Quote:Tom Osborne won’t name names. But the iconic former Nebraska Cornhuskers coach and athletic director told Land of 10 Friday that he’s been approached by other schools that have expressed “interest” in joining the Big Ten.

“I don’t want to start jumping into that hornet’s nest where someone’s quoting me as saying, ‘Well, this school ought to join the Big Ten,’ ” Osborne said during a media tour in greater Des Moines to promote his TeamMates mentoring organization.

“I do know people that I’ve talked to in the past who maybe have some interest. And so I think the Big Ten is a viable option.”

Osborne, the Huskers’ coach from 1973 to 1997 and athletic director from 2007 to 2013, helped to shepherd the Big Red from its longtime home in the Big Eight/Big 12 to the Big Ten seven years ago. Nebraska accepted an offer to join the Big Ten in June 2010 and entered the league the following summer.

A slew of talking heads have been connecting some of Osborne’s old sparring partners — namely Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas — with a possible move to the Big Ten for more than a year now.

Osborne politely declined to divulge specific schools and specific questions, but the Big 12 — Nebraska’s old neighborhood — continues to send up the occasional red flag of internal dysfunction. The Dallas-based conference scuttled expansion talks last summer after a dog-and-pony show that reportedly saw a chunk of candidates parade their wares, including, most notably, Houston, Cincinnati and UConn from the American Athletic Conference, and BYU, a football independent.

The Big 12’s grant of media rights deal runs through 2025. The Big Ten’s latest television agreements with FOX, ESPN and CBS reportedly run through 2023.