The B10 needs to start thinking outside the box at this point. Geography no longer matters and expansion has to come outside it's own footprint into growing states with a lot of football talent. To me that leaves only three options - Texas, Florida, or California. Texas is likely out - UT to the SEC looks like a done deal. Florida is possible, but you have the gut the ACC for that to work. They have a GOR secured through 2035 and you're directly competing in the SEC's back yard if you expand going SE.
This move by the SEC, IMO, is all about preparing to depart from the NCAA. Total power grab and the B10 needs to respond or you eventually risk the SEC departing and being viewed as its own elite football division - something needs to be formed to compete with it. To me, the only logical way to achieve that at this point is an aggressive PAC/B1G "Merger" of the top schools in the P12 in a B10 move to 20.
20 actually works really well for the B1G in terms of preserving geographic rivalries through a divisional format. You have 9 conference games, 4 in your own division, 5 from a sister division that rotates every year. End of season you end up with a CCG that is never a rematch cuz it's essentially two separate 10 team conferences that change each year. This allows you to play everyone twice ever six years in the opposite divisions.
The PAC12 already has abysmal revenue from it's media rights deal. it was rumored that USC/UCLA refused to extend the GOR last fall and it is set to expire in 2023. If they want a seat at the final table of "NCAA football", they need to improve their revenue and they need to have inventory in some better time slots - blending the best of the P12 with the B1G would provide that opportunity. Something like this could be an option:
Great Plains Division
Wisconsin
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota
Illinois
Great Lakes Division
Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Indiana
Purdue
Atlantic Division (name subject to change here, I get it's not a perfect fit)
Penn State
Notre Dame
Maryland
Rutgers
Northwestern
Pacific Division
USC
UCLA
Oregon
Washington
(pick your 5th - Stanford, Utah, Cal, Colorado seem most logical)
The above solves a lot of problems:
- B1G needs more national exposure and football recruiting hotbeds to compete with this new SEC
- The top dogs of the PAC12 need more revenue to compete in the new CFB climate with the NIL and can't get it due to the lower half of their conference not giving a hoot about CFB.
- The four proposed schools are all AAU schools, and the footprint adds 3 new states. Plenty of good options for #5 depending on what you value.
- Notre Dame might finally see the writing on the wall if there's going to be an NCAA breakaway for major college football, plus there's talk the top few playoff spots will be reserved for conference champs only. You could even slide ND into the Pacific division if they wanted to avoid the "midwestern" image of the B1G.
- The B1G gutting the top of the P12 would create a safe landing spot for the B12 leftovers to merge with, albeit at a much lower revenue number then all of them are getting now.
I think the B1G needs to view this SEC move as a power grab and have this discussion with the schools at the top of the PAC, then respond accordingly. The Rose Bowl is going to die under the expanded playoff format, maybe add UCLA to the conference and play the CCG there every once in a awhile as an homage to it. If the B1G doesn't think outside the box here I fear that the SEC just leaves the NCAA and becomes it's own division with it's own championship.
The current PAC12 deal ends in 2023, so it's without question the path of least resistance from an expansion standpoint.
