Park Ridge, Ill. ? The Big Ten did not take formal action during a meeting Sunday about conference expansion, although officials say their timeline may change after the Pac-10 revealed plans for its own expansion.
The 11 school presidents and chancellors met for about 41/2 hours, and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said the majority of time was spent on expansion dialogue.
“One of our options was not to act, the other option was to act with a single member, and another option would be acting on multiple members,” Delany said. “There could be a decision not to act.”
The Big Ten has been examining possible conference expansion since December, when it revealed a study that is expected to take anywhere from 12 to 18 months.
“We wouldn’t have announced the study in December if there wasn’t an interest in expansion by a significant number of the members of the Big Ten,” Michigan State President Lou Anna K. Simon said. “We’re not presumptuous enough to believe that (expansion) was only our choosing. It has to be a two-way street.”
Each of the current schools is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) — the only Div. I conference to have all its institutions affiliated — and also form the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) along with the University of Chicago. If the Big Ten expands, it is presumed to be looking at schools that are also members.
Simon and Delany declined to identify potential candidates, but names that have surfaced include Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and Syracuse.
Delany stressed that expansion rests with the individual universities and not with the conferences. He declined to comment on reports that the Big 12’s presidents gave Nebraska and Missouri a deadline to state their intentions to remain in or leave the conference. Delany also declined to expand on comments Ohio State President Gordon Gee made in an April 20 e-mail to the commissioner regarding Texas and its “Tech” problem, referring to Texas Tech.
