I think in the end it'll be Rutgers... but I absolutely HATE how college football is managed. HATE IT. You have 120 teams in DIV I-A (yes I counted them)... split them up in 10 divisions with 12 teams each for christ sake! Then you divide inside the division 6-6... the two winners play one against each other and you have the division champion... and remain with 10 teams... and then you have a national play-off... is that so F* hard!? NCAA is a joke...
All the media talk in Columbus says it will be Rutgers. The Big Ten wants a chunk of the NY/NJ market.
i totally agree with the basketball part but i think that huggins will make WVU into a big time basketball school as well
Also keep in mind, Im pretty sure you can be in one division for Football and another for basketball, not sure
Rutgers doesn't bring in that much in NY since NY doesn't really support college sports, look at how bad St. Johns is now its pathetic and no one cares. And it doesn't help that at its peak Rutgers can only get to the middle tier of a weaker Big East conf and if they want NY so bad Syracuse is a much better school than Rutgers I could see the Big Ten getting a team like Missouri, not just for media market but new recruiting ground opened for the Big Ten schools
The only team I remember the NY market caring about while I lived back East was Notre Dame. Everybody in New Jersey is a Notre Dame fan. Then again guys like Doug Graber, and Terry Shea were coaching Rutgers to 3-4 wins a year backn then. It would be a major coup for Rutgers if they could get in the Big 10 though and IMO would immediately improve the football team through new recruiting areas. You have to remember that Schiano is already getting the Florida kids. Imagine if he could start to get the midwest OL and DL?
How is Syracuse better than Rutgers in any way? Rutgers might not dominate in New York City, but New York NFL fans are largely starting to support Rutgers. On the other hand, no one cares about Syracuse, at all. Rutgers has been a model program with the way it's being built, top of the nation in academics for athletes, prospects from the local area as well as many of it's surrounding areas usually belonging to other schools, and a quality and visible presence as the face of the program. In addition, NYC is a lot closer to NJ than it is Upstate NY when it comes to TV; so there's a vote for RU when it comes to the Big Ten Network.
Syracuse is down but when it was up it was miles ahead of what Rutgers is now or was a few years ago and this has been the best Rutgers has been ever in its history. No one cares about Rutgers now and I think they won 8 games this year. Do you really want to compare football histories? to prove my point Rutgers in 6 bowl games in its history rivals effing Temple in terms of ineptness
Syracuse was fairly strong during the 90s but has been pretty miserable lately. You talk like Syracuse has had a long and storied history, they were only even above average for about ten years there, and before that it was short stretches of Joe Morris and Jim Brown. Quite honestly, Syracuse just doesn't have the desirability that a team like Rutgers does. A bad location for recruiting, an identity as a basketball school first and foremost, and very little when it comes to an on field product.
Compared to Rutgers it is a long and storied history although with that said I think a team like Pitt or Mizzou is a much better fit in every way than those teams that we are arguing about
As a program and based on proximity Pitt would be a great choice, but I honestly think RU would still be the overall favorite. They're a link to New York fans and NY TV money, and also are a quality team, but not one good enough to immediately upset the conferences balance of power, a positive for teams.
Pitt has always struck me as a team that plays B10-style football. I think it would be the most legitimate choice, and would bolster the strength of that conference to those on the outside, something that is more debatable with the other two.
You are greatly overrating the NY audience, it has never been a college sports town especially if Rutgers were to return to its former doormat status which brings up Rutgers weakness as great as the potential of a NY market could be that would only happen if they become the next Penn St but that ain't happening which would leave you with just New Jersey which blows, and this is added to the fact that they would be bringing in a doormat in basketball as well. Another reason though to bring up Syracuse is if their basketball program was coming along with the move, if that's the case than it would blow away Rutgers. Syracuse basketball may be the closest thing that could change the non collegiate mantra of NY. But like I said Missouri (St. Louis/Kansas City), Pitt (and obviously ND) would be better fits taking everything into everything from media markets, academics, the two big sports and recruiting area.
