Texas too big for the Big Ten

The Big 10 is looking to expand. Already numbering 11 schools, the conference wants more. At first it was speculative: maybe Notre Dame, maybe the University of Missouri, maybe the University of Pittsburgh, all are within the regional scope of the Big 10. None of those schools would be a huge leap.

And then came the reports about the Big 10 going after the University of Texas. And the Lawrence Journal World reported that talks had begun with the conference and the university discussing the issue. (Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delany later denied that any such discussions took place.) Suddenly the question was would Texas leave the Big 12?

And my answer would be no, even if Delany is lying and he has been reaching out to the Longhorns. Texas is not going to leave the Big 12. Texas is not going to leave a conference where they’ve dominated for the past ten years. Only three conference championships, sure, but four straight BCS bowl games in the last four years does a school—and a conference—proud.

And this is Texas. The university certainly doesn’t want to be the outlier school, furthest away from the heart of Big 10 country. The school wouldn’t want to give up the rivalries with Texas A&M and Oklahoma, and adding the two to the non-conference schedule would be a BCS death wish.

The Big East got so mad at Miami and Boston College for defecting to the ACC in 2005 that they filed a lawsuit against the two schools. What would the Big 12 do if one of its top two teams—and let’s be serious here, Texas and Oklahoma are really the only thing the Big 12 has going for it right now in football—defected to the Big 10? It wouldn’t be pretty.
The Lawrence Journal article cites that Texas’ increased travel costs (Texas now plays five to six of its games within the state of Texas) would be covered by the extra money received through the Big 10’s huge TV expansion if Texas were to join. But from where I’m sitting that’s more of a home run for the Big 10—expanding into the Texas market—than for the Longhorns, who already have the biggest TV deal in the Big 12.

And not that DeLoss Dodds, Texas’ athletic director, isn’t concerned about revenue, but Texas actually had its revenue increase substantially in the last two years, whereas everyone else has fallen upon hard times. As Dodds once famously said, “We don’t have to keep up with the Joneses. We are the Joneses.”

The question of whether or not Texas would move to the Big 10 is more than just a question of money. It’s a question that I’ve never really thought about: what makes a conference? Right now, with the “Big Six” conferences, apparently what defines a conference is its location in the United States.

But for Columbia and the other seven schools in the Ivy league, “best fit for now” doesn’t seem to apply. Yes, the Ivy league teams all play each other in athletic competition. Yes, the Ivy league was formally founded in 1954 under the NCAA as primarily an athletic conference.

But the Ivy league no longer represents just an athletic conference, it might never have. In fact, I would argue that the modern Ivy league least resembles the kind of athletic conference typically found in the United States.

By refusing to give athletic scholarships, the conference has a distinct disadvantage in recruiting, and the kids that come to institutions like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, or Cornell, are kids who want to continue to compete while still getting a degree from a prestigious university.

All, except Cornell, were founded during the colonial period of American history. And as of 2010 all eight rank in the top 20 undergraduate colleges in the United States, with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Penn as the top four schools in the country. As a conference, I’d say the competition focuses more on academic excellence than the results of what happens on the field of play.

The idea that any of these universities would leave the conference is more laughable than the Texas to the Big 10 rumor. The Ivy league doesn’t get huge TV deals or much national coverage when it comes to sports. Students don’t pour into stands and other than the Harvard-Yale game, there doesn’t seem to be too many heated rivalries. Since 1954 there have been no defections, no reformations, no additions (though unlike the conferences with numbers, there’s nothing illogical behind adding an institution to the Ivy League).

So what defines a conference like the Ivy league? Is it endowments? Is it academic excellence? Because there seems to be little question that the Ivy league has a corner on those markets. The Ivy league stands so entrenched in the minds of the nation that nothing could tear a school out of the conference.

I do, however, think that if the Big 10 is looking to get into the Texas market they should target TCU, who would be more than happy to make the jump to a Big Six conference, and prove that they can handle the tough guys just fine. Texas isn’t going anywhere.

Holly MacDonald is a Barnard College senior majoring in history and English.
sportseditors@columbiaspectator.com