Big Ten Plus Ten

Instead of inviting one college or even five, the Big Ten Conference should invite nine!

This way, they'd have twenty: the Big Ten plus Ten, divided into two divisions of ten each (naturally).

Instead of dividing east-west or north-south, the same for every sport, the conference would be divided into the good teams and the mediocre teams, different for each sport. Thus the Big Ten Division of the Big Ten Conference in basketball would only have about five schools in common with the Big Ten Division in football.

Schools that don't particularly care about a sport don't have to waste resources competing against the top teams in the league. The lower teams wouldn't have a chance at earning the Big Ten championship in that sport, but if they were any good, they'd be in the upper division, right? The Plus Ten Division would thus be a second-tier holding pen for schools that would rather be playing other sports.

Since the Big Ten has a high academic standard for membership (i.e. membership in the AAU), there are only a handful of schools that could be invited. Discounting Ivy League schools, west coast schools, and deep south schools, there are even fewer choices. Of these, the Big Ten should invite:

Kansas
Maryland
Missouri
Nebraska
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse
Vanderbilt
Virginia

Other Division-I AAU schools within the same region are Iowa State, Buffalo, and Stony Brook. Iowa State would fall in the mediocre category in football and basketball and doesn't have a baseball team. Vanderbilt has a bad football team, a mediocre basketball team (but better than Iowa State), and would be the third-best baseball team in the whole league. Plus, Vanderbilt has a better academic reputation.

Even though the conference would probably base the divisions on a longer range of time, here is the Big Ten Division (Football) based solely on last year's rankings:

Iowa
Michigan State
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Wisconsin

Six of those were in the top twenty nationwide. Pretty tough conference, I'd say.

For comparison, here's the Big Ten Division (Men's Basketball):

Kansas
Maryland
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Ohio State
Pittsburgh
Purdue
Syracuse
Wisconsin

Kansas, Syracuse, and Ohio State were in the top five last year. With five others in the top twenty-five, this is an unbelievably tough basketball conference!

...So what was the Pac-10 thinking of doing this week?