Rumors swirling that the B1G is adding Oregon, Washington, FSU and Clemson this week

I can confirm a Big 10'' dump swirling down my toilet this morning.

Ugh. No thanks.

I don't care that this post is 10-out-of-10 on the Unoriginal Scale. Barstool is shittier than real-life stools. 

This smells like bar stool

WTF is the point of conferences anymore?

Lol Barstools!!!

Georgia Tech and the Atlanta TV market is where it's at.  Great academic school.  Clemson and the middle of no where SC can kick rocks. 

If true and ND misses this boat do they end up in the SEC or the Big 12?  Or is it just independence or death for them?

UNC, UVA, and Ga Tech make a ton more sense than fsu and Clemson.

I’d love to see Cal and Stanford join the B1G to give us a west coast/ California pod

I could see, OU, UW and Cal, Stanford.

Thats a better fit to provide a regional presence.

But I know NOTHING, anything can happen.

adding Clemson seems like a stretch as they are not close to a fit outside of athletics

I have pretty much forgotten that P5 schools are about anything else.

I also heard a serious rumor… Barstool Sports is the most worthless blog site that attempts to cover sports.

Could this serious rumor actually be true?

FSU and Clemson are going nowhere for the next ten to twelve years. At least not without six other members of the ACC saying they all want out, too. And to be honest, I'm not 100% confident the ACC is going to get that. 

BC, Wake Forest, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Pitt, Georgia Tech....I can't say with any degree of certainty that those schools are going to want to leave the ACC, because they can't be sure anyone's going to want them in return. Maybe Georgia Tech could attract the Big Ten's attention with being an elite academic institution and gaining a foothold in new territory, but who's going to want BC, Wake, or Syracuse? Why in the hell would they vote to leave the ACC? They know their number is up when this grant of rights expires in 2037 anyway, so why let their money well dry up before it has to?

I'm sure Clemson and FSU will eventually want out and they'll have suitors, but I don't know that they're going to get the votes from the other members that they'd need. 

TO me this is going to ruin college sports having two or three major conferences and all the little guys left out will make it suck imo.. 

Lol JackMack.

Dude is probably one of the biggest jokes in D-List sports media. Half the fun of his posts comes from reading the comments just roasting him for looking sticky.

I can't imagine Clemson and Florida State are coming. How will they get around the grant-of-rights they signed with the ACC until 2036-2037? If they break it, as far as I understand (which isn't very far), they wouldn't have any televised home games in any sports until after that year.

Give me back my 1985 conferences. 
Then get off my lawn!

Being members of the AAU, Oregon and Washington would both get a green light based on their academic pedigree. Neither Clemson nor FSU are members of the AAU, trailer-trash that they are. The only current or future B1G team that is not an AAU member is Nebraska, and that's only because they lost their membership almost immediately after joining the B1G.

It's arguable whether any of these schools draw sufficient additional television revenue to compensate the B1G for what their shares of the payout from the current TV contract would be, which would mean all of current schools would get smaller payouts as a result of the expansion (unless the new schools are admitted at a lower payout rate?). Also, the grant-of-rights agreements in the ACC are pretty much bullet-proof, which means the ACC retains those school's TV broadcasts (for home games) regardless of where they're associated or who they're playing, so probably not going to happen.

At least this would mean to hell with Notre Dame.

How is JackMac from Barstool a serious source?

If I call them up and predict something, does that qualify as a serious rumor...if I'm serious?

No. Just no.

USC and UCLA will need some playmates in their own time zone, or their entry into the Big Ten will be a failed experiment.  Especially for sports that have to play multiple games a week. 

I have been to just about every large and medium-sized city in the US and I can tell you what gets you when traveling is the time zone change.  It's not the distance you travel that matters, it's the time zone change that matters.  North-South travel over long distances is not nearly as arduous as East-West travel over long distances.

USC and UCLA won't survive being on a time zone island away from every other school.  They will need schools like Oregon / Washington / Cal / Stanford to be there with them so they can have some "local" North-South travel. 

Consider it part of the cost of bringing USC and UCLA into the Big Ten.

Oh. It’s on X-crement! Must be true. 

People talk about cultural fit.  I think Michigan, USC, UCLA, Washington, are good cultural fits.  But I think Clemson and FSU are maybe as good or better cultural fits with OSU, Purdue, Iowa, Indiana than is Michigan.

Academically, if folks want to talk about rankings, Times Higher Education or QS are good.  US News and World Report is the McDonald's hamburger of college ranking.

According to THE, worldwide university rankings are:

UCLA, 21
Michigan, 23
Northwestern, 26
Washington, 26 <------------
Illinois, 48
USC, 65
Wisconsin, 81
Minnesota, 101
Maryland, 104
Michigan State, 106
Ohio State, 112
Purdue, 127
Penn State, 151
Indiana, 170
Notre Dame, 201
Rutgers, 201
Florida State, 301 <-------------
Iowa, 301
Nebraska, 401
Clemson, 801 <--------------
Oregon, not ranked in THE, #731 in QS worldwide <-------------

I don't think adding to the Big10 is done for academic or cultural fits, but for sports money reasons.  I also think that's a good way to decide whether or not to add to a sports conference.

Out of curiosity, here is the SEC:

Texas, 50
Vanderbilt, 98
Florida, 151
Texas A&M, 181
Tennessee, 301
South Carolina, 501
Kentucky, 501
Georgia, 601
Auburn, 601
LSU, 601
Missouri, 601
Arkansas, 601
Alabama, 801
Miss State, 801
Oklahoma, not ranked in THE, 641 in QS
Ole Miss, not ranked in THE, 1001 in QS

In case you are interested in what are the top 10 in THE:

Oxford, 1
Harvard, 2
Cambridge, 3
Stanford, 3
MIT, 5
Caltech, 6
Princeton, 7
Berkeley, 8
Yale, 9
Imperial College London, 10
 

Breaking news Paul Finebaum reports Jim Harbaugh poops!

He also mentions rumors that Harbaugh illegally removes trees and has even done so co-opting local law enforcement and that there's video.

The NCAA is looking into both allegations seriously and it may lead to his termination...

...or just a slowing of the building brand that is Michigan. 

In other news, reports of negative recruiting have been found by the NCAA to be misinformation.