Commissioner Jim Delany has been steadfast in the past couple of months in stating that an announcement of how the Big Ten will split into two six-team divisions is expected to come at some point in September.
Wednesday is September 1, and it appears the conference may indeed be on the verge of an announcement. And possibly pissing off a whole lot of people in the process if recent insinuations are accurate.
Four different media sources have been reporting throughout the late afternoon and into the evening that an announcement could — bold, italicize and underline the word “could” — be in the offing at some point tomorrow.
One of the first and most extensive reports came from Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.com. Citing a Big Ten Network source, Dodd reports that the conference could make an announcement on their network tomorrow night as “there is time on the schedule” to do so. The source made sure to stress to Dodd that that he has no knowledge of a planned announcement; rather, he mentions that there is a live college preview scheduled for Wednesday night on the network and that an announcement is possible.
The first to report of the Big Ten possibly divulging its divisional plans for 2011 and beyond also came from CBS Sports.com, with one of their site’s college football bloggers noting speculation about a Wednesday announcement.
Subsequent to those reports, two respected college football writers — who we believe have no connection to Mike Wise — have posted information on their Twitter accounts confirming that the talk of an announcement is indeed buzzing around.
Mike Carmin of the West Lafayette Journal and Courier tweeted — why do I still feel dirty every time I type that word? — that the “Nebraska Asst. AD for FB says they’re coming out, according to a radio station in Lincoln.” Yahoo.com‘s Tom Dienhart also chimed in, tweeting that “[w]ord is that Big Ten will announce 2011 divisions on Wednesday.” It’s unclear if Dienhart is referring to the previous reports or is getting the information from a separate source or sources.
An email sent by CFT to the Big Ten seeking comment has yet to be answered.
Let’s stress one more time that nobody cited above is reporting that an announcement is definitely coming down tomorrow. Based on the reports, however, it certainly seems like something that dwells within the realm of possibility.
And that would certainly be a helluva way to get a jump on a college football season that will start 24 hours or so from the time an announcement could happen.
UPDATED 10:27 p.m. ET: Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune adds some fuel to the above fire, writing that “sources indicate the league is ready to move” on an announcement of the Big Ten’s divisional split, presumably sooner rather than later.
Wouldn’t it be prudent for the Big 10 to let everyone know an announcement was coming tomorrow on the Big 10 Network (in order to gain a ton of viewers for the live broadcast), if indeed an announcement is going to be made?
I’ll await your reply to that. Please reply
It would seem the BTN would want to do just that. I have yet to receive a response to my email from the conference, incidentally.
Mr. Taylor, thank you so much for replying.
Anyone from Sportsline/CBS Sportsline/CBS Sports has as much reliability as Mike Wise.
@JaggedMark: John or JT. Mr. Taylor is my dad or my grandpa.
@JaggedMark: Delany is hoping the announcement stays off the radar and no one notices until the Ohio State-Michigan game – next October.
Jeff Jamrog, Assistant Athletic Director – Football Operations for Nebraska, stated on “Big Red Wrap-Up” that the Big Ten is announcing the divisions, but not the schedule.
We will know who’s in what Division, but not who plays every year or who plays who.
I’m just wondering. Why must the conference be split? Before 1993 when PSU joined the conference. Every team still did not play every other team. Granted there were still 8 conference games then.
12 team league. 9 conference games. The two best teams play in the championship game. I’m sure tie breakers will occasionally come into effect. That could be handled evenly
To split the conference you end up with what happened in the BigXII. Every year there was a team from the North. The record of the north was 4-10. Two by Nebraska and one each from Colorado and KSU. The 10 wins by the south 1 from TAMU, 3 by UT, and 6 by OU.
Is that really what is best for this conference?
Jeff Jamrog has to be reminded how to breathe on a daily basis…I wouldn’t exactly cite the words coming out of his mouth as anything other than mindless drivel.
# grandavenue says: August 31, 2010 10:56 PM ET
Jeff Jamrog, Assistant Athletic Director – Football Operations for Nebraska, stated on “Big Red Wrap-Up” that the Big Ten is announcing the divisions, but not the schedule.
We will know who’s in what Division, but not who plays every year or who plays who.”
We don’t know who is in each division, there’s a lot of speculation but nothing definitive. They could easily make a one-hour show showing each division and listing who each teams rival from the other division is. It would be much better than “The Decision.”