![]() Most of Notre Dame’s sports - except football - belong to the ACC. The Fighting Irish are one of the biggest brands in all of college sports. On top of expanding westward, they’re on the cusp of an alleged $1 billion contract with Fox. Luckily for Big Ten schools, the conference seems to be in a position of power. It will likely accelerate - sooner rather than later. “The organizations or conferences that are going to come out of this in a really good position are those that are able to adapt and be nimble,” Warren continued. “The organizations, the entities and the people who are going to be able to thrive in a disruptive environment are those who embrace being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. “I wasn’t going to come into saying, ‘Oh, well, this is the way it’s been,’” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said regarding the USC/UCLA announcement. Teams in the Midwest play other Midwest teams. Teams on the West Coast have always played other teams on the West Coast. Nobody ever imagined a world in which Los Angeles schools would join the Big Ten. But the nature of this move felt different than the conference shake-ups in recent memory. Just last year, Oklahoma and Texas accepted an invitation to join the SEC in 2025. Kevin Flaherty contributed to this report.Realignment isn’t a new concept in college sports. The SEC moves to that same membership count in 2025 when Oklahoma and Texas join the league. The Big Ten, before long, will not be the only FBS conference with 16 teams. Subscribe to 247Sports YouTube for the latest college football, basketball and recruiting news including live college commitments. It would be interesting to see how many student-athletes who are in the Big Ten now have never been to Southern California.” I’m a big believer that this will not only be beneficial to our student athletes from, quite naturally, an athletic, competitive standpoint, having a larger platform for them to display their talents, but also from an educational experience. “That’s one of the reason we started the B1G Life series, and taking our student-athletes to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. ![]() “I know the power of field trips,” Warren said. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said earlier in the year that the benefit of an expanded footprint outweighs any added logistical issues. The Big Ten, once USC and UCLA join, will be the lone FBS conference with a footprint in both the eastern and pacific time zones. ![]() Some consider it a competitive imbalance, since the big four are all in the same division while Wisconsin and Iowa usually run the West Division.īut with the addition of the two Pac-12 schools comes a chance to reset all of that. ![]() ![]() Rutgers and Maryland also made bowl appearances in 2021 and despite Indiana’s down year, the Hoosiers were in contention for the division in 2020. Many consider the Big Ten East a landmine type of division since it contains Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State at the top. During the season, each played every other team in its division and had one “crossover” rivalry game while rotating two cross-divisional games. At the time, the focus was to strike a competitive balance but there was pushback because some traditional rivalries, such as Ohio State-Michigan, were placed in opposite divisions. Prior to expansion, the Legends Division contained Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern while the Leaders Division had Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin. The addition of Nebraska that season led to the formation of the "Leaders" and "Legends" divisions, which lasted for just three seasons before the switch to the East and West. The Big Ten did not have divisions before 2011. The current geographical divisions went into effect in 2014 when Maryland and Rutgers joined the Big Ten, bringing the league to 14 teams. It is not clear if divisions of some type, with a different configuration, will remain once USC and UCLA join. Iowa athletic director Gary Barta previously told The Athletic that scrapping East and West divisions in favor of a different type of football schedule was under consideration. The conference announced expansion with the Trojans and Bruins in June, bringing the league to 16 teams once those schools join in the summer of 2024. The Big Ten will maintain its East and West divisions for the 2023 college football season before reconfiguring once USC and UCLA join the conference in 2024, according to a report Monday by The Athletic. ![]()
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