By DAVID BALLARD
As the Big Ten scours their neighboring conferences for a cure to their disease of irrelevance, we, to the south, only look on in amusement. Expanding to a 14 or 16 team conference will not bring the success the Big Ten so desperately wants to steal back from their brothers below the Mason-Dixon line. They simply need to play more attractive, aggressive football. But the talks still leave us, and the rest of the country, thinking. Will the Big Ten do the unthinkable? Will they go against every conservative fiber in their tradition-laden being and start a revolution in realignment? Will those Yankees to the north actually expand to a 14, even 16 team conference? No. From its style of play to the strict, traditional schedules, everything the Big Ten is about does not suggest major change is on the horizon. A little change? Yes. I believe the Big Ten will pursue Missouri or Pittsburgh, and will most likely succeed in obtaining whichever school they actively court. But to think that three or five schools will leave their comfortable positions in Bowl Championship Series conferences to partake in an experiment of national proportions is ignorant and unnecessary. Its unnecessary because the quantity of the Big Ten is not the glaring problem, rather, its the quality. The Big Ten was once what the Southeastern Conference is today: the premier conference of the sport that produced national championship contenders annually. This expansion of theirs is simply a power play. A play to regain past glory and forgotten esteem. But to return to their prime, the conference does not need to make a “splash” and expand to 14 or 16 teams. They simply need to gain a twelfth member, Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh provides an enormous television market, a definite pro for the financial aspect of the expansion. The addition also revitalizes the dormant rivalry between Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State, a 96 game series last played in 2000. The heated rivalry would bring ratings on a national level, ratings to compete with the nationally celebrated rivalries of the south like Florida-Georgia and of the midwest like Texas-Oklahoma. With the added team, the conference would adopt the same divisional championship format that has brought national exposure to the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12, and SEC. However, securing this additional team does not guarantee national success. Until they, as a whole, change their style of play and strict schedules, the premier recruits will gravitate toward the premier conference, my four-time defending national champion SEC. Penn State has found moderate success with it’s “spread HD” and Michigan has shown offensive improvement under the tutelage of spread guru, Rich Rodriguez. Both of these schools are not as advanced as Florida or Texas, but they are making positive developments. By no means am I suggesting that every team should convert to the spread. But the Big Ten should adjust their style to one defined by aggressive tendencies, an attractive quality to recruits.
To replicate the success of our beloved conference in the south, the Big Ten should not make a radical alteration. They must develop a conference-wide plan to change their style, and culture, as a whole, so they can maintain the national status-quo. With the system today, the SEC is still within the country’s grasp. But if the Big Ten expands to a super-conference then their disease becomes a national epidemic.