Big Ten to Expand with...Texas?

Mind you I have been working on a nice little piece to really get into the discussion about possible Big Ten expansion which is looking more and more likely. The prospect of creating 2 divisions and having a football championship game are just too enticing for Big Ten officials to ignore any longer.

So as we continue to piece together a longer and more in-depth post about the expansion to 12, or even 14 teams in the Big Ten, chew on this little nugget...

The Big Ten and The University of Texas have begun preliminary talks about adding the Longhorns to the conference roster [Detroit News link]. It sounds insane, but at one point in the late 90's, right about the time Notre Dame looked prime to join the Big Ten, Texas was also a real consideration.

"There have been preliminary exchanges between the Big Ten and Texas," a source with ties to the Big Ten told the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World. "People will deny that, but it's accurate." 

What are preliminary exchanges? Who knows. Maybe it's just a mis-dialed call from the Big Ten offices to some random guy in Texas...at this point, that may be enough to trigger speculation. If I had to guess as to what will happen with this expansion, I would say that the Big Ten has a better chance of ending up with 14 teams when this is all said and done than with 12 teams...unless one of those new teams is Texas. In which case 12 makes more sense.