If we continue to add teams, at what point does each division basically become a conference?
At 16 teams, we'd play non division teams once every 4 years! Once ever 8 years at home!!! What's the the point? And what a shame!
Because they (Nebraska) were stripped of their AAU status shortly after admission to the B1G. The B1G places a higher value on academics than any other conference. That is why I don't think OU gets an invite but maybe the B1G would look past OU's less than stellar academics in order to add one of college football's true blue blood programs. Nebraska is not a true blue blood program
Being a major research university is a critical priority of the Big 10 Universities, and all members were among the 62 major research universities in the nation. No one can say for certain but without it it is unlikely but not certain that the BT presidents would have acted affirmatively in regard to Nebbie.. One thing is undeniable: they acted with undue haste (the last prior occasion of extending membership, too Penn State, was a three year process, with the BT requiring numerous improvements and costly upgrades. One surmise is hard to doubt: the BT brought Nebbie into the club expecting Nebbie to be the principal beneficiary of financier Warren Buffet's estate: obvious that they were not anticipating his entry into a massive long term philanthropic partnership with Bill & Melissa Gates, to help each other get rid of 80% of their wealth. Still, there is plenty left for Buffet to give, as he always has, generously to UNL (although UNO & the UN medical center in Omaha...not to overlook the fact that Omaha has the nation's highest concentration of millionaires, many of them large donors to Nebbie. Like Penn State, Nebbie has a mandate from the BT to upgrade programs & facilities, and to regain its AAU status...and will have ample financial resources to do so.
Virtually all of these many posts indicate almost no grasp of the place of athletics in American universities. Most college administrators feel about athletics as they would a lingering disease, unable to figure out how to get our from under without losing political & alumni support. Almost all (90%+) lose money. Add headaches instead of dollars. And the very serious health risks of football require more than aspirin to remedy. Fans rarely are aware of the budget impact: even though BT athletic departments average almost $100 million, at NOT ONE of the BT schools does the athletic budget amount to even close to 10% of the overall budget. A hand full of doctors at UIHC bring in more than twice the revenue from athletics.
Few Hawkeye fans know that the U of TX sought BT membership thirty years ago, and the BT was very eager; however the TX Regents, high state officials with TX A&M ties, and the legislature's leaders refused to allow TX to move from the SW Conference to the BT unless TX A&M was also offered membership. The BT wanted no part of TX A&M. Penn State acted quickly to seek to replace UTA, and the opportunity to expand into an industrial Eastern state & the Pennsylvania state budget to finance BT research programs was too good to pass up.
When the U of Iowa passed over Vice Prez Wally Loh in blundering to choose Sally Mason, the U of Maryland immediately jumped at the miracle chance to hire Loh. Loh, who was a major figure in the BT's academic & research side, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, understood the attractiveness to the BT of adding presence in the nation's capital (the U of MD) and its major financial-entertainment-communications-corporate-philantropic center in NYC (Rutgers). The financial woes of Maryland & the inauspicious sports heritage of Rutgers were no problem: the BT wealth from national television contracts & bowl games would solve those minor problems ins time.
Is there any chance of BT expansion? Yes, but not because of the BT; rather to further the research & academic goals of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. At the top of the wish list are two schools that are the antithesis of big-time athletics: Johns Hopkins & Washington U of St Louis (their merits: they outdistance all other universities & research centers when it comes to receiving contributions & federal grants & contracts). The BT may lust after them but neither has any apparent reciprocal interest. The BT may eventually pursue the U of Virginia & possibly Pitt for essentially the same reason: more & more access to private philantrophy & government funds.
The most practical expansion would be to return attention to the U of TX as a potential member. There is indisputable mutual interest: UTA has immense wealth & resources, as well as a fine academic reputation & top faculty; the BT would bring UTA vastly more benefits than the Big 12, in which it is the only true major player, only Iowa State even seriously also in the game.
But the U of TX-BT marriage isn't going to happen any time soon. The problem is politics. The state's politics have changed over the past 50 years, oil men increasing their control & banking is the new 2000 pound gorilla. It isn't a matter of partisan politics, though that sets the parameters. The BT presidents, administrators, boards, faculties see the dominant attitudes in TX (and Oklahoma, which has NO chance of BT membership) as deeply hostile to science, religious tolerance, multiculturalism, high priorities on educational spending, internationalism, and a host of other values and communal interests that prevail in university life. There are mutual hostilities and distrust that did not have such importance when the prior discussions took place.
