The only way Penn State is going anywhere, is if Penn State decides to go.
It's ludicrous to think you'd shoo away a school that owns a state of 12,000,000 people, with a huge athletic budget and reputation. They actually fit into the Big Ten fairly well, in terms of being a mega state school.

I grew up in Western PA, and Pitt was briefly their equal (or better) in football during the Majors and Sherrill era (1973-1981 approx.). During that era, Pitt was able to bring in recruits from all over the country and compete, but other than that Penn State under JoePa has owned the state of Pennsylvania , and the Northeast (Syracuse had a few strong years under McPherson, and WVa under Nielen, but YEAR IN / YEAR OUT it's been Penn State).

Penn State dominated in large part, because JoePa really knew what he was doing, and PSU had more resources (reflective of the fact that they are a much larger institution than the other schools they used to schedule as an eastern independent). As much as they belong to Pennsylvania, PSU is more like the big midwestern Big Ten schools in character. Although the extended the Big Ten way over to the east, they match up institutionally.

Notre Dame is the clear choice for #12. Mid-western location / national, but stong northeastern fan base. Does the Big Ten have a driver to expand to 12 soon ? Not really....
If they really want Notre Dame, they can afford to wait.

If Weis doesn't get things going soon, they will continue their slide in terms of recruiting cache. Some would say "Oh really, are they sliding ? Some magazines constantly rank their recruiting classes as Top 5, Top 10..." If that were true, then they may not be sliding.
But when you have to tell a recruit "We have quite a reputation ! We won a National Championship 20 years ago (that was several coaches ago). Please don't mention that we've lost 11 straight bowl games".... they need to turn it around and demonstrate some success, or they will struggle to recruit the very top notch dudes, even though they can sop up a lot of second tier players, due to their resources.

Without success, I think the Northeast fan base will wither over time. Why the attachment to a midwestern school (if they are perceived as mediocre). If this happens, NBC will abandon ship, and suddenly the economics of giving up independence for a conference with a sweet TV deal will be oh-so-financially-lucrative.

#2 choice is another Penn State on the east end of the conference. Rutgers ? Not as big as PSU, not as well established athletically. Syracuse ? Not so much recent success, although basketball pretty competitive, football is lagging. West Virginia ? Athletically successful, you'd own West Virginia, but that's just not that many TV sets. Missouri's profile is similar to West Virginia with more TV sets.
At some point, Notre Dame

One thing to keep in mind is the Big Ten Network. The Big Ten now must review any proposed member's ability to bring additional paying subscribers to the network. In most of the Big Ten territory, there is only one RSN, making it ripe for the Big Ten Network to step in as a second RSN. Contrast this to New York state and northern NJ, where cable systems are already picking up FOUR RSN's at $2/month each. In those areas, the Big Ten Network would almost certainly be limited to being part of a premium sports package with limited subscribership. Adding Rutgers or Syracuse, who I've always thought would be great additions to the Big Ten, would likely therefore add only a limited number of tv homes for the Big Ten Network, i.e. those purchasing a premium sports package.

Missouri, on the other hand, could bring over 2 million additional TV homes, which could be leveraged onto basic tier at $1/month, for a potential $20-25 million per year incrementally to the network.

One thing Notre Dame could bring is helping the conference pick up premium subscribers outside of the Big Ten core region. Like SU or RU, this would include NY/NJ, but also would cover the rest of the country. Not sure the combined value of ND and the Big Ten would actually be greater than the current separate arrangements though, i.e. not worth the bother.

Frankly, with the Big Ten Network, Missouri now looks like the Big Ten's best choice if they were interested. Rutgers may be able to deliver basic cable clearance in NJ even with 4 other networks. If so, this would provide a few million homes. Finally, another decent choice would be Maryland, who might be able to bring 2-3 million TV homes.

