Whoa, buddy.
WNDU in South Bend is reporting that pretty soon the Big Ten will expand to include Missouri, Syracuse, Nebraska, Pittsburgh, and Rutgers. Forget this whole deal about moving to 12 teams. Sweet sixteen, buddy!
Also, that means Notre Dame is staying independent ... for now. Because they enjoy playing only half a Big Ten schedule anyway, much like most MAC teams do.
A couple weeks ago Matt Hinton at Yahoo! Sports wrote profusely on the idea of such large conferences, and how they're more of their own leagues rather than parts of a larger whole. And yes, 16 football teams would be exactly that: its own league. (Hell, there's not even enough games on the schedule for everybody to play one another.)
So what does this do for realignment? This will basically poach two teams from the Big 12, making it the new "Big Ten," (cue Nelson Muntz) while the Big East, in the current hypothetical future imperfect, becomes 13 basketball schools and just five football teams. (Yeah, NOW you're wantin' Temple back.)
If this report holds true, expect several other dominoes to fall. Why, perhaps even YOUR SCHOOL [points directly at you] will be affected! And maybe we'll finally get that playoff system everybody's been clamoring about.
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