The Big Ten will be welcoming Oregon and Washignton in addition to USC and UCLA as conference members in 2024, bringing the total membership up to 18 members. The news of the latest expansion move by the Big Ten has received plenty of attention and reaction in the days since the news dropped from the conference, and Penn State head coach [autotag]James Franklin[/autotag] shared his thoughts on the move at his Penn State football media day press conference on Sunday.
While Franklin continues to keep his focus on what is directly in front of his team, stating he is only worried about the upcoming season for now and the season opener at home against West Virginia, he did share some thoughts about the state of the game with conference realignment going haywire.
“I do think, obviously, with what you see that’s going on in college football right now, it’s not shocking that these things are kind of happening,” Franklin said. “It’s somewhat sad in some ways, not that these people are being added to our conference because I think obviously there’s a lot of strategy that goes into that.”
[lawrence-related id=34750]
“But you know, I do think there’s some challenges that come along with it and it’s just very different for most of the people in this room, it’s very different than the college football that we all grew up with,” Franklin went on to say. “[Not] really college football, college athletics, where at least for most of the year it was pretty regional.”
The Big Ten is still a mostly midwestern conference even after adding Maryland and Rutgers in its most recent expansion move prior to the upcoming changes in 2024. The additions of USC and UCLA took the Big Ten to the west coast, with a massive geographic gap between the Los Angeles-based schools and the next closest Big Ten member, Nebraska. If nothing else, at least Franklin feels the additions of Oregon and Washington will be good for those two schools.
“I do think it’s a huge win for USC and UCLA from a travel perspective,” Franklin said. “I think it’s a huge win for them.”
The door for additional Big Ten expansion is not necessarily closed either. Cal and Stanford are two of the four remaining Pac-12 members left stranded without a conference home, and the Big Ten would be considered a logical landing spot if the Big Ten was interested in additional California schools. Florida State is kicking up some dust on a potential exit from the ACC and could consider making a push for a spot in the Big Ten with the conference potentially in a spot to add two more schools to get to 20 members.
If Florida State does work its way out of the conference and the Big Ten is not the destination, a weakened ACC could have potential Big Ten targets in North Carolina and Virginia. And, of course, the obligatory mention of Notre Dame has to be included as well. While the Irish may show no signs of being ready to abandon its football independence, we could be getting closer to a potential breaking point that causes the school’s leadership to reevaluate its stance on football independence. And if the ACC cracks, the Irish could work a way out of its contractual requirement to join the conference in football if it does step away from its independence. A Big Ten with all of Notre Dame’s traditional rivals would potentially be attractive, as would the Big Ten revenue shares.
But we’ll see what this week brings in conference realignment news, if anything, after a turbulent week last week.
Follow Kevin McGuire on Threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
Follow Nittany Lions Wire on X and like us on Facebook for continuing Penn State coverage and discussion. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.
[lawrence-auto-related count=5 category=10]