Where Should The Big Ten Expand Next? We Crunched The Numbers.

 I'm sure FSU would be very happy to wait 14 years and join the B1G.  Would be a MASSIVE DEAL.

Where Should The Big Ten Expand Next? We Crunched The Numbers.

The Action Network recently reported that the Big Ten is considering these seven programs: Notre Dame, Miami, Florida State and (perhaps to a lesser extent) Oregon, Washington, Stanford and California. Is that a logical list of schools to want? Do other programs also belong in this tier? And are there good backup options if the Big Ten is spurned by this group?³ 

Which Big Ten candidates have the most athletic excellence?

Sports ratings among selected Big Ten expansion candidates, according to weighted averages of football and men’s basketball success and total team NCAA titles

Fit

I already discussed some of the characteristics that describe current Big Ten schools. They are mostly public schools⁷ with very large enrollments and good research programs (all but Nebraska are members of the Association of American Universities, or AAU). No current Big Ten members have a religious affiliation. Most are flagship schools in their states. They’re all at least decent academically, and some have good or great academics.

Which Big Ten candidates are the best “fit”?

Fit ratings among selected Big Ten expansion candidates, according to weighted averages of various academic ratings, total enrollment and rivalry history with current Big Ten schools

All right, let’s break the candidates down into five tiers. You can probably guess the highest-ranked school:

Tier 1: Notre Dame

SCHOOL	SPORTS	FIT	MARKET	COMPOSITE
Notre Dame	77	49	93	73

Do I really need to go into detail here? The Big Ten would take Notre Dame in a heartbeat.

It’s worth noting that Notre Dame’s composite score isn’t that much higher than the four schools in the next tier. That’s because it would be a fairly big outlier for the conference as a private, religious, non-AAU school with a fairly small enrollment — although it makes up for that in the fit category with a strong academic score and by being a football rival to many current Big Ten programs.

But it blows everyone else away in the market category. There might be a lesson here: With a big enough market, your fit doesn’t need to be perfect — rather, it just needs to be good enough that you can squint and see it. Good academics plus strong rivalries against many current Big Ten members is likely enough for Notre Dame to pass the squint-and-see-it test in the conference’s eyes, despite its other oddities.

Tier 2: No-Brainers

SCHOOL	SPORTS	FIT	MARKET	COMPOSITE
North Carolina	61	73	71	68
Oregon	60	63	77	67
Florida State	55	58	82	65
Washington	49	83	64	65

North Carolina, Oregon, Florida State, Washington. I call these no-brainers because they all rate as at least average relative to current Big Ten members.

Why does that matter? Well, the Big Ten faces somewhat conflicting incentives. On the one hand, it wants to expand the pie as much as possible. There’s no harm in adding a TV household in Seattle just because you already have one in Des Moines. On the other hand, it does sometimes need to divide that pie. Of course, this can be subject to negotiation: whether new members get a full share when the conference signs a huge TV contract. But you run some risk of dilution if a school takes from the league more than it brings in.

I don’t think that’s a risk with these four schools. For one thing, as I mentioned, they all have at least average overall ratings relative to current Big Ten members. And they all have above average market ratings (the average market rating among current Big Ten members, plus UCLA and USC, is 59). To some extent, the other categories would probably also improve over time.¹⁴

North Carolina, Oregon and Washington are also schools that fit the paradigmatic Big Ten template of public flagship schools which are AAU members and the dominant college brands in their states. Beyond that, there are some variations on a theme. Oregon has the lowest U.S. News ranking and the smallest enrollment of these schools, but the best sports program. Washington brings the Seattle market and 47,400 students. Both schools would also provide natural rivals to USC and UCLA.

North Carolina’s position might be more surprising here, given that it wasn’t on The Action Network’s short list. But in many ways, it’s comparable to Oregon and Washington, or perhaps even a superior option in some respects. North Carolina is a big state and getting bigger, UNC has improved on the gridiron to the point where it’s at least usually making bowl games, and it’s excellent in the non-football sports.

Florida State isn’t in the AAU, but it has a pretty good academic ranking and a huge enrollment. I’d put it like this: if you think Notre Dame is a good enough fit for the Big Ten because of its other attributes, then Florida State has to qualify as well; it has a better fit rating than Notre Dame, in fact. And it has the second-best market rating after Notre Dame.

Tier 3: How big should the Big Ten be?

SCHOOL	SPORTS	FIT	MARKET	COMPOSITE
Clemson	57	44	75	59
Utah	50	61	50	54
Miami	48	40	72	53
Stanford	59	64	35	53
Cal	44	87	24	52

All five schools in this tier rate above replacement level (a 50-point composite score) but below the 65-point average of current members. Let’s briefly discuss their individual strengths and weaknesses, since they each have a unique case.

Clemson hasn’t been discussed much in the context of Big Ten expansion, probably because it’s a more intuitive fit for the SEC. If the Tigers were interested in the Big Ten, though, I’d assume the interest would probably be mutual. Yes, there are some risks; Clemson’s case rests heavily on having been a dominant football team lately and getting high TV ratings as a result. They haven’t been so great historically, don’t offer much in the other sports and play in a small state in a small market. They also have a worse fit rating than Notre Dame, and you could argue that they don’t quite pass the squint-and-see it test. Still, they have a higher composite rating than other members of this tier — and more to the point, stealing Clemson from the clutches of the SEC would be such a coup that I have to assume the Big Ten would do it.

