One of the biggest storylines around Cincinnati athletics is conference realignment. I hate talking about it, but people love reading about. I can't say this is the Cincinnati blog for the people without talking about what the people want to talk about. That leads to this little bit of info from Jeremy Fowler at CBS. He talked to Ohio State AD Gene Smith. Smith dropped this quote:
“I think you're going to have all types of rumors about us and the Big 12,” Smith said. “We're not doing anything right now. We'll sit and evaluate Rutgers' and Maryland's transition. We don't want to screw that up. Right now we're not aggressively pursuing anyone.”
That's not to say the Big 10 isn't pursuing anyone, just that they aren't aggressively pursuing anyone. The big kicker is whatever happens this spring with Maryland's exit from the ACC. If they can negotiate the 50 million dollar exit fee down, maybe that would make the Big 10 go after someone else.
The Big 12 has a little nugget at the end of the article about how if they expand that they would go after some combination of 5 ACC schools. With how West Virginia has been complaining about travel, you would think that would put some doubts into why those schools would leave the ACC. If the Big 12 took Georgia Tech and North Carolina, there would be no natural traveling partners. Colorado and Utah aren't natural partners but the Pac 12 gets by would be a counter.
Conference realignment circles around the Big 10. If they are putting a stop to expansion after Rutgers and Maryland, even for just a couple of years, that will probably stop expansion in other leagues. If the Big 10 isn't talking about expansion, that's bad for Cincinnati. Root for more illogical moves.
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