Will The Big Ten Poach The Big East For Its 12th Member?
Written by Matthew C. Keegan // 06/08/2009 // Collegiate Sports, NCAA Football // 14 Comments
For almost two decades now the Big Ten Conference has operated with eleven teams, maintaining its traditional name despite the oddity of that arrangement. Penn State became the conference’s eleventh member in 1990, but no effort to change the conference’s name nor to add a twelfth member to even out the number of schools has been given serious consideration. Until now.
Joe Paterno, affectionately known as JoePa, is the long-standing football coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions and has recently been calling for the conference to add a twelfth school. JoePa noted that the conference is at a disadvantage to some other football playing leagues including the Big 12, ACC and SEC, each of which has enough schools to play a football championship game in early December. While those schools are playing before national television audiences, the Big Ten is inactive, forced to await the start of the postseason bowl season several weeks later.
Scanning The Big East For A New Member
As the winningest coach of all time and 43 years at the helm of Penn State, what JoePa has to say commands a lot of attention. Whether the Big Ten will add a twelfth school as Paterno has suggested may be a stretch, but given that possibility one school could be an excellent fit.
At 82 years old, JoePa says what is on his mind and seems to always have quite a number of ears tuned to whatever he is saying. A few years back when rumors surfaced that JoePa was going to to ushered into retirement, the coach would have nothing to do with such talk. Few people believe that there is a college president in office who would dare come up against JoePa, given his charismatic appeal and penchant for winning. Get rid of JoePa before he is ready to retire and you just may anger 108,000 fans who call Happy Valley home whenever the Nittany Lions are playing in State College, PA.
JoePa has been very specific as to which schools he would like to see considered as the twelfth Big Ten Conference team, naming three from the Big East Conference: Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers. All three are geographical rivals for Penn State and would help balance the eastern edge of the predominately Midwestern conference. But, only one school has the pull that could help the conference’s television ratings, a factor always under consideration when league expansion is considered. And that school is Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Rutgers Gets The Nod
Rutgers is both an interesting choice as well as a good one for two reasons: not too long ago JoePa discouraged any and all of his assistant coaches from seeking a position at the NJ school. JoePa felt that the athletics department wasn’t behind the program which was always languishing at or near the bottom of the big school football pile. Indeed, many years of finishing last meant that a culture of losing existed at Rutgers, something JoePa realized wasn’t easily overcome and could damage a coach’s career. However, when one of his former assistants, Greg Schiano, took over the Rutgers program and quickly turned it around, JoePa was won over.
Another reason why Rutgers gets the nod over Pittsburgh and Syracuse is that the school serves a much bigger market than either other school. Not only are NJ’s nine million residents interested in the program, but that interest includes the Philadelphia and New York City markets, the latter particularly strong as some of the best players the Scarlet Knights have seen over the past few years have come from NYC metropolitan area schools (Ray Rice of New Rochelle, NY for example).
Of course, getting Rutgers into the conference means obtaining the consent of all Big Ten schools and the willingness of the Scarlet Knights to leave the Big East. The former may not be so tough given that there has been interest in Rutgers previously. And, as far as leaving the Big East, you can bet if Rutgers sees a better opportunity elsewhere then they’ll make the jump as soon as they respond, “how high?”
Sources: SNY.tv, Star-Ledger, Sports Illustrated
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14 Comments on "Will The Big Ten Poach The Big East For Its 12th Member?"
A few opinions of my own, if I may. 1. The Big Ten is not JoPa, thus if and when they decide to expand they will chose a school that is in the best interest of the majority of their members – and not just to appease JoPa. 2. Notre Dame, Missouri, Nebraska, and maybe a few others will be ahead of Rutgers in the minds of the majority of Big Ten AD’s & Presidents. The reason – it will serve their own institutional interests better and majority rules. 3. Ohio State & Michigan control the discussion and if either one of them aren’t behind the expansion school 100% then it’s not going anywhere.
Also – you mention Philly as a media market with interest in Rutgers. I’ve lived in Philly for the past 12 years and Rutgers isn’t even in the top 20 of schools followed here. Wishful thinking.
It’s interesting how no one ever mentions WV as the school of choice. They’ve been the strongest program in the Big East over the past 5 years but have a pretty average academic rating being a public land grant institution. Remember athletic conference expansion isn’t all about athletics either, but academic research, endowments and prestige.
@Erick — I agree, there are many hurdles to bringing Rutgers or any other school to the Big Ten, no matter what JoePa or anything else says or thinks. Still, I see the conference expanding for the reason that Paterno mentions: a football championship game.
West Virginia isn’t mentioned for the reason you gave — a pretty average academic rating. Rutgers, on the other hand, is considered by some as a “public ivy” thus it ranks ahead of Nebraska and probably Missouri. As for Notre Dame, I think they enjoy the status quo too much to make a move.
IF I may share some JoePa facts! New Jersey is JoePa’s personal recruiting ground going back to the 60s. Joe said “we feared the day Rutgers gets a good recruiting coach in, we all will be hurting” (referring to Ara Parseshian, @ ND Woody Hayes, @ OSU and Joe, @ PSU).
He never wanted any of his coaches to take a job in Jersey because of exactly what Greg Schiano did! He turned the program around and kept kid in Jersey. Now that Penn State has lost some of their edge, Joe need to do the only thing left Play RU and beat them like a drum so he can continue to cherry pick Jersey athletes.
As for Rutgers joining the big ten, Get Real! Jersey Folks want nothing to do with those “Farm” schools out west, anything beyond the Appalachians and its Indian country! Iowa, Minnesota Wisconsin that is truly the other side of the world! I would rather go to Europe for the weekend, then the mid west, at least there is something worth while seeing better then corn fields, watching a bunch of plow boys play football.
Joe was told when he joined that the big ten would never accept PSU and they never have, they only tolerate them.
Maybe Joe is also senile but a simple answer to the big ten is to PLAY your games later in the fall! No rocket science here!!!
LOL. Thanks, J. Austin. I’m not sure Rutgers faithful would agree with your completely (I’m a NJ native) but I have to think that if the Big Ten came a-calling, then RU would give the conference serious consideration.
Sure, geographically the schools would be spread out more, but RU already travels to the midwest for most other sports as Cincy, Marquette, DePaul and Louisville are all located in Big Ten territory. Even the football team is looking well beyond the region to play nonleague games, discussing a home and home series with UCLA.
Perhaps the best deal for the Big Ten would be to invite RU, Syracuse and Pitt to join, creating a super conference that would be a fertile recruiting battleground for all schools in the future Great Lakes Conference.
In response to Erick’s comment that “Ohio State & Michigan control the discussion”, that is just not true. Do you honestly think that Coach Rodriguez at Michigan has more “pull” in the Big Ten than Joe Paterno? All Big Ten schools have the same vote. Furthermore, regarding West Virginia, you answered your own question, since West Virginia does not fit into the same academic circle as the Big Ten schools. Then again, you did start by saying these were your opinions and not facts.
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