Twelve’s a Crowd

If it seems like we’ve had our mind on football a lot lately, it’s because we have. It’s Notre Dame week,. and it’s always thrilling to throttle some arrogant pricks from a private school. Just ask the Mighty Ducks. Or Steve.
But I’m not full of that much vitriol tonight (check back tomorrow), so I wanted to explore an issue surrounding Notre Dame and the Big Ten. Especially recently with the introduction of the Big Ten Network (evil), the conference has been looking to add a 12th team in order to set up a football championship game, in which they would rake in a ton more money. They want to add a school in a major market in order to draw in more TV viewers, but from a competitive and traditional standpoint, that seems difficult. So what are we left with? I have a few ideas to get the Big Ten their silly conference championship game.
First, let’s squash the two previous rumors. Notre Dame isn’t coming to the Big Ten. They have a TV deal and a tough schedule every year as it is. They don’t even come close to needing to play in a football conference. Besides, the idea of them having a shot at the Rose Bowl makes me a little queasy. The other school (that I haven’t mentioned yet in this post) that has been rumored is Rutgers. Rutgers is located in New Jersey, but hardly has the attention of the New York City area. Additionally, they don’t have any history of on the field success and would generally be fodder for the elite teams year in, year out. So lets look at a few realistic options.
The first is to poach one of the elite teams from the Big East, like West Virginia or Louisville. Both have a fairly stable history of successful football programs and would be a good spoil to Ohio State and Michigan. But therein lies another problem. If you have 12 teams, you’re going to want to split the Big Ten into two divisions with the winner of each in the conference title game. You add Louisville or West Virginia, you’re left with divisions that look like this:
West: Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue (?)
East: Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan St. Indiana (?) West Virginia/Louisville

First off, this is a good way to split up a rivalry between Purdue and Indiana, but how do you move another team from the east to the west? And would Indiana ever win another football game? Probably not.
So we move on to option two, which is a little more feasible. Poach from the Big Twelve, which would ironically put the Big Twelve at eleven teams and the Big Ten at twelve. The best two choices there are Iowa State, which already has a rivalry with Iowa, and Missouri, which already plays Illinois every year. This makes a lot more sense with our division layout. You’ve then got this:
West: Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa State/Missouri
East: Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue.

That makes a little more sense, geographically, but the east is still much stronger than the west. This hasn’t really ever been a problem for the SEC, but I can see why Indiana may not be so happy about this reallignment.
There is of course, the option of going to the weaker conferences, like the MAC, and adding a team like Northern Illinois, which would fit well in the west. The Huskies are usually competitive and are probably the best football school in the immediate Chicago area. Win-win! an even more remote possibility is adding a 1-AA school like North Dakota State, which is probably better than at least a third of the Big Ten this year anyways. I would love to see Michigan play at the Fargodome. And lose, of course.
The last option I can think of is to boot a team out to get the even numbers. Right now, I have to believe that Minnesota would be optimal for removal from the Big Ten. They don’t recruit well, they don’t travel well, they aren’t a good basketball school either when winter rolls around, they are further from any school than any other school in the conference. And, oh yeah, they’re terrible.
Any other ideas? Let me know down there in the comments.