It might be Big Ten expansion time again. It wasn’t all that long ago that the Big Ten unofficially became the Big 14. New rumors are swirling that the conference is making another push to become a 16 team conference.
16 teams has long been the “magic” number that many of the BCS conferences are looking to attain. The Big Ten took a couple of steps towards that magic number when they signed up Rutgers and Maryland in November of last year.
Both of those teams will officially become a part of the conference in July of 2014. Reports have started to surface that show that the Big Ten might not be done trying to raid the ACC for teams.
Jeff Erman 247Sports recently tweeted Virginia, Georgia Tech and North Carolina are all being courted to one degree or another by Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney.
Erman said that North Carolina has already gotten an official offer while Virginia and Georgia Tech are still in the initial stages.
Big 10 talk buzzing again. #UVA being mentioned often as likely to join. Georgia Tech still in the mix. #UNC , the big domino, has an offer.
— Jeff Ermann (@insidemdsports) February 19, 2013
The Sporting News points out that Erman was the one who correctly broke the story that Maryland was moving to the Big Ten but that there appears to be some push-back on this particular story.
According to another tweet, this time by USA Today’s Dan Wolken, North Carolina officials are claiming that a move is not imminent. This does not mean that they don’t have an offer.
Never say never, I guess, but after talking with UNC officials tonight the idea they have anything going on with the B1G seems far-fetched
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) February 20, 2013
That also doesn’t mean that Georgia Tech and Virginia aren’t on the wish list for the conference.
There were reports back in November that Delaney wanted to get the conference to 16 in one fell swoop. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he’s continuing that work.
Will Big Ten Expansion occur again so soon? Who would you like to see come out of the ACC?
