What teams would fans like to see join the Big XII  to get us back to our original number? 

Personally I would like to see SMU and TCU join. Then you could move Oklahoma and State up to the Big Twelve North and have SMU and TCU join the other four Texas teams and re-name the Big XII south the Big XII Texas conference. We could still easily match up Oklahoma and Texas annually with a "permanent rival" game like the ACC and SEC use. 

Of course there are a number of other teams that could join. Houston comes to mind, Rice,N. Texas, UTEP, Arkansas, BYU, Boise State, Tulsa, Notre Dame and on and on. 

So what do other Big XII fans want?

Unlike the Big XII and SEC the Big Ten should not create sub conferences that are based on regions, but on keeping the most important rivalries played on an annual basis, similar to how the ACC developed. Putting rivals in the same sub-conferences will ensure they play every year. Utilizing a "permanent rival", such as the ACC and SEC currently do, would allow teams from opposite sub-conferences to play on an annual basis as well.

The Big Ten should follow these guidelines: 

1. Parity. Keep the strength of the sub-conference as even as possible.

2. Rivalries. Currently there are 12 trophy games and 22 "every year" games played between rivals. Keep as many of these alive as possible.

3. Big names in big games. Allow for one of the biggest games in College football, Ohio State and Michigan, to be a possible match-up for the championship game.

4. Restart the Michigan Nebraska rivalry.

This is what I have come up with:

Michigan                 Ohio State

Michigan State       Penn. State

Nebraska                Wisconsin

Purdue                    Minnesota

Illinois                      Iowa

Indiana                    Northwestern 

Each team will always play every other teams in its group and each team would be the "permanent rival" of the team across from it, which means they would play on an annual basis. So Michigan would always play Ohio St., Michigan St., Nebraska, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana. They would play two of the remaining five teams each year.

This allows for 10 of the 12 trophy games to continue being played, the matches lost are Michigan vs. Minnesota and Ohio St. vs. Illinois. It is possible to give these four teams two permanent rivals instead of one to keep the trophy game played annually, and this would allow for Ohio State and Michigan to play a weaker team since they are penciled in for a tough permanent most years.

21 out of the current 22 remaining games that are played annually would continue, the only game lost is Purdue vs. Northwestern, which I am fine with.

There are three things I studied in college: Chemistry, Economics and why the Midwest can't count. After further review and research I have determined that the Big Ten's proposal to move to twelve teams makes perfect sense in all three fields.

In chemistry there is the octet rule. It states that eight valence electrons is the perfect number to keep a molecule stable and happy. For football conferences the rule is slightly different because the magic number is 12, but the general idea of the number creating stability holds true.

Twelve teams also had great economic benefits because it allows the conference to be divided up nicely into two sub-conferences of six teams. The sub-conferences themselves lead to a money making opportunity in the form of the Conference Championship game.


Twelve is also a good number for scheduling reasons. Five conference games against your sub-division and three against the other leaves four games to beat up the MAC. In this way your teams with 2-5 and 3-4 conference records can continue to be bowl eligible, pulling in more money for the conference to offset those 1-6 bowl records.

And as far as Midwesterners not being able to count, since twelve doesn't equal ten the rule still stands.

Now, all we have to do is find the perfect fit!

Let's start by examining all the teams that the Big-Ten might have the slightest interest in: which will include traditional powers located close to the region, non-BCS powerhouse programs on the rise, and teams in a state where the Big Ten currently has a team. Once this list is compiled each team will be subject to a demanding set of criteria in order to prove it is the right candidate.

Our initial List looks like this:
Notre Dame
Syracuse
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Connecticut
Boston College
Maryland
West Virginia
Louisville
Houston
Ohio
Temple
Bowling Green
Kent State
Buffalo
Akron
Miami (OH)
Central Michigan
Northern Illinois
Western Michigan
Toledo
Ball State
Eastern Michigan
Iowa State
Texas Christian University
Boise State



The first rule will take into account prestige, this is the Big Ten we are talking about, and if you don't have a program that used to be good you can forget about being welcomed into the big boy club. So lets go ahead and cut most of the MAC teams.

The second rule states that the prestige of your name must be based on what your school did, not a school from another state with a similar name. There goes Miami of Ohio.

The third rule states that you cannot steal a team from a conference that already has twelve teams. Iowa State, Maryland, Houston and Boston College are gone.

The fourth rule states the Big Ten must be the lead innovator in college football, as showcased by their offensive creativity and team speed on defense. Therefore stealing a team from the Big East would be passe since the ACC has already done so.

That leaves only TCU, Boise State and Notre Dame.

The fifth rule states that the team must have played after the 2009 season in at least two BCS bowl games. TCU bows out.

It's down to Notre Dame and Boise State.

The sixth and final rule states that the team must have won more BCS games than the entire Big Ten Conference combined over the last three years. (The Big Ten is 0 for 6 in that time frame.)

Ladies and Gentleman, meet the newest face of the Big Ten: Boise State! Expect the Broncos to add some much needed offensive firepower and pizazz to the stale Big Ten.

Congratulations Broncos, you now have one year to design 11 trophies to play for against your new rivals. Please don't pain them blue.

Two unofficial sources are now claiming that fifty eight Brigham Young University players have tested positive for viagra, which is now listed as a performance enhancing drug.

According to a 2006 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology Viagra, sildenafil citrate, can enhance cardiovascular workouts when in a high altitude setting. This is because Viagra can increase oxygen transport to the blood when working out high above sea level, where oxygen levels in the air are lower.

The list of players included sophomore kicker Tristan Maldanado, the only one to respond to questions from thinkingoutsidetheranking interviewers. When asked about the incident Maldanado said that players often talked about Viagra, but none of them "knew anything about its performance enhancing ability on the football field."

In an unidentified Facebook post one player responded to the allegations by stating reasons the football team had to take Viagra that didn't involve football.

"There is alot of pressure to perform your best for the ladies. Some of us look forward to having three or four wifes down the road, and keeping sexually fit is a must if the maximum number of multiple wives is to be achieved."

Another unconfirmed reason for taking Viagra circulating the press is that the male population of BYU, not just the football players, need Viagra in order to make love to a female student body that isn't exactly attractive. According to a nation-wide poll of college students on Studentsreview.com BYU has the second least attractive girls in the nation, falling behind only Capella University.

The performance enhancing abilities help to explain why BYU, a team full of slow white guys can compete at such a high level during conference play in the mountainous region of the states but continues to lose bowl games when they travel away from the high altitude stadiums.

How the NCAA will respond to the violations is not yet known. It has been suggested by sources that the NCAA could limit the team to 15 scholarships for three years for the same time period.