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deanwormer wrote:

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I do like Mizzou as a possibility, Pitt, BC, ND of course so we can whup those pretensious tools.  I still view Rutgers as quite marginal but clearly they have been growing and draw increasingly in a certain major metro.  Syracuse, Maryland somewhat interesting.  So TAMU is the domino to get this all rolling?  

Maybe, but more will have to happen.  It could be A&M to the SEC, without a 14th member for next year, and BYU to the Big XII.  If that happens, I wouldn't expect anything more for a while.  But when the SEC finally picks a 14th team, it likely will provoke more changes for the other conferences.  That's mostly because there are very few great gets available (really, just Texas, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame as national brand names), so conferences will need to move fast to get the best they can or be left behind.

As to your list of possible Big Ten additions, a lot will depend on a host of factors we really can't predict right now.  For example, some sportswriters in the Plains are suggesting that after this A&M business the remaining/new Big XII members will have to sign a stronger agreement for the long term, one that would make it much harder for, say, Missouri to bolt for the Big Ten or SEC.  We know from last year that Missouri's interested in the Big Ten, but they might not be able to move.  (There was talk that Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Kansas tried to arrange a package deal to go to the Big Ten just last week, but drew no interest; no confirmation of that, of course.)

ND might agree to join the Big Ten (reluctantly) if the Big East gets torn apart by other conferences, which could happen; but they wouldn't be coming in the way Nebraska has, just happy to be here.  So, they'd be a point of instability for years to come, because we never know when they might want to leave.

The northeastern schools are something of a puzzle.  Syracuse, for example, might be the price to get ND (as was reported last year), even though I doubt it's the first choice of Delany or the academicians.  It's not clear whether Maryland or Rutgers would have an edge, if the conference wanted to expand in the mid-Atlantic.  Maryland has a richer football history and long had a rivalry with PSU, which has a lot of alumni in the DC area.  But DC is a much smaller market than NY/NJ, and Maryland plays second-fiddle these days to VT in football, while also sharing space with UVA and Navy.  A combination of SU and RU would add NY and NJ to the conference footprint, which means a lot more $$$ for the BTN; and SU has a lot of alumni in both NYC and Boston, so it also provides some entree to the New England market.

BC and Pitt are less likely to be asked.  BC has had a decent football program for years, but unless they were bait to lure ND it's not at all clear they'd be a good fit for the Big Ten as a modest-sized Catholic university.  By contrast, Pitt would be a great fit, especially academically, but it wouldn't bring much from a tv point of view, adding nothing to the footprint and lacking a national following.

It wouldn't surprise me to see ND, Missouri, Syracuse, and Rutgers in the conference at some point, but then these days almost nothing would surprise me.