Big Ten Expansion Is a Great Idea, but There Are No Real Candidates

Joe Paterno is among the advocates pushing for a 12th team to be added to the Big Ten Conference.

Unfortunately, there are no appropriate candidates for expansion. This is bad news to people expecting a championship game in Chicago, Indianapolis, or Cleveland for the conference.

Instead, odds are high that the Big Ten will stay with 11 teams for the foreseeable future.

With the Big Ten's regional footprint in the Midwest, the most likely candidate to join is independent Notre Dame.

Unfortunately, with the proud heritage of Notre Dame and the lucrative TV contract the university has with NBC, along with its Big East basketball ties, this is very unlikely.

Even though the Irish have rivalries with Michigan and other Big Ten schools, odds are that Notre Dame will not be joining the party anytime soon.

Looking west, Mizzou would be the next most likely candidate, with close proximity to Iowa and Illinois. However, doing so would take a team away from the Big 12, which they would never go for.

Big East teams such as Pitt and Rutgers have also been thrown in the mix.

Neither school has the enormous fanbase that programs such as Ohio State and Penn State have, though it would expand the scope of the conference into the mid-Atlantic region of the country.

Pitt would probably choose to stay in the Big East because, again, of its basketball program being one of the elite programs in the country.

Rutgers just doesn't have the large appeal of a big-time program despite its location in New Jersey, with some proximity to New York City and Philadelphia.

So what option does the Big Ten have to get better?

Recruit better.

Only Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State have been great recruiting programs, with some aberrations in other circles.

The lower-level programs need to recruit more aggressively to strengthen the conference as a whole.

Although the average college fan wants a championship game for the Big Ten, the resources are not available for such a scenario to occur smoothly.

The best thing the conference can do is open up a nine- to 10-game intraconference schedule and extend the season an extra week, despite the weather in the Midwest.