Expansion the hot topic at Big Ten annual meeting

Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips toted a three-ring binder thick with Big Ten business Tuesday afternoon as he tried to sneak up a flight of stairs at the Sofitel hotel in Chicago.

Phillips' weighty paperwork included little on the league's ongoing expansion study. The Big Ten focuses on more pressing matters during its annual three-day meeting that concludes Wednesday.

But with reporters from throughout the Midwest littering the hotel lobby looking for clues to the Big Ten's future team picture, Phillips couldn't get to his meeting without being asked for insight.

So, Mr. Phillips, would you say a majority of Big Ten athletic directors and coaches are gung-ho about expansion?

"I think so," Phillips said. "That's a fair statement. It's an exciting time. It's a time where there are endless possibilities - and one of those possibilities is not to do anything.

"I don't think there's anything that's been declared that it's not doable or that it wouldn't make sense, per se."

That provided the most unvarnished glimpse of the Big Ten's thinking five months into this 12- to 18-month process.

League commissioner Jim Delany entertained reporters for 37 minutes Tuesday, but took pains not to offer savory hints or redouble the rate of wild speculation.

Well, perhaps Delany provided one such moment.

After acknowledging the Big Ten Network serves as a factor in regards to expansion, Delany put more emphasis America's continuing population shift to the South.

"In the last 20-30 (years) there's been a clear shift in movement to the Sun Belt," Delany said. "The rates of growth in the Sun Belt are four times what they are in the East or Midwest. That has demographic meaning long-term for the economy, for jobs, for recruitment of students, for recruitment of athletes, for recruitment of faculty, for tax base.

"You're only here for a period of time (as a Big Ten representative) but you do want to look forward to 2020-2030 and see what that impact would be on our schools: not only from a competitive intercollegiate standpoint, but from the recruitment of students, the tax base necessary to support colleges and universities."

Considering none of the SEC's 12 schools are expected to be on the Big Ten's list, Delany's suggestion makes Texas look like the linchpin to expansion.

Or, as Delany took pains more than once to declare, the Big Ten could choose to stick with 11 schools.

Delany said the league's presidents will discuss the matter as part of their annual meeting in early June, but expects the decision-making process to conclude no sooner than November and no later than June 2011.

"As football coaches and basketball coaches and athletic directors, we certainly can weigh in on the subject," Phillips said. "But at the end of the day, it'll be 11 presidents and the commissioner that will guide us to our final destination."