The Colossal Conference Grind-up

Still, Marinatto's larger point is well taken. Right now, no one knows how this is going to shake out. But we can make some educated guesses. Herewith, SI's three expansion scenarios, in ascending order of impact.

SCENARIO 1

JUST A TREMOR

If there's one school Delany covets for his trophy case, it is Notre Dame, which last spurned the Big Ten's advances seven years ago. The cachet of the Golden Dome would go a long way toward persuading cable carriers outside the Big Ten's eight-state area—those in the northeast, in particular—to add the Big Ten Network to its basic-cable package.

But Notre Dame has a deeply held attachment to its football independence that, according to Jack Swarbrick, the school's AD, began with Jesse Harper, the Irish coach from 1913 through '17. In those days Michigan coach Fielding Yost despised Notre Dame. Not only did he refuse to schedule the Irish, but he also vowed retribution against any conference school that did. (That early incarnation of the Big Ten was called the Western Conference.) Rather than plead for games, Harper decided to play a barnstorming national schedule. The Irish boarded trains for Nebraska, Syracuse and Texas. They took on Army and Penn State. Notre Dame won many of those games and caught the nation's fancy. Thus did a run-of-the-mill Catholic college become a national icon. That helps explain, as Swarbrick says, why football independence is "central to the roots of the university."

According to Swarbrick, Notre Dame would join the conference of Yost, Woody and Paterno only under certain, dire circumstances—namely, if its nonfootball partner, the Big East, were pillaged to the brink of extinction by the Big Ten. In other words, if the Big Ten adds just a single member, it won't be Notre Dame. Besides, says one former high-ranking network executive, "I'm not sure Notre Dame's the prettiest girl at the party anymore. I think there are other schools that would give the Big Ten better exposure."

So Delany moves on to his next candidate: Missouri. The Tigers have been feeling like a bit of a stepchild in the Big 12 of late. For three straight years they've been shafted by the conference's oddly random bowl-selection process. (Recall how, after beating Kansas in the final game of the 2007 regular season and winning the North division, Missouri looked on as the BCS selected the Jayhawks to play in the Orange Bowl. One year later, the Gator Bowl bypassed the Tigers for a Nebraska team they beat by five touchdowns. And last season the Insight Bowl took a 6--6 Iowa State squad ahead of 8--4 Missouri.)

Like many of their conference brethren, the Tigers are irked by what they perceive as the Big 12's Longhorn-centrism and how it distributes (or, more accurately, fails to distribute) its football TV revenue. Where the Big Ten and SEC dispense equal shares, the Big 12 has a weighted formula favoring its strongest teams. While the gentry rakes in $10 million, bottom-feeding Baylor must settle for $7 million—well shy of the $22 mil that its Big Ten analogue, Indiana, is pulling down.

While he has grumbled publicly about the inequitable distribution of funds, Tigers football coach Gary Pinkel says he prefers to stay put—not a surprising opinion from a man who has worked tirelessly to cultivate relationships with high school coaches in the talent-rich Lone Star State. Last year's Missouri roster featured 32 players from Texas. Pinkel's staff is coming off its best recruiting year, with a class that includes nine Texans. If Mizzou bolts for the Big Ten, that pipeline figures to dry up.

Build some new pipelines, the coach is told by his unsympathetic superiors, who are swayed by the Big Ten's bigger bucks and academic reputation. So suppose the Tigers take the leap. Surprisingly vulnerable, the Big 12 loses a second member when the Pac-10 steals geographically attractive Colorado. And in keeping with what he described as his conference's "Noah's ark strategy—if we add, it's going to be two-by-two," Scott then lures Utah from the Mountain West, a cruel blow to an up-and-coming conference that had been on track to earn automatic qualifying status from the BCS. The Mountain West gets further weakened when the Big 12 plucks two of its marquee schools, BYU and TCU, to restore its membership to an even dozen. Thrilled though they are to have the Horned Frogs, Big 12 officials won't accommodate the wishes of TCU football coach Gary Patterson. Asked in January if he'd consider a move to the Big 12, Patterson joked, "Only if they let us play in the North"—the conference's weak-sister division.