Predicting the next teams to come to the Big Ten

Stanford

If there was one program in the PAC-12 that would make the jump solely because of academics, it’d definitely be Stanford.

While the school has gotten its fair share of high-level recruits over the years (Andrew Luck, Christian McCaffrey, Bryce Love, etc) they aren’t regarded as a powerhouse football program.

So, because Stanford doesn’t care quite as much about athletics and focuses more on the academic part of school, moving to the Big Ten makes perfect sense.

With a move to the Big Ten, Stanford would get a much larger portion of the Big Ten Fox TV deal, and they can use a lot of that money to further their research departments, and still have some money to use for athletics.

This is a win-win situation for them, as they would stay relevant by joining the Big Ten, would still be more talented than at least half of the Big Ten programs, but can still be known as a primarily academic institution.

They are part of the AAU, same as Michigan, Northwestern, and some other Big Ten schools, so they wouldn’t be the only academics-driven program in the Big Ten.

While we haven’t really heard much regarding Stanford, I would still put them leaving the PAC-12 as highly likely.