The Big Ten's Comings and Goings

Four new teams joined the Big Ten last year, resulting in the conference having 18 members. One hopes the four newcomers will stick around for a bit, but none of us know how the earth may shift under the newbies' feet or those of the Big Ten members who have been around for a while.

Anything can happen when it comes to conference membership, and history tells us many of those things have already happened or could have happened, including teams seeking membership or leaving the Big Ten. So, here's the story of Big Ten members' comings and goings, including a few schools that never gave it a go.

The Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, formerly known as the Western Conference and now known as the Big Ten, originated in 1896 when seven schools came together to establish scholarship and other standards for intercollegiate athletics. The founding members were Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, and Wisconsin. Three years later, Indiana and Iowa joined, giving the conference nine members.

Following the turmoil of the early 1900s and the new rules that emerged in 1906, most Big Ten members chose to deemphasize athletics, while Michigan chose otherwise, leading to its departure from the conference from 1907 through 1916. In the meantime, Ohio State during the conference in 1912, so Michigan's return to the conference gave it ten teams for the first time.

Ohio State’s 1912 football team was it's first to play in the Big Ten. (1913 Ohio State yearbook)

Nebraska sought membership in the Big Ten in 1900 and was either a contender or rumored to be a contender several other times. However, after settling into the Big 6, later the Big 8, they remained in that conference until 2011.

Nearly as old as rumors of Nebraska joining the Big Ten are stories of Notre Dame joining up. Those rumors preceded Rockne's days since Notre Dame applied for membership in 1901, but they reached a crescendo during Rockne’s time and have seldom gone quiet.

The Hawkeyes of Iowa were booted from the conference in 1930 since they found it necessary to pay players to play there. After disqualifying nearly 30 athletes from collegiate competition, the Big Ten faculties allowed Iowa back into the conference. As a result, while they missed the 1930 conference football season, they were back in action in 1931.

Then there's the University of Chicago. In 1933, Chicago's president suggested to his counterpart at Northwestern that the two schools merge, which might have left the Big Ten with only nine schools. The initial plan was to center undergraduate education on Northwestern's campus in Evanston, graduate education on the University of Chicago's campus in Hyde Park, and professional education at Northwestern's downtown campus. The negotiations fell apart, but conference membership fell to nine when Chicago dropped football in 1939, leaving the conference in all sports in 1946.

Conversations about Michigan State joining the Big Ten were in the air by the late 1930s, at which point Michigan State was the only land grant university in the Big Ten footprint that was not a conference member. Despite Michigan State's potential Big Ten membership preceding Chicago's departure, the Spartans did not compete in the Big Ten until 1953.

At the same time, Michigan State was discussed as a potential member, rumors circulated about Pitt. However, their potential membership was thwarted by perceptions of professionalism among their athletes and their desire to join a conference of Eastern teams.

More recently, Penn State joined in 1990, followed by Maryland and Rutgers in 2014, and UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington in 2019, bringing the conference to eighteen teams.

Whether one of today's eighteen teams will find "greener" pastures elsewhere is anyone's guess, and the same goes for future conference additions.

---

If you enjoy Football Archaeology, consider subscribing or buying one of my books.