The Big Ten is not done expanding. No way, no how. Not when you listen to what people around the Big Ten are saying. They can't flat-out say "we're adding two more teams"—more on that in a second—but they can sure leave no traces of doubt where the conference will end up.

First, there's this from the Associated Press, via Ralph D. Russo of Yahoo! Sports:

Now, when Delany says the conference is inactive, that gives him and the Big Ten the cover to say that any and all further expansion will have been through the other schools seeking out the Big Ten rather than vice versa.

That's important due to a term called "tortious interference." It basically means "interfering with contracts or other business relations," and if Delany's up there saying his conference is seeking out new members, the conferences where those new members come from have a much stronger case to make once the inevitable lawsuit comes.

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The Big Ten has not had the greatest record of success against the SEC in bowl games recently. Perhaps you've heard.

It hasn't exactly helped that Ohio State's Sugar Bowl win over Arkansas was vacated, because now the SEC fans can say "You needed to cheat to beat us in a big bowl" and they're not completely incorrect.

As per the standing bowl agreements, the Big Ten has three games against the SEC (all on New Year's Day), and if that's making you cringe, it should. The SEC is as strong as it's ever been, with an astonishing six teams in the Top 10 of the BCS standings.

The Big Ten only had six teams even receive votes in the most recent AP Top 25 Poll—and that's the poll that's allowed to consider Ohio State and Penn State.

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As Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez looks for someone to replace outgoing head coach Bret Bielema (working title: The Hunt for Red Successor), the difficulty isn't going to be finding an interested candidate. It's finding a good fit for the Badger program. 

Wisconsin's a good job. Bielema may not have thought the program was committed to paying enough to sustain stability in its coaching ranks (and the track record of the past few years kind of bears that out), but he certainly proved that a good coach can win there—and win consistently.

But Wisconsin's culture is an enduring one, one that Alvarez built and is probably eager to see through as the next chapter of Badger football begins.

It's not a difficult culture to explain, either: Run the ball down their throats, hit them with just enough passes to keep nine guys out of the box and play good enough defense that they're not going to outscore you.

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One of the remarkable aspects of Bret Bielema's sudden defection to Arkansas just weeks before Wisconsin's appearance in the 2013 Rose Bowl is that Wisconsin isn't exactly a lightweight when it comes to spending on coaches. Per the USA Today, Bielema's salary was 18th in the nation for college football coaches, and that sounds about right. If you were to rank Wisconsin among the best programs in the nation, wouldn't it come in around No. 18?

Even when you factor in assistant coaches' salaries, Wisconsin is still hanging around at No. 22 in the nation, and that's hardly a large drop-off. It's a bit low compared to the Badgers' current prestige level, but not unreasonably so. Plus Bielema and his staff probably would have been in line for raises just for hanging around and continuing to succeed on the field. Nobody would have batted an eye at another million or so going to the staff after this season.

Ah, but off to the SEC goes Bielema, and there's one thing the SEC does better than the Big Ten: spend, spend, spend. Bielema is set to gain $3.2 million with incentives, a rather substantial bump in pay. Moreover, though, the SEC spends on assistant coaches—and that's going to mean better assistant retention, which has been Bielema's bane in Madison.

Think Bielema's doesn't mind it when assistants take better jobs elsewhere? He's so exquisitely aware of it that he mentioned it at his introductory news conference at Arkansas. Here's Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated:

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Oh, so the Big Ten is expanding again. No, not again again, we don't have some surprise news about Notre Dame or anything; we're talking about Maryland and Rutgers. Those two schools represent the Big Ten's farthest foray east, and even if we're done with Big Ten expansion right then and there (unlikely), the Big Ten still has some decisions to make about alignment.

Right now we've got the Legends and Leaders. Those division names are effectively meaningless, as there's nothing more legendary about the six schools in that division nor is leadership the exclusive providence of those programs. One should at least expect division names to be halfway representative of the actual things that divide those teams up, after all.

Now, yes, the ACC—you know, the Atlantic Coast Conference—does have the Atlantic Division and Coastal Division, and those names have persevered in spite of being nonsensical divisors. But do we really want the Big Ten emulating the ACC?

(looks at list of expansion candidates)

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Obviously, the biggest story facing the Big Ten this bowl season is what its Rose Bowl representative, Wisconsin, is going to do after losing head coach Bret Bielema to Arkansas less than one month before kickoff. It seems insane that someone would rather coach no bowl game for an SEC team than coach in the Rose Bowl for a third straight year, but here we are.

So Wisconsin's got some options at this point. Does it try to make a permanent hire as soon as possible? Does it promote an assistant to interim head coach and let that ride through to bowl season? And what's to make of the athletic director, who just so happens to be Barry Alvarez, the only coach in Wisconsin history to win more games than the departing Bret Bielema?

Regardless of what Alvarez and Wisconsin do in the hiring process, do not expect a grand departure from what Wisconsin does on either side of the ball. Recall what Bielema said after he led his players to that 70-31 shellacking against Nebraska in the Big Ten Championship:

They don't deviate. And they're not going to start deviating between now and January 1, regardless of whether Bielema's the head coach.

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The struggle is real. It is happening. We worried on Sunday that the Big Ten might not win a single bowl game here in 2012; now that fear has the backing of Vegas.

According to The Michigan Daily, the Big Ten is expected to lose every game it plays in come December and January:

Woof.

Noting as always that you should never bet on college football anyway, here's a look at all seven bowls and how much of a shot the Big Ten's got in them. 

Toss-ups

Northwestern vs. Mississippi State, Gator Bowl: Mississippi State has beaten nobody this year. Even when the Bulldogs were 7-0, their schedule was so cupcakey (new word alert) that polls refused to push them past the mid-teens. Yes, an undefeated SEC team that voters yawned at. The 1-4 finish to the season proved that wise. Northwestern's got the talent to hang with MSU here, and the motivation from the Capital One Bowl snub and the bowl win drought should keep Northwestern hungry.

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Just 24 hours ago, nobody was thinking about the possibility that the Wisconsin Badgers would be looking for a head coach. Why would they? Bret Bielema had just finished hanging 70 points on Nebraska and punched his team's ticket to Pasadena for its third straight Rose Bowl in the process.

And yet, per Yahoo! Sports, here we are.

So now let's take a look around the nation and try to figure out who's next in the cardinal and white on the sidelines for Wisconsin. You'll notice a theme.

Paul Chryst, Pittsburgh Head Coach

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