I've been following r/cfb's Ranking the Top 131 FBS Programs of the Last 40 Years series and it looks like objectively the following teams are the Top 6 teams for the Big Ten (ranked order TBD)

1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Penn State
4. Wisconsin
5. Iowa
6. Nebraska
   

As a thought exercise, if we posit that goal of any future expansion is to

1. Help all 6 teams listed above make the CFP more often (i.e. win more and help recruiting)
2. Be at least revenue neutral (ideally positive)

What are the schools that the Big Ten should target?

From this angle school like Oregon and Washington don't seem all that attractive. The list I get is

UNC
FSU
Miami
...ASU?

...that seems about it? What say you?

Let me help you out here.

1. Ohio State's goal is to get Ohio State and Ohio State only to the CFP.
2. The only way to get Iowa or Wisconsin to the CFP is to invite the Kansas City Chiefs to the B1G and make Ohio State play them every week.

Conferences don't expand on the basis of helping 2 random members make the CFP.

(07-31-2023 08:40 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Conferences don't expand on the basis of helping 2 random members make the CFP.

Nor on the basis of helping legacy members, random or otherwise. They may consider the possibility that a new member might increase the total revenue the league might earn from post season play in addition to their media value in assessing whether they would increase per school revenues. But it's hard to see any more schools not already in either the B1G or SEC that would increase the per school revenue of either those conferences.

One would argue that if the B1G's objective was to help Iowa & Wisconsin make the CFP then their goal would have been to simply keep the status quo, not invite the LA schools and not ditching the East/West divisions where Iowa/Wisc could continue to get fat off Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, Nebraska and Purdue every year.

(07-31-2023 08:28 AM)woomba Wrote:  I've been following r/cfb's Ranking the Top 131 FBS Programs of the Last 40 Years series and it looks like objectively the following teams are the Top 6 teams for the Big Ten (ranked order TBD)

1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Penn State
4. Wisconsin
5. Iowa
6. Nebraska
   

As a thought exercise, if we posit that goal of any future expansion is to

1. Help all 6 teams listed above make the CFP more often (i.e. win more and help recruiting)
2. Be at least revenue neutral (ideally positive)

What are the schools that the Big Ten should target?

From this angle school like Oregon and Washington don't seem all that attractive. The list I get is

UNC
FSU
Miami
...ASU?

...that seems about it? What say you?

If Nebraska is rated #6 on a 40 year ranking, the metrics are garbage. Nebraska was comfortably ahead of any Big 10 team in the 80s and 90s and probably better than anyone but FSU and Miami. They haven't dropped enough to fall behind Wisconsin and Iowa.

If we go by the reddit list, the Big Ten's priority should be to help the teams at the top of the list win a national championship. CFP's put money in the bank but long term a national championship would mean more in the Big Ten's battle vs. the SEC for college football legitimacy. And even if we are going from a Playoff standpoint and we assume a 12 team format where Ohio State and Michigan will be regulars, the next priority should be Penn State, the next closest, and make them a regular Playoff participant. Iowa and Nebraska are likely further away (especially Nebraska who was terrible under Scott Frost). The Big Ten's priority should then be to keep the Big Three happy which means more East, less West.

The B1G wants UNC and VA. After that they may need to get to 20, but there are multiple options to do that adjacent to their footprint: Georgia Tech, Kansas, Miami, all AAU, and it is entirely likely that with UNC comes Duke, so after VA they would need one more. And that could be Stanford.

The answer is no one the B1G could add to make it easier for Wisconsin and Iowa. Whatever they did would also help OSU, Michigan and Penn State to a larger degree. They already gave Wisconsin and Iowa all the help they could by putting OSU, Michigan and Penn State in the B1G East so they don't have to play all three of them every year. The only thing you could do was force the three top schools to destroy 30,000 seats in their stadium to level the massive financial advantage they have in gate receipts for 7 games a year or force them to share the revenue. If you want a better chance to make the CFP every year give Brett Yormark a call before Arizona does.

I don't think the question should be who to add. I think it should be what to add. To give them the best chance, I think you add conference semis (especially if we expand beyond 16). Then you have 18-20 teams in the B1G/SEC fighting for the top 4 spots on Thanksgiving weekend rather than 14-16 teams fighting for 2 spots or 7 teams fighting for 1 spot. Get to the 4 team conference playoff and win a couple games against the top conference competition and earn a top 6 conference champ bid. Even losing in a close top 10-25 matchup could help a team's resume. Also allows conferences to earn additional revenue before the expanded CFP.

Best chance = make OSU and Michigan ineligible for the league championship game. Both schools have done enough that a case could be made. Otherwise Wisconsin and Iowa should move leagues -AAC would provide a nice path, worked for Fickel at UC.

The goal should be to get the BigTen's media payouts much higher than any other conference. That will raise the level of the entire conference and result in more at-large bids in a 12-team playoff.

So in that spirit. The 4 schools added should be

1. ND
2. Tex
3. Florida
4. UNC

This will increase Big Ten revenue but at the same time adds recent underperformers the same way Neb has been underperforming! Notice I did not pick Bama, Georgia, Clemson or Oklahoma.

(07-31-2023 09:13 AM)schmolik Wrote:  If we go by the reddit list, the Big Ten's priority should be to help the teams at the top of the list win a national championship. CFP's put money in the bank but long term a national championship would mean more in the Big Ten's battle vs. the SEC for college football legitimacy. And even if we are going from a Playoff standpoint and we assume a 12 team format where Ohio State and Michigan will be regulars, the next priority should be Penn State, the next closest, and make them a regular Playoff participant. Iowa and Nebraska are likely further away (especially Nebraska who was terrible under Scott Frost). The Big Ten's priority should then be to keep the Big Three happy which means more East, less West.

And have USC be number 4

I guess if you wanted to prop up Iowa and Wisconsin's records, you'd add a team like Nebraska that they could beat regularly.