Texas A&M and SEC Expansion: Does the Big Ten Have a Horse in This Race?

Will the Big Ten be left in the expansion cold during one of the biggest shifts in the modern college football history? Wednesday morning, the SEC officially announced that their presidents voted unanimously to make Texas A&M their newest member.

This decision comes with a caveat: A&M's break from the Big 12 must be clean and without the threat of legal action.

Back on September 2, the Big 12 agreed to allow the Aggies to leave the conference without said threat of legal action. Now however, it appears that at least one school is second guessing their decision and may be suing Texas A&M. 

Multiple sources around the internet identify that school as Baylor.

UPDATE: According to the Des Moines Register, Iowa State also retains rights to sue Texas A&M and/or the SEC.

The whole affair is almost comical, yet very serious for the college football landscape. 

Where does the Big Ten fit into all of this? Or do they at all? 

Why Would Baylor Change Their Mind?

Assuming that it is, in fact, Baylor that is potentially suing over Texas A&M's departure from the league, why would they care if the Aggies bolt or not?

The answer is pretty simple, really.  Baylor is a program on the rise, but they are not a heavily sought entity in the big realignment picture. They are protecting their interests, plain and simple.

Of all the scenarios tossed out, dating back to the spring of 2010 when the Big Ten and Pac-12 were mulling expansion, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State were the names most often left out of the big picture.

It is not that these schools are "undesirables" per se, but that they just do not bring enough to the table for the major conferences to give them much thought. Kansas and Kansas State are big basketball schools, but football drives the money train.

In that capacity, none of those schools stack up to the big boys. If the Big 12 dissolves, as many speculate, these schools could be left looking for a chair when the music ends.  

Baylor obviously does not like that scenario at all.  Right now, they are comfortable with the status quo. They have a home with an automatic qualifier into BCS bowl games, they have a revenue stream that they can live with, and they have a football program that is slowly building a name for itself.

If things continue as they have been going the last two years, Baylor might be able to make a big enough name in the future to secure a spot in a realigned "Super Conference." Right now however, they are just an upstart program with too small of a market and too little national draw to hold anyone's attention.

Now is not the time to be searching for a new home.

Where the Chips May Fall

 Recent rumors have stated that Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech are potentially going to the Pac-12 if Texas A&M is indeed welcomed into the SEC. That would instantly boost the Pac-12 up to 16 teams and create the first Super Conference with two equally viable divisions.

Imagine a conference championship game between USC and Oklahoma.

The sheer coverage of the conference, along with big name programs would practically insure that television deals would skyrocket and conference coffers would overflow.

That is the hope at least.

With the Aggies going to the SEC, there is also little doubt that Mike Slive will quickly work to snag a 14th team to even out the numbers and keep equal divisions. However, it is unknown to anyone who the 14th team would be.

Whoever it is, you can pretty well guaranteed that it will not going to be a small program without some semblance of national appeal and reputable competition on the gridiron. 

Also, who is to say that the SEC will not go ahead and push toward 16 teams while they are in the process of expanding? Slive is no fool.  He well knows that the Big Ten will not sit idly by while the rest of the college football world tosses lots for the best names that are willing to bend an ear.

The ACC might feel compelled to lure someone from the Big East to retain their own viability or might be willing to negotiate a merger to prevent both conferences from being pillaged by the SEC and Big Ten.

There are no reports—or even believable rumors—to substantiate that, but common sense would say that these two conferences are very nervously watching what's going on to their west.

None of them want to become the next Boise State or TCU—good programs that just do not play an equal schedule.

What's Left for the Big Ten?

If—and I do emphasize if—all or any of this were to take shape, what's left for the Big Ten? 

Notre Dame?  Forget it.

While the Irish have conceded that a scenario could exist that would force them into abandoning their independence in favor of a conference affiliation for football, they never said that the Big Ten was their landing pad.  In fact, the rest of their sports participate in the Big East and it is as much a cultural fit for the Irish as the Big Ten is.

In my opinion, Notre Dame is off the table entirely and I think Jim Delany knows it. 

Maryland? Maybe, but Maryland has strong ties to the ACC and would likely hang around to see how a Big East-ACC merger would work for them. 

Syracuse? Or possibly Rutgers?

Would these two schools really be great additions for the Big Ten? I understand the draw of the New York market, but there is no guarantee that market would really open up for the Big Ten.  It is too risky considering neither of those teams have been overly competitive against quality competition. 

They don't really do anything for the strength of the conference and only hopefully bring enough viewers to make up for their lack of success on the field.

Pittsburgh?

What do the Panthers add to the Big Ten?  They have the academic standards and they provide a fun in-state rival for Penn State, but they're not going to turn any heads or turn on any additional televisions.

Iowa State?  They bring even less than all of the previously mentioned. 

Penn State and Nebraska were "home run" additions when they came aboard.  Will the conference settle for four warm bodies just so they can become a Super Conference?  I sure hope not.

However, this is what the Big Ten is facing if they do not make some strong overtures to quality programs.  Truthfully, they should have made them... yesterday. Literally. 

The biggest names in the realignment carousel appear to be heading elsewhere.

The Big Ten will remain strong, no matter what happens.  Its current members are not likely to go anywhere, and for that reason alone they will remain competitively and financially relevant. 

The addition of Nebraska could be viewed as the first volley in the whole affair.  If that is how you want to view it, then perhaps the Big Ten was the smart one for grabbing their first choice before the sale even opened.

Still, with names like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, or even Missouri still hanging in the air, how will it look for the conference if the largest realignment in the modern history of college football took place and the Big Ten sat silently by like a mime stuck in his glass box.

This is an awfully big race about to take off and the Big Ten does not appear to even have a horse at the park.