Call Renewed For Big Ten Expansion

By Marcus Gilmer in Miscellaneous on Dec 14, 2009 7:20PM

With the bowls set, buzz has been building over the past few days that the Big Ten is looking to expand to a 12th team for football, the first such expansion since Penn State was added to the conference in 1993. While there's no timetable for the expansion, Wisconsin A.D. Barry Alvarez said last week that the conference is starting to explore some possibilities: "I just think everybody feels [expansion] is the direction to go, coaches and administrators." Alvarez also pointed out a 12th team would lead to a conference split into two six-team divisions and a conference championship game (a la the SEC and Big 12). Conference commissioner Jim Delany was noncommittal about such a move earlier this year, telling ESPN it wasn't, "an obvious move." Delany hasn't responded yet to Alvarez's recent comments. Speculation is already centering on Rutgers to be poached from the Big East as the potential 12th team. Other candidates being bandied about include Syracuse, Pitt, and even the University of Cincinnati as the pipe dream of luring seems to remain just that.