Miami has been a rumored expansion target. That may in part reflect that it’s an easier “get”; the University of Florida would reportedly object to its presence in the SEC. And perhaps Miami feels more “on brand” for the Big Ten, which has a presence in other big urban markets (New York, Chicago and now Los Angeles). Still, it’s a fairly small private school that’s not an AAU member, albeit one with pretty good academics. It actually has a lower fit rating than Clemson. Then again, its market rating is well above the current Big Ten average, which probably matters most for the league.

Stanford and Cal rate lower than I would have expected. They’re great fits — yes, Stanford is private, but its academic prestige and AAU membership are probably enough to make up for that — and Stanford has an excellent athletic program (that’s less true for Cal).

But they just aren’t very big as sports brands. There are several problems: The Bay Area has low interest in college football, and these programs have little following outside that region, even as compared to schools like Fresno State and Oregon (not to mention incoming Big Ten members USC and UCLA). Also, there are two of them. Maybe the Bay Area is worth planting a flag in, but is it worth doing so twice over? Cal does particularly poorly in the market category, with a score of just 24. Stanford at least gets a 35, which is well below the current Big Ten average but is at least higher than Northwestern’s, a peer school in many respects.

Then there’s Utah, which rated higher than I expected. It has a few things going for it: The football program has turned from terrible to very competitive in recent years; it recently joined the AAU; and the state is growing prodigiously.

Now that we’ve covered all of the teams the Big Ten might realistically consider for expansion, let’s zoom out to the schools that clearly aren’t great candidates but might be worth at least thinking about:

Tier 4: Strategic reaches

SCHOOL	SPORTS	FIT	MARKET	COMPOSITE
Virginia	32	73	42	49
Arizona State	45	54	46	48
Duke	44	56	43	48
Missouri	44	64	33	47
Pitt	44	71	25	47
Colorado	35	69	33	46
Oklahoma State	65	32	40	46
Arizona	32	71	32	45
TCU	46	22	66	45
Virginia Tech	38	50	47	45
Georgia Tech	39	62	31	44
Syracuse	35	49	44	43
Kansas	30	62	34	42
West Virginia	49	38	38	42

Would I be hugely surprised to wake up to the news that the Big Ten had added Duke, Arizona or even Oklahoma State? No, not really. I’d assume the Big Ten had some sort of strategic rationale. Maybe not a good rationale, but a rationale nevertheless. (Remember, all of these candidates rate higher than Rutgers.)

For the most part, the universities in this tier fall into the “good fit, mediocre sports and market” category. Virginia, Missouri, Pitt, Colorado, Arizona, Georgia Tech and Kansas all meet this description, for instance. The fact that the Big Ten has historically spurned both Missouri and Pitt should make the other schools in this category feel worse about their chances, although I would asterisk Georgia Tech as a high-upside play as an AAU member in the Atlanta market that used to have pretty good football.

What about the other programs? Arizona State is a well-rounded candidate in a state with a growing population; its case is pretty similar to Utah’s, though it isn’t an AAU member or a flashship university (but does bring the Phoenix market). Duke’s case depends entirely on how much you care about academics and basketball. Oklahoma State has an excellent sports rating but is a big stretch in terms of both fit (largely because of its poor academic rating) and market (although, if the Big Ten were desperate to add members in the South and couldn’t get the ACC to split up, it’s one of the only palatable options). TCU is in the very desirable Dallas market but has the worst fit rating of any of the 38 schools I tested.

Ultimately, this is all a question of how “big” the Big Ten wants to be, and I can’t really answer that. Does the conference risk brand dilution if it’s in every nook and cranny of the country, or is that exactly what it wants?

But from a football perspective, my personal view is that once you get past the point where every school can play one another in football every year or at least most years — something that’s already hard once you’ve expanded to 16 teams — I don’t know that there are any particularly bright dividing lines. For instance, expanding to 24 schools — say, by adding everyone in Tiers 1, 2 and 3 — might even work better than 20, since you could split them into four fairly geographically balanced divisions:

Pacific: Cal, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington

Great Plains: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Wisconsin

Great Lakes: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Purdue

Atlantic: Florida State, Maryland, Miami, Rutgers, North Carolina, Penn State

You could also use a promotion-and-relegation system. Split into a First Division and a Second Division. With the 24 schools listed above, for instance, maybe you’d start with something like this, given each school’s recent football performance:

Upper Division: Florida State, Iowa, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, USC, Wisconsin

Lower Division: Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, Stanford, UCLA, Washington

Get as creative as you want; the dividing lines could be somewhat porous. In a nine-game conference schedule, for instance, each team could play six members of its own division, two members of the other division and one designated rivalry game. You could have a four-team conference playoff featuring the top three finishers in the Upper Division and the first-place finisher in the Lower Division. To facilitate promotion and relegation, the top team in the Lower Division could be promoted to the Upper Division, and you could have a one-game playoff for the second promotional slot. Some teams could also earn immunity from relegation if, say, they’d made the College Football Playoff Top 25 in two of the last three seasons.

However the Big Ten wants to approach things, it’s clear that its days as a concentrated group of Midwestern schools are over. The SEC versus Big Ten arms race is on. The only question is which side of the battle lines your school lands on — if it’s invited to the fight at all.