Final Predictions to Cut through the Clutter

ZUG!!!!

I’ll just take the opportunity to say the following:

This conference is run by old guard elitists who don’t care about improving this conference because they’re too wrapped up in the past and their own self-importance. They don’t need a conference championship, because they have the game. There’s no reason to expand, because it simply moves further away from the glorious and immaculate tradition of the Big Ten. This is all one big tease.

I’m never letting that loss go, I want them back on the schedule.

Plus they give us the Harrisburg/East Shore market we want so bad.

I heard a radio guy saying he thought it would be Uconn or Rutgers on my way to work this am. I figure he must know more than me.

NOT…I voted for Notre Dame. Mike’s eloquence got to me.

I was talking with a friend of mine and there is zero chance Notre Dame will be involved. As much as people would like to see them, they are not going to give up their TV contract. Also Notre Dame’s academic programs are not as strong as others in the Big Ten. The Big Ten has a lot of Research schools and Notre Dame is not one. Look at Rutgers, Pitt, Cuse and Missouri. They have more research and acadmics then Notre Dame. As much as people want to look at this as purely a revenue generation plan (Notre Dame), the schools that are in the Big Ten/Eleven are very strong in Acadmics and Research facilities so they may be looking not only to give the conference a title game in football, but to advance the standing of the academics of the conference. Just a thought.

I pretty much understand why the big 10 would want to add a team. I’m a little fuzzy on why just any team would want to join the big 10. Especially if they are already a member of another conference. Can anybody help me out? Is there more money to be made in the Big 10 compared to the Big East / Big XII? I know most conferences use revenue sharing like the Big 10, they may be an exception, but I’m not sure which conference that is. You could make the case that the Big 10 shares more bowl game revenue due to typically placing two teams in BCS games, but I don’t know if that would still be the case if they added a 12th team (having your second best team lose their last game of the season being detrimental to bowl bids.)

(Just based on football) – would it make sense for Cinci, Pitt or Butgers to want to play in the Big10 when they can march out an average team and compete for a Big East title? The way I was looking at it’d have to be something that is mutually beneficial to both schools. That would lead me toward ND (if their tv money dries up) or Boise (no more getting shut out for not being in a conference.) Maybe I’m looking at it from too much of a purely football prospective, but I haven’t been to an Institutional Research game in awhile.

Thanks.

Thanks for the info. I can understand better bowl tie ins, although, you still have to qualify for them which I think would be harder for a school like Rutgers in the Big 10. TV contracts make sense. I wouldn’t know how to quantify one conference’s contract versus another. Also curious that the PSU / ‘cuse OOC game was a regional broadcast, but we’re making the case that future PSU / ’cuse Big 10 games would be national?

than I don’t think it will be ‘Cuse. Maybe Rutgers. ’Cuse alums, of which my sister is one, would not be pleased. They enjoy the basketball traditions of the Big East and while they want the football team to be better than they are now, they don’t demand the level of success of a PSU, UM, O$U. It would be a hard sell to the alums, especially the basketball diehards. They have no interest in playing Iowa, Purdue, PSU every year in lieu of G’Town, ’Nova, UConn. With that being said, their current President is bat sh*t crazy, so who knows.

Rutgers alumni base is pretty large and still remains untapped.