Looks like the ACC’s University of Maryland, and most likely the Big East’s Rutgers, will join the Big Ten Conference . . . which will now have fourteen member institutions:
Patricia Florestano, a member of the Board of Regents, confirmed to USA TODAY Sports the regents had voted to apply for admission for the University of Maryland into the Big Ten.
“There was certainly discussion about the tradition of the ACC. And the question is what’s the future. And we’ve got to look to the future,” Florestano said in Baltimore before a previously scheduled public meeting on education policy.
The Big Ten issued a news release that said Maryland would hold a news conference at 3 p.m. Eastern in College Park, Md., with university president Wallace Loh, chanceller Brit Kirwan, athletics director Kevin Anderson and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. The Big Ten has scheduled a national teleconference for 4 p.m. with Delany, Loh, Kirwan, Anderson and University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman.
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Rutgers is expected to follow Maryland to the Big Ten. It has a previously scheduled Board of Governors meeting Monday, but its president, Robert Barchi, and athletic director, Tim Pernetti, have the authority to accept an invitation from the Big Ten without the board’s approval. An announcement on its move could come as early as Tuesday.
For Rutgers to join the Big Ten makes sense to me. It’s an upgrade all the way around for their athletic department. Maryland is a head-scratcher. The Terps aren’t competitive in football in the ACC. It will be less so in the Big Ten. Their premier sport, men’s basketball, leaves one of the best two conferences for college hoops, and the other one isn’t the Big Ten.