[Hulk01]

The Big Ten is much more than an athletic conference.  Membership, for example, allows each member school access to the research and libraries of all other schools.  There are shared tutoring and training programs, as another example, for professors who are named heads of their departments.  And the Big Ten is a buying/purchasing consortium that sends out purchasing requests en masse, and buys from the lowest bidder on the conference schools' massive combined request.

The Big Ten is a massive, synergistic partnership with an emphasis far beyond athletics.

I know one of the Presidents very well; she's my sister in law.  (Not insignificant here that the majority of Big Ten presidents are women.)  I've not spoken with her, but am confident she has a strong bias to adding Stanford next, a bias to Cal, and a clear preference for Washington over Oregon. Having the example of former power Nebraska in their conference, and the realization that Phil Knight is 85. each Big President will wonder about the long term strength of Oregon football. And none of them, I am confident, respect Oregon as an institution.

My guess is that they'd feel comfortable standing pat at Notre Dame and Stanford, and at 18 teams. They would not dread losing Oregon, Washington, or Cal, but could not miss the obvious travel advantages of having those three schools plus SC, Stanford, and UCLA in a Big Ten West. But again, to many of them, Oregon is in the mix for no other reason than football.  The Ducks would become, from every perspective other than athletic, the Boise State of the Big Ten,

[Hulk01]

The Big Ten is much more than an athletic conference.  Membership, for example, allows each member school access to the research and libraries of all other schools.  There are shared tutoring and training programs, as another example, for professors who are named heads of their departments.  And the Big Ten is a buying/purchasing consortium that sends out purchasing requests en masse, and buys from the lowest bidder on the conference schools' massive combined request.

The Big Ten is a massive, synergistic partnership with an emphasis far beyond athletics.

I know one of the Presidents very well; she's my sister in law.  (Not insignificant here that the majority of Big Ten presidents are women.)  I've not spoken with her, but am confident she has a strong bias to adding Stanford next, a bias to Cal, and a clear preference for Washington over Oregon. Having the example of former power Nebraska in their conference, and the realization that Phil Knight is 85. each Big President will wonder about the long term strength of Oregon football. And none of them, I am confident, respect Oregon as an institution.

My guess is that they'd feel comfortable standing pat at Notre Dame and Stanford, and at 18 teams. They would not dread losing Oregon, Washington, or Cal, but could not miss the obvious travel advantages of having those three schools plus SC, Stanford, and UCLA in a Big Ten West. But again, to many of them, Oregon is in the mix for no other reason than football.  The Ducks would become, from every perspective other than athletic, the Boise State of the Big Ten,