The Big 10's Gain is the Big East's Loss

The Big 10 is getting greedy and it could spell doom for Big East football. The Big 10 Athletic Conference is looking to expand it's number of teams and has been holding meetings for the past couple of days. The commissioner of the Big 10 will meet with reporters today to discuss what he wants to do. Here is the Big 10 as it stands today:

Michigan

Michigan State

Iowa

Ohio State

Indiana

Northwestern

Penn State

Illinois

Wisconsin

Purdue

Minnesota

The Big 10 is looking to make a grab at some of the schools in the Big East and the Big 12. Their wish list includes Louisville, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Texas, Missouri and Nebraska. Out of those teams, I think that the Big 10 would want Syracuse, Rutgers, Texas and Nebraska the most. The reason behind this is because Syracuse and Rutgers would capture the New York market while Texas and Nebraska would add two traditional football powerhouses to the conference. It's all about viewers and money and football draws the most of those out of all the major college sports.

What does this mean for the Big East? The Big East already survived a huge loss with the bolting of Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech when the ACC expanded. The Big East added Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida to the conference. The Big East has been a weak football conference ever since the change over but the ACC hasn't fared much better.

The loss of Louisville, Syracuse and Rutgers would hurt the Big East the most. It would decrease viewership and interest and further weaken an already terrible football conference. Not that Louisville or Syracuse has been any good as of late but at least that have competitive in recent memory.

Then there is the ever lingering question about Notre Dame. I am a Notre Dame fan but I am sick of the Irish acting like they are too good to join a football conference. If I were the Big East I would have told Notre Dame long ago that if they aren't going bring in the football team then they can take their basketball and baseball teams and take a hike. The Big 10 would love to add Notre Dame to the conference. Talk about BIG money.

The Big 12 is going to fight hard for their teams. Texas, Nebraska and Missouri are all popular teams that draw decent ratings, especially Texas. Texas was the runner-up in this past year's BCS championship game and won it in 2005. They won't go down without a fight.

I think that by the time all of this is over the Big 10 will add about three or four teams. Only time will tell which teams it will be.