Predicting the next teams to come to the Big Ten

Notre Dame

The only reason I didn’t put Notre Dame much higher on this list is that we don’t truly know what the Fighting Irish are going to do.

They’ve resisted joining a conference for so long in football now, with the only time they’ve joined a conference being that weird 2020 COVID year (that honestly doesn’t count for much) that until they do, it is hard to slot them in as sure-fire.

Now, they are obviously weighing the pros and cons of joining the Big Ten, but they are already in the Big Ten in hockey and are in another conference (the ACC) in basketball.

We don’t need to go into too much detail about how it makes too much sense for Notre Dame to join the Big Ten in football (as they just played us in 2019, and play Ohio State this year in football) but it makes sense geographically, financially, academically, and athletically.

Who knows, Notre Dame could do a 180 and choose to join the ACC full-time, as they did just play in that conference in 2020, but nobody knows what they will decide.

The Irish could make their decision tomorrow, they could make their decision at the end of the year or even further down the line, but Notre Dame’s decision will single-handedly affect a lot of other PAC-12 team’s decisions, so yes, this is a huge decision to make.

As of now, I put Notre Dame in the unlikely/doubtful category. It is definitely possible they join the Big Ten, but, they are notoriously very stubborn when it comes to wanting to stay independent, so we’ll see.

I didn’t include any other schools from other conferences like Pitt or Duke/North Carolina because it is unclear if the Big Ten is even interested in programs in the ACC or Big 12.

Michigan fans, what other programs would you like to see join the Big Ten? What’s your top-five, like mine?