What Does Texas A&M's Decision To Leave the Big 12 Mean for the Big Ten?

Texas A&M is expected to announce this week that it is leaving the Big 12, presumably to open the door to an invite from the SEC. What does this mean for the rest of college football—specifically the Big Ten?

The short answer? Nothing.

Conference commissioner Jim Delany has been keeping a close eye on the expansion down south, and he has still affirmed his commitment to a 12-team Big Ten for the time being: 

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In response to a number of recent media inquiries received by several Big Ten Presidents and Chancellors regarding the likelihood of further expansion by the Big Ten, the COP/C would like to reiterate that it will not be actively engaged in conference expansion at this time, or at any time in the foreseeable future, barring a significant shift in the current intercollegiate athletic landscape.

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Jim Delany sees just what the Big Ten currently has going for it. The conference just added a storied football program in Nebraska, which opened the door for a very profitable and compelling conference championship game—one which will keep the Big Ten at the forefront of the national consciousness during early December.

Furthermore, the Big Ten still has one of the sweetest TV deals in the country which is not only equitable—unlike the Longhorn Network—but stands to make every conference member from Ohio State to Indiana very successful in terms of athletic revenue.

The SEC's move is, in effect, more about catching up than getting ahead. The SEC's TV deal is currently middle-of-the-pack behind both the Big Ten and the recently inked Pac-12 deal. By adding Texas A&M it not only opens up a huge new media market in Texas, but it allows the SEC to push a renegotiation on the current TV deal. In the end, it is all about the Benjamins, and the SEC stands to gain a few of them by bringing Texas A&M on board.

However, the long answer to how this might affect the Big Ten is a little trickier.

The problem with just Texas A&M going to the SEC is imbalance. Thirteen teams means one division has seven while the other has six: not a desirable structure for a major football conference (sorry, MAC, I said major).

That is why the end of Delany's quote above is so important: barring a significant shift in the current intercollegiate athletic landscape. Mrs. Delany didn't raise no fools. Jim Delany understands completely that the SEC won't simply add one team and pack in the red carpet.  If A&M comes aboard there will be an offer to another school within a year or two.

It is this next offer that destabilizes the rest of college football and could force Jim Delany's hand.

If the SEC grabs an ACC team like Florida State or Virginia Tech, that causes the ACC to have to react and pull its membership back to 12. That means most likely gutting the Big East  Now the Big East, which is already struggling to remain a major conference on its own, must push even harder to add teams or else fail completely.  

If it fails there will be a free-for-all where a number of schools in big media markets could be picked up quickly to fill out 14- to 16-team mega conferences, while less valuable schools are left out in the cold. The Big Ten would then need to fight it out with the SEC and ACC to get the pick of the Big East refugees.

If the SEC goes west it could be the death knell for the already unstable Big 12, which has the same impact as a failure of the Big East: a handful of valuable schools readily available while a few schools nobody cares about—hello Iowa State—are left on the outside looking in. This time it would be the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12 fighting for the best prospective members, while the Mountain West, presumably, gets the leftovers.

Sooner or later there will be a massive shift in the college football landscape, but as we saw last summer, these things take time. The SEC will do its due diligence when picking a 14th member and in the meantime the Big 12 and Big East will work equally hard to stabilize their own membership in hopes of coming out intact when there is another conference shake-up.

As for the Big Ten, things have never been better. Only a massive conference shake-up is enough to stir the Big Ten into action, and that is a year or more down the road.