SEATTLE - Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany stepped out of the fourth floor ballroom at the Seattle Westin on Saturday and waved his hands, saying he didn’t want to talk about the University of Michigan’s hearing with the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
Other topics? No problem.
Delany, in the process of transitioning the Big Ten Conference from 11 teams to 12 teams starting in 2011 with the addition of Nebraska, said the league athletic directors are about a month from settling on two divisions for the revamped league culminating in a football championship game.
Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, left, and Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne, right, join Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany earlier this month at the Big Ten media days in Chicago.
The Associated Press
“And number three, try to do it with some eye toward geography, but that’s not the number one situation. Once you sort of agree on principles, you can put all the data together and start having discussions.”
The plan is similar for the football championship game. While the league announced Indianapolis would play host to the first title game in 2011, no long-term site has been decided.
Delany said league officials would consider packaging the Big Ten’s three major championships - football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball - for one city as a possible option.
“We have great venues in great cities in our area of the country, probably more than anyone else does,” Delany said. “We’ve been to Chicago, we’ve been to Indianapolis, and we have to think about whether we want to go beyond that. And if we do, we have to go out and visit and look and evaluate it.”
Among the cities initially considered for the football title game were Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Minneapolis, Green Bay and Cleveland.
Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein
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