UnNews:Big Ten to expand to twelve; academics "primary concern"
|
This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
18 December 2009
CHICAGO, IL — Amid growing concerns that late season breaks are costing the conference national perception, the Big Ten has announced that it will explore the idea of adding a twelfth school to the conference. Such an addition would allow them to stage a conference championship game, with all the prestige, money, and viewers the event would undoubtedly bring.
"Ever since Penn State was added to the conference – back when Joe Paterno was still human – they have been an unqualified success." commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "We now feel that, with the threat of SEC ownership now firmly upon us, we must search for an extra team that will help us take back the minds of voters that have been brainwashed with the concept of Southern speed."
The main goal of the expansion will be to help promote the football side of the conference, a move that rules out oft-rumored independent and dinosaur Notre Dame. As Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald so fluently put it, "...they lost to Syracuse, man". Fitzgerald did not respond when it was pointed out that his own team had also lost to the Orange in the recent past.
However, football will not be the only thing taken into consideration. Other factors include location (with rumors suggesting the University of Sydney could be invited provided their AFL team starts taking Ro-Tel TV timeouts every fifteen seconds) and academics. Being a collection of stuffy Midwest state flagships (plus Northwestern) this is a particular sticking point for the conference.
"We can't really take in anyone with a functional mathematics department" said an anonymous conference representative. "Any school with one will already be laughing at us for having eleven schools now – imagine trying to convince Rutgers that twelve is equal to ten! I guess we could call ourselves the Big 12; would definitely make some announcers explode with confusion at any rate. Or we could add West Virginia, they probably wouldn't mind."
One of the wilder rumors has been that the Texas Longhorns would give up their position as Big 12 kingpins to join the counting-challenged conference. However, attempts to contact the university have been met with a taped message of Mack Brown laughing hysterically and burning piles of money.
Sources[edit | edit source]
- "Big Ten statement on expansion" Big Ten Conference, 15 December, 2009