Big Ten coaches blindsided by additions of USC, UCLA
Never saw it coming.
That’s how two Big Ten head coaches described news that broke yesterday about USC and UCLA joining their conference.
“I had no idea,” said a Big Ten head coach. “I was driving and all of a sudden my phone blew up. I don't know where it goes. I think this was the easy thing to happen. It gets really complicated and messy now moving forward.”
Said another Big Ten head coach: “They’ve talked about different teams and they talked about expansion. But I didn't think it was gonna happen right now.”
Speculation had swirled for months about the Big Ten perhaps expanding at some point. The SEC fired the first mega shot last summer when it grabbed Big 12 heavyweights Texas and Oklahoma—slated to come aboard in 2025.
Now, the Big Ten may have trumped the SEC’s move. No doubt it did from a TV market standpoint. The Big Ten will have schools in some of the nation’s biggest markets: New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul … and now Los Angeles.
And, according to reports, the Big Ten probably isn’t done adding schools. Who’s next?
“I would predict the next domino to fall is Notre Dame,” said the first Big Ten head coach. “And then after that, I would assume Oregon and Washington. Who is the magical fourth team that get us a 20?”
Cal or Stanford?
"Do they bring any eyeballs?” said the first Big Ten coach. “These decisions aren't being made the way you and I have always thought. This is all pure, unadulterated business. Screw the geography.
“We haven't been told anything. I'm just sitting here going, ‘Where’s this thing going?’ “
This move to add USC and UCLA makes the Big Ten a coast-to-coast league, stretching from Los Angeles to New Jersey.
“You're gonna wake up watching Big Ten football and you're gonna go to bed watching Big Ten football,” said the first Big Ten head coach.
“If you get to two, 40-team, super conferences ... I mean, you're talking about Thursday, Friday, Saturday football that will rival the NFL.”
USC and UCLA not only will bring a huge TV market with them when they officially join in 2024, but they also will bring quality athletic programs—and the academic heft the Big Ten presidents desire, too.
“To have our Big Ten footprint in Southern California, which is a talent-rich area, I'm ecstatic about it,” said the first Big Ten coach. “I don't know anything, but I'm assuming there are just not going to be two from out West. We'll see what that means. It's an area that now gets opened up more to Big Ten schools (for recruiting).”
Oregon, Washington, Cal, Stanford are schools often mentioned as possible additions. If the Big Ten looks East, North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia Tech could be targets.
It has been reported that many schools have reached out—which is what USC and UCLA did—for fear of not having a place in a coming college football structure that likely will feature just two mega-conferences: Big Ten and SEC.
"I heard Florida State reached out right away when this broke,” said the first Big Ten head coach. “That's what I heard.”
The real plum for the Big Ten is and always has been Notre Dame.
“I don't think they're gonna have an option to be able to wait,” said the first Big Ten coach. “I think, number one, for football, without a doubt, they're gonna have to get in. If you're not in the SEC or the Big Ten right now, your life is not good in football. Everybody else is gonna be a Group of Five. It's not gonna matter.”
“I just don't see Notre Dame joining the SEC.”
Said the second Big Ten head coach: “Notre Dame has always made logical sense to me to be in the Big Ten.
“You just get this feeling that there's two conferences right now that seem to be out front of all this stuff. That’s the SEC and the Big Ten. And it just feels like there's more to come. I don't know when or how that looks, but it just seems like both those conferences are gonna get to the 20 (team) range. That wouldn't shock me.”
The dust is far from settling on a college football landscape already rocked by NIL and the transfer portal. The NCAA also is teetering on the brink as it is in the midst of reinventing itself.
Crazy times.
“If you had any sense to you, you knew the apocalypse was coming,” said the first Big Ten head coach. “I just didn't know when, right? The college football that you've covered and the college football I played and coach died yesterday.”
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