Michigan Football: With more conference teams comes more urgency

When the Big Ten finally adds two or three more teams to the conference, it doesn’t necessarily bode well for Michigan football.

News that Oklahoma and Texas are probably moving to the SEC has made its rounds. Initially, it was pretty surprising as a move like this didn’t really seem likely until at least five or six years down the road.

But, it is going to happen, and a chain-reaction of other things is going to happen as well. For instance, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Iowa State will all need a different conference to go to because being in a conference with no true superpower or a team a cut above the rest is no fun (aka Texas and/or Oklahoma).

Here is where the Big Ten and Michigan football comes in. News came out that Kansas and Oklahoma State have had discussions with the Big Ten over possibly joining the conference.

I’m not sure about adding all four of those aforementioned teams, but adding two of them makes sense, and the best outcome would be adding Iowa State and Oklahoma State. Adding Kansas would be great too, not for football, but for basketball.

These teams are all geographically close to some of the Big Ten teams like Iowa and Nebraska and Iowa State plays Iowa every year so why not just add these teams in?

Michigan football needs to have a sense of urgency

Unless the Big Ten adds both Iowa State and Oklahoma State, I don’t foresee either team joining the Big Ten East (where Michigan resides).

It won’t really matter though. Because if not this year, or next year, in a couple of seasons, the Big Ten will expand and more teams will come into the Big Ten.

Most likely, to balance out the Big Ten, the West division will get both teams, whatever those combinations of teams may be. It makes sense geographically, and from a competitive standpoint.

More from GBMWolverine

• 3 things to watch for Michigan football vs. Rutgers
• Michigan football vs. Rutgers: Prediction, Odds, Spread and Over/Under for College Football Week 4
• Michigan Wolverines news: Jim Harbaugh wants J.J. McCarthy ‘gunslinging’, plus a drop in recruiting rankings
• Grades, game balls for Michigan football vs. Bowling Green
• Michigan Wolverines news: Jake Moody is money in the NFL, plus more

If Iowa State comes in, they are going to the West. Same as if Oklahoma State comes in. I still think Kansas is going to the West if they come in too.

The East is too front-loaded with historically great teams to be considered at least in my opinion. The West is the weaker division from top to bottom and they need another great team to compete with Wisconsin and Iowa to balance out the conference.

With all of this being said, the clock has officially gone from 0 to 100  (if it hasn’t already 10 times over by now) for Michigan’s football team. Michigan has gone 17 seasons without a Big Ten championship.

Almost all the other Big Ten teams have at least made the Big Ten championship (at least the teams with some actual great prior historic seasons).

It will be very embarrassing for Michigan football if Oklahoma State and/or Iowa State come into the Big Ten and win their division almost immediately ( having never prior been in the Big Ten) and at least make it to the Big Ten championship game.

That’s literally all U-M fans are asking for at this point. Just make it to a game. We haven’t even gotten to taste a game at Indy yet.

We can all see the jokes now. Paul Finebaum would never let up on Harbaugh (even more so then than ever), all the national media would pick on U-M even more (if that’s even possible at this point). For the conference as a whole, this is great, great news.

To have some more good teams potentially join the conference is great for the Big Ten. As U-M fans, we should all welcome that as well. More chances to play against good teams (yeah more chances to be beaten too).

But at the same time, it has to make at least a few of us pessimistic fans nervous and annoyed because at the rate that Michigan has been playing in the last few seasons (in a downturn), these good teams (who are on the come-up) will have passed us up in the pecking order sooner rather than later (and they will not even have been in the conference but a year or two). An even higher sense of urgency needs to happen with Jim Harbaugh and Michigan football.

Hopefully, this conference expansion will finally (finally) light a fire under Harbaugh because Harbaugh (and Michigan football in general) has had chance after chance after chance to try and have a special season and a trip to Indy.