UMd to the Big 10

[DaBear]

Originally Posted by dave

Read it yesterday and was also disheartened. I know little about MD sports aside from Lefty, Boomer and Len Bias.

I was more dumbfounded from the perspective of a life-long Big10 fan. I understood the Penn State addition. And I understood going after ND. Nebraska? At least they bring some FB credibility. But MD? Why?

The Big 10 wanted to get up to 14 teams like everyone else, and since ND went the ACC route, they were down their best option. Of the ACC teams, UMd was the best option for going to the Big 10 of any of them, so it makes sense that if they wanted to get back at the ACC for ND they'd try to take UMd. Of the other major(and I use this word loosely by considering the Big East one) conferences, only Pitt and Syracuse would have really fit, and both had already committed to the ACC. BC may have worked for them too, but they were content in the ACC.

Nebraska has always felt like a Big 10 team to me, even back in the day I felt they were misplaced in the Big 12, so to me that was a smart move, it saved Nebraska from a Big 12 that was falling apart into the Texas And Others Conference(Longhorn Network anyone?), and gave the Big 10 the 12th member needed for a championship game.

Oh, and here's the UMd's SGAs response endorsing the move which made me chuckle.



Blatantly reaching for anything to make this move make sense. There is no athletic benefit to this whatsoever, especially when you consider they're going to pay $50 million to leave the ACC, a number that will likely affect academics too, which the letter completely fails to even consider.