Big 10 Expansion

Disclaimer: None of the following has been verified and is most likely totally untrue. The intent of releasing this information is to create discussion, debate, and to make many of your heads explode. When/if it happens, remember you heard it here first.

It's been quite the earthshaking NCAA Football season so far! Let's re-cap before I truly make your heads spin with the latest unconfirmed rumors.

• There's been rumors and rumblings about a proposed expanded playoff system, once ESPN figures out how to pack it with SEC teams while giving the illusion of inclusion. (The simplest expansion would be the six highest ranked Conference Champions from any conference, regardless of actual ranking, plus the next two highest ranked teams, with no conference having more than two playoff entries.)

• Oklahoma and Texas have announced they are bolting to the SEC and leaving the Big 12 decimated.
• The decimated Big 12 has announced they too will be expanding, after poaching three teams from the AAC along with independent BYU.
• The AAC has announced plans to add six schools from Conference USA.
• Conference USA is adding four replacement teams, including two independents and two FCS teams.
• The Sun Belt Conference is doing a little reshuffling and additions as well.
• USC has finally found their next coach, pilfering Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma.
• Meanwhile, down in the bayou where LSU fired their coach less than two years after winning a National Championship, plans are being made to welcome Notre Dame's previous coach, Brian Kelly.

What a delightful mess, especially when you consider the folks in charge of this train wreck are also the folks in charge of our nation's institutions of higher learning, tasked with educating our future leaders. Allow me to add to the chaos while you gawk and scoff in disbelief.

The Big 10 may be in talks to expand, even though they said they wouldn't. The current target is Texas A&M. If it happens, Oklahoma State would most likely be joining the Big 10 along with them. This would cause another major upheaval throughout the college football landscape.

It appears that unnamed bigwigs connected to Texas A&M are extremely upset that Texas was invited to join them in the SEC. They feel betrayed, having consented to joining the SEC with the understanding that Texas A&M would be the only Texas school in the conference.

They have now reached out to the Big 10 and the Big 10 may be listening, provided they find a partner to come with them. This partner would have to be a non-Texas team and a team that Nebraska approves of, with Nebraska long regretting leaving their former Big 12 rivals behind. Oklahoma State would most likely be this team.

The proposed Big 10 conference re-alignment would be four divisions with four teams per division. Each team would play the three teams in their division every year and play all four teams from another division two years in a row, allowing for Home/Away mini-series.

• Division A: Ohio St., Michigan, Rutgers, Indiana.
• Division B: Penn St., Michigan St., Maryland, Purdue.
• Division C: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern.
• Division D: Texas A&M, Oklahoma St., Nebraska, Iowa.

This scheduling would provide seven conference games, with the eighth conference game coming at the end of the season, matching division #1's vs division #1's, division #2's vs division #2's, division #3's vs division #3's, and division #4's vs division #4's.

The winner's of the division #1 games would then meet in a Conference Championship game and most likely a berth in the National Championship playoffs. (Again, the six highest ranked Conference Champions from any conference, regardless of actual ranking, plus the next two highest ranked teams, with no conference having more than two playoff entries.)

What a major coup for Big 10 bragging rights that would send the SEC scrambling to find a Texas A&M replacement while wiping egg from their faces. I can just hear the Big 10 blow-hards now:

"You've got your Texas and Oklahoma teams and now we've got ours! We're the conference your teams leave to join! Bwa-ha-ha!"

It would be glorious, absolutely glorious.

The word is the SEC would again target Clemson in a face-saving move. Reports are there have previously been discussions, with the SEC reluctantly settling on Texas after being rejected by Clemson.

Clemson, of course, would prefer to remain in the ACC where a near-automatic playoff berth was almost guaranteed. The new playoff expansion; the emergence of a Big 10 Super Conference; and the Dabo Swinney to Oklahoma Notre Dame rumors could have them re-thinking that.

Clemson leaving the ACC and Oklahoma State leaving the Big 12 could set off another round of conference chaos. We'll just have to wait and see how that all works out. Just remember, this is the NCAA where cut-throats rule, and remember, you heard it here first.