Good point on the large number of RSNs in the NY/NJ areas and what Mizzou could add in terms of TV homes, although I would still contend there really isn't great interest from the Big Ten toward Missouri. As a practical matter, it will simply be a million times tougher to get a school to leave the Big 12 as opposed to the Big East (and while Maryland would be great on paper, it would be even tougher to get anyone to leave the ACC) even with the prospect of Big Ten money. Missouri has deep roots with other Big 12 schools, particularly with Kansas and Nebraska, and it's not as if though the Big 12 is in an unstable financial situation. For better or for worse, schools like Rutgers and Syracuse are "low hanging" fruit for the Big Ten, while there are significant barriers to adding schools like Mizzou or Maryland (much less Notre Dame).

Could be. It's all a puzzle involving ND, Missouri, Arkansas, Utah, BYU, Rutgers, Syracuse, UCF, ECU, Memphis, Boise St, Fresno St and others I've forgotten to include. It wiill be fascinating to see how it unravels, but then that's the whole point of this board, right?

Let's say they open an invitation to Syracuse in the near future, I got two questions for you guys...

1. Would they accept? I know that Syracuse had a chance to ditch the BE for the ACC, but Boeheim talked them out of it. The Big East looks like it's going to be a glorified C-USA in the near future (COULD split, add Memphis / Central Florida / others) and the appeal of playing in the Big Ten with old rival Penn State could be a good thing.

2. What does this do with the divisions? They COULD go with an East/West, but the East would be loaded (Mich, OSU, PSU, Cuse, MSU, Indiana) and it would screw Indiana out of playing their two biggest rivals every year, Purdue and Illinois.

EDIT: They could have a permanent crossover game as mentioned above, with Michigan-Minnesota playing for the Jug, Purdue-Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket, Illinois-Ohio State for the Illibuck, then Michigan State, Syracuse, Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Northwestern possibly forming new rivalries.

Probably this...

Michigan State - Wisconsin
Penn State - Iowa
Syracuse - Northwestern

Boeheim didn't talk SU out of anything. The ACC did their due diligence and visited the campus but SU was never offered an invitation.

PantherSC, I tend to agree with you. I followed the stories closely in and around the 2003 shifts. While Syracuse was courted by the ACC and was to be a part of the Miami--BC--'Cuse plan, which I am confident each of the three were informally on-board to anticipate the move; ACC endeavors got modified due to the later decision of the ACC Presidents impacted mostly by the Virginia Tech political initiative intermingled with filed and potential lawsuits, flirting with Notre Dame, solving a rift within the ACC; first, just accepting Miami and Tech; then adding BC a few months later who apparently was preferred over Syracuse or certainly the most eager/prepared to be #12 in the ACC. That said, the attitude at Syracuse appeared more resigned to stay with the BE by comparison. I expect there was a distinct selection order in all this. Boeheim, I assume, certainly shared his input with Syracuse administrators, but seriously doubt the bb coach, alone, could be that all persuasive per a monumental decision with a diversity of perspectives and layered with decisional entities. If Boeheim was vehemently opposed to Syracuse moving, and had all decision-makers convinced, Syracuse would not have been a declared and public consideration at the get-go of the expansion.

I agree with you in that I'm sure Boeheim shared his thoughts with the admins. JB doesn't carry so much power that he would have stopped the SU BOTs from voting yes to goto the ACC.

The SU admins - especially Jake Croumathel (SU AD) wanted to return the focus to rebuilding the BE. I got the same feeling from the BC AD Defillipo. I think perhaps the 'lukewarm' response that is written about SU is that I don't remember similar stories from BC and/or a distancing from JBs remarks by the SU AD or Chancellor - but I could be wrong.

Anyway, I seriously doubt very much it would have mattered if SU was falling all over themselves to get the ACC invite. The ACC would have taken BC or SU at that time. BC was the 'better' choice in that it gave the ACC the Boston market (the #4 TV market) and access to NESN. While certainly SU has a presence in NYC and also commands the whole upstate NY market (and parts of Vermont), I don't think that is the same as what BC could do.

Time and circumstance.......