Meanwhile, 10 Big Ten schools have a Tier 3 connection with Denver and 8 of the league’s colleges have a Tier 3 connection with Seattle.In fact, the only instances where a Big Ten school has a Tier 3 connection (much less stronger ones) with a Midwestern market that isn’t either Chicago or wholly or partially located in its own state are (i) the aforementioned example of Northwestern and Purdue with Detroit, (ii) Iowa and Wisconsin with Minneapolis, (iii) Minnesota with Milwaukee and (iv) Nebraska and Iowa with Kansas City (which is a market that isn’t even in the current Big Ten footprint). There really isn’t a great reason why Indianapolis isn’t drawing at least 1% of grads from neighboring state Big Ten schools like Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State… and Indy is one of the healthier Midwestern economies. However, the value wasn’t as obvious when There wasn’t much discussion about Colorado being a possible Big Ten school in the past, but Denver has Tier 3 connections with every Big Ten school except for the 4 that are closest to the East Coast. The additions of those schools were not so much about Maryland and Rutgers actually delivering their respective home markets of DC and NYC, but rather bringing the Big Ten product directly to where the league’s alums now live. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.Over the past several years analyzing conference realignment, observers have had access to some overarching data, such as TV ratings, athletic department revenue, population and demographic trends of states and metro areas, and the home states of current college students. It is the most power conference-like school that isn’t already in a Power Five conference and I’ve said this for years.
Detroit is the 2nd largest metro area in the Midwest, relatively easy driving distance from most of the Big Ten schools, and larger than both the Seattle and Denver markets. It’s pretty rare to have such anticipation for a conference realignment event where the outcome is truly up in the air, so enjoy the speculation while you can!UPDATE (2:24 PM CT): Chip Brown reporting that there were no schools added by the Big 12:We’ll see whether that means that Big 12 expansion is dead or if the presidents will continue to discuss this further ad nauseum.UPDATE (2:34 PM CT): Pete Thamel also with a report that there won’t be Big 12 expansion:Source: Status quo in the Big 12. If the Big 12 decides to expand, it seems that this will come down to a game of musical chairs between BYU (arguably the most valuable school but also the most controversial politically), Houston (helped by a heavy dose of Texas politics) and Cincinnati (the non-controversial and very good across the board candidate but doesn’t have the passionate supporters that BYU and Houston seem to have). However, its largest roadblock can’t really be fixed by anything other than the passage of time: the Big Ten simply isn’t adding a school that has only been playing FBS football since 2002. The addition of Colorado State to the Big 12 would seem to make the most sense if they’re paired up with BYU as part of a 4-team expansion (with the other 2 schools from the east).Pushing further on the first rule of conference realignment of thinking like a university president, I’ve said for several years that Big 12 expansion observers ought to keep an eye on Tulane. **Here are my basic expectations for the Illinois football program: considering its location with access to the Chicago and St. Louis recruiting areas along with Big Ten membership, this team should at least be winning 6 to 8 games per year to consistently make it to bowl games while challenging for the weaker Big Ten West every 4 years or so when senior-laden teams cycle through.