As long as Schiano stays at Rutgers they'll compete at a high level. The school moving to the Big 10 almost ensures he stays. It's a win for the Big 10 because even though they don't bring in alot of NY fans they will bring in the NY market and make the conference more visible. You don't think fans in NY would watch Rutgers hosting Ohio State or Michigan? It's not so much who they bring the potential of what they could bring especially if the program began to be a consistent top 15 team which isn't a reach. The other thing your forgetting is that's not so much the fans that they are after but the newspaper writers and radio hosts. If the NY Post sends their beat writer to cover Rutgers at Iowa it's a win because the conference is getting a write up in the Post and how many more readers? If 1050 sends a guy to cover OSU at Rutgers that guy will almost certainly talk about what he saw to how many listeners even if it's for 5 minutes. If Rutgers joins the BIg 10 it not only would legitimize the program but also make them a big time program with big time media coverage. I don't think this is a basketball move though, these guys strictly have made it known that they want a 12th team so they can have a championship game and give their football players one less week of rust to gain before they get crushed in the BCS bowls. They could care less about the basketball side of things. This is mainly a football move by the conference. The only school of the ones you listed that is a better choice is Notre Dame and it's not even close but the Irish will never give up their status to play by their own rules. Rutgers has better academics, better media coverage and definitely better recruiting area in 2 sports. If we're talking basketball how good could Michigan St be if Izzo recruited the NYC area like he owned it? You don't get that in Pittsburgh. The question on my mind is even though they fight it if the Big 10 expands is the Pac 10 far behind and they'd bring in two schools. Utah and BYU make the most sense to me but Boise's football prowess would make them an interesting choice. That might be the only way for the BCS to avoid adding the Mountain West to their monopoly is to steal Utah and BYU. That would absolutely crush the conference no matter how good TCU is.
I'd love to get Pitt out of the Big East for basketball so if it meant them going to the Big 10 I'm all for it.
How often does the move purely only amounts to one sport, they will have to consider both even if their main goal is football as they don't want to hurt the image of the basketball conference that already has a pretty bad image, if they have the choice to better both or better one they would choice to better both sports conferences. As for Rutgers, their high level even with Schiano isn't really that high, they never seem to beat the elite teams in their conference and going from the Big East to the Big Ten they will take their lumps. That may not even be Northwestern level. And you are assuming that Schiano will stay, if an elite school like a Notre Dame or a better example a Penn State come a calling the chances that he will stay are slim. And if you have Rutgers without a Schiano they are a permanent doormat unless they get lucky twice because while they have "potential" their history is telling a completely different story. As for your comment of recruiting, the downside of bringing in a New York school is that you still have to consider the distance, going from lets say Wisconsin all the way to NYC is cost prohibitive the distance alone makes it tough to even create a pipeline let alone recruiting as if you owned it extremely difficult, the only school that could convert on something like that is Penn State which is why they are pushing an Eastern School so hard. In the case of Izzo, what would make more sense to you staying in MI which he owns and has good recruits and has his pipeline in OH. Or try to go all the way to NYC and probably wouldn't be able to see half the recruits that he sees now at least with Pittsburgh it is close enough to OH that he could still recruit it if he wanted to. And coming back to football, the recruiting ground in NY/NJ is pretty pathetic and doesn't compare to a school purely in the midwest, let alone a southern school.
One clarification. The football recruiting ground in NY is pathetic. It's slowly getting better but still has a LONG way to go. NJ is a completely separate state and churns out the best football talent in the Northeast by FAR not including PA. 7 NJ HS products were drafted in the 1st round last year and there's going to be multiple NJ guys drafted in the first few rounds this year and no slowing down into the foreseeable future. NJ is a top 10 football state nationally in many people's eyes. 11-15 in any neutral observer's opinion. And I'm not just talking about Don Bosco, there's plenty of D1 talent in North, Central and South. In regards to the recruiting distance, just look at BC in the ACC. They have to recruit everywhere outside of New England and do it just fine.
You just said the key point Northeast, The Northeast is probably only stronger than the Pacific Northwest when it comes to recruiting regions in the United States. I just looked at boston college and they bring in borderline top 50 talent on most years lately, you can't really sustain long term success at a high level if you don't have close recruiting ground that you can own for your own. Just look at any top school in comparison.