Could be. The Big Ten has the chance to do something special in taking some real solid schools from the east coast, putting them all in a division where they would build some rivalries.

Gotta think it would be fairly attractive to have these 6 together:
Rutgers
Penn St.
Maryland
Virginia
North Carolina
Georgia Tech

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Sounds great to me,but would leave other members in the B10.
Thus you would need one other AAU program in the west.
Would that be U Kansas,U Texas,U Missouri?

Once again, ND is not an AAU schools, and the B1G knew Nebraska was about to be kicked out of the AAU prior to inviting them (in fact 4 B1G members voted to kicked them out) which proves that AAU is not everything.

BC like ND is a highly recognized academic institution. They'd extend the B1G's footprint into New England which would put them in every major "Northern" market from Nebraska to Boston. BC also has great hockey which while not a top 5 reason for expansion, is an area the Big Ten is focusing on and would provide a huge boost for the new hockey league.

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East of the Rockies, but West(ish) of the Mississippi.

Texas, Texas A&M, Rice, Tulane, Mizzou, Kansas, Iowa St, and Vanderbilt are all AAU.

Also Oklahoma (now tier 1) would be a candidate regardless of AAU status.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Besides being a catholic school within a major bcs conference bc in no way matches up with ND.

The endowment of ND is in the billions of dollars unlike bc
The clout of ND in sports to bc leaves bc in the dust.
Also B10 is after AAU schools.BC is hardly there.

ND and BC will never be AAU, as the AAU won't add Catholic institutions that limit their ability to get grants as much scientific research conflicts with their Catholic religious teachings.

And I never said BC sports=ND sports

And ND endowment is 7 billion and BC's is 2 billion which while less is not insignificant as it would still be in the top 5 of the Big Ten conference and is bigger than both Maryland and Rutgers combined.

As I showed earlier the B1G is not just after AAU schools, see the Nebraska example.

All in all BC is still a real candidate, but only if ND would come on board. I don't think the B1G would add BC before them making them the first religious school in the B1G. But with ND on board they'd be a great candidate with all things considered.

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When Nebraska entered the B10 it was AAU.Early after being admitted to the B10 Nebraska lost its AAU membership(something about the medical not being under the U of Nebraska.

The schools that B10 took lately were Rutgers and UMD both AAU schools.

The schools the B10 are looking at for membership UVA,UNC and GATECH are all AAU schools.

Also there is a research consortium that the B10 has for its membership.

That is a place that UNIV of Oklahoma would not be considered for.

The other likely members for the B10 are U Kansas,U Missouri and U Texas who all are AAU members.


I think its unlikely that Texas or Missouri would join.

Seriously doubt it happening in terms of all of them as part of some totality. But even with the very difficult sanctions for the next few years, Penn State would OWN this group in fb. GT would be the most consistent challenger.

Nebraska's excuse was the medical school. The truth was that their levels of research has slowed so much that it was well below the lowest members of the AAU so they dumped them. Same reason for Syracuse too. And like I said the Big Ten knew they were getting kicked out, and even had some of their members vote to kick them out. So if they only want AAU members why would they go after one they knew was going to lose that status?

And Oklahoma's research is skyrocketing and depending on how you compare research information they beat or barely lost to Nebraska in 2011 http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf . So your point on that is just wrong, they wanted Nebraska fb and they'd take Oklahoma (w/o OSU) for the same reason plus it could possibly get the Texas too.

Also another possible non-AAU candidate is Florida State.

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Oklahoma and FSU are not top research universities,in terms of total funding or in quality of scholarship.
The majority of the B10 are in group 3 research funding,uOKL is in group 6.

Great football programs like FSU or Uokl are not getting into AAU or the B10.

Please stop misrepresenting the truth, by limiting your scope of view. THIS REPORT says FSU is good and OU is rising while Nebraska is falling.

In 2009 Oklahoma was in group 6, Nebraska was in group 4, and FSU was in group 3.

In 2011 FSU was still on top and Oklahoma was ranked above Nebraska (though NU spent more).

Regardless Nebraska's inclusion in the Big Ten illustrates that it is not ALL ABOUT academic/research/AAU status, and just about anyone else here on this board agrees with that statement.

As far as BCS football schools go: UGA, Utah, ASU, VPI, NCSU, UConn, FSU are all under consideration for AAU (OU can't be for another 3 years and need to increase funding by 28%).

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I don't think you guys are taking FSU serious enough. I think the B1G is very interested in the FSU brand and the over 5 million cable subscribers in Florida. FSU may be worth more money to the B1G than Notre Dame. FSU to the B1G is a real possibility in my opinion.

Underconsideration for AAU membership is just another way to say applied for AAU membership.
That is far from the same thing as AAU membership.
The quality of academic programs in terms of their rankings is another key criteria for AAU membership.This criteria is very different from pure research spending.
That criteria certainly seperates B10 schools from such schools as FSU and OU.Quality means such things in scholarship as citations in the literature per faculty member.The B12 has current and former members who are AAU members UT(current),Texas A&M(former).Umissouri,UnvV Of Colorado(former),UKansas(current),Iowa ST(current).
The B12 has members such TCU,Baylor,WVU,Texas Tech,Kansas St,Oklahoma St and Oklahoma who are not AAU members.The flow of AAU members is away from the B12.Those under consideration B12 membership include FSU and Miami and Clemson all non-aau members who excellent football programs,Also fox wants the B12 to have Florida members such as FSU and Miami but also includes non-AAU members USF and UCF as secondary Florida targets.
Kansas an AAU member of the B12 is also under consideration for B10 membership.

A listing of AAU members can be found at:
http://www.aau.edu/about/article.aspx?id=5476

AAU is a pretigious lobbying group among select higher education institutions. Beyond giving themselves a label, they press for federal grants, and thus, many view, contribute in part to the spending mess in Washington, DC. There was once a congressman who pointed out their "control" and monopolizing attempts with certain federal grant distributions, and even brought up questions of accountability about it. That is not to deny there are a string of schools wanting to be a part of it. The benefits are multiple, and a school seeks to have company with most designations that convey elite status. But it should not be misrepresented or overly-stated, as a particular sports model.

Dartmouth is not even a part of it.

Who gets the major grants?: Medical (including Vet. Med.) and engineering schools in particular. In some states their medical schools are administratively separate, which puts certain Universities at a disadvantage to make certain claims.

The Big Ten has stated they want their new members to be AAU affiliates. However, I have not heard the B1G state they are using AAU as the rationale for aggressive expansion. If that was so, they would not have by-passed Pitt, for example.

Further, where has any B1G official stated that UNC, GT, and UVA, have invitations to the B1G in hand, these schools have commited to them, and are just waiting for the Maryland issue to settle to jump? I'm not speaking of fan message boards or blogs perpetuating unsubstantiated rumors.

Further, I live in SEC/ACC country and keep up with this stuff, and have heard NOTHING from any credible source (a conference official, a University official, or a mainstream newspaper), that NC State and VPI are headed to the SEC. If there is credible evidence otherwise, please post the source(s).

Devil's Advocate, did anyone hear about Maryland joining the B1G more than a day or 2 before it happened?