(03-18-2020 08:18 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  3 of the 4 schools in parentheses will ever be in the Big Ten. In some bizarro world scenario Iowa St maybe sneaks in.

Here are the schools the Big Ten would WANT:

Oklahoma
Texas
Notre Dame

They’d accept Kansas as a filler school to go with one of the Big 12 schools. For a companion school to pair with ND I think your pool is: BC, Pitt, Cuse, UVA, UNC, Duke, or GT but any of those 7 are strictly filler—those are not high profile targets that the Big Ten is actively trying acquire.

I've argued Oklahoma is a filler too. We get too caught up on the current state of the football program. If somehow the Big Ten could get Alabama or LSU from the SEC should we try for them too? Is Clemson the most valuable ACC school? Schools need to be more to the Big Ten than just a football program to be a Big Ten target (now filler/companion school is a different story). Ask yourself if the football team becomes Florida State or Nebraska what value would the school be to the Big Ten? Even if Texas is a .500 school they're still valuable to the Big Ten in other ways. You can say the same about Notre Dame. Can you say the same about Oklahoma? My answer is no. I don't think Penn State's other sports want to be traveling to Oklahoma. It's bad enough they have to go to Nebraska. Cable TV/the BTN may not be as big a deal 20-30 years from now as it is today but still population will matter. If Florida State ever gets good again, you have a much larger potential audience from the state of Florida than you would for Clemson. Same with Texas compared to Oklahoma. Sure, I'd rather have an undefeated Clemson than a 7-5 FSU but I'd rather an undefeated FSU than an undefeated Clemson and a 7-5 Texas than a 7-5 Oklahoma.