that play FBS level football - Buffalo (not happening, no interest from the conference), Notre Dame (been rejecting the Big Ten for decades due to desire to be independent), Cincinnati (not happening, no interest from the conference), Pittsburgh (not happening, no interest from the conference, plus GOR with ACC).
When Penn State first joined, they had to sell it as well because they were not a natural fit for the midwest.
In the end the conference will only expand with worthwhile candidates that fit most of the criteria - strong academics preferably AAU in research, big state university OR elite private university that plays FBS football, "franchise player" type of football program, top media region or state, within geographic range of the conference's current members.
Using that criteria and excluding the ACC, PAC and SEC since the most realistic candidates due to GORs (ACC) and overall conference success (SEC) would be the B12 and G5 conferences, these are the only broadly institutional fits for the conference and the strikes against them:
- Buffalo (poor football/athletics program, doesn't add strong tv market)
- Cincinnati (doesn't add anything geographically, not AAU)
- Connecticut (doesn't add anything geographically, poor football, not AAU)
- Iowa State (doesn't add anything geographically)
- Houston (nowhere close to reaching AAU status)
- Kansas (poor football, doesn't add strong tv market)
- Oklahoma (not AAU, doesn't add strong tv market but offset by being a football blueblood)
- Rice (not a strong football program, closest neighbor currently Nebraska)
- Texas (only issue is that their closest neighbor currently Nebraska)
- Texas Tech (nowhere close to reaching AAU status)
- Tulane (poor football, closest neighbor currently Nebraska)
- West Virginia (nowhere close to reaching AAU status, doesn't add strong tv market)
Out of that list, its pretty obvious who by far are the top candidates would be for the conference - the two bluebloods. And if the conference went with 4 schools, it'd be Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas + one more attempt at Notre Dame before going after Missouri.
(This post was last modified: 05-09-2017 01:55 PM by AntiG.)
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