7/31/2022 football Edit

Kevin Warren elaborates on realignment, addition of UCLA, USC

Keegan Nickoson • TheHoosier

Staff Writer

In my senior year at Indiana studying Sports Media and Sports Journalism. I live for the most outlandish takes on the IU boards. Fat Dan's has the best food in Bloomington.

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Just a couple weeks on the heels of adding UCLA and USC to the Big Ten, commissioner Kevin Warren fielded many questions from the media on the idea of realignment, how it came about with the Big Ten, and how it will impact the conference's future.

Warren was very open about how the idea of adding USC and UCLA on the radar, saying that he included it during the interview process when he was making an effort to take over as commissioner.

His growing up in Arizona made him familiar with the Pac-12, so he came to the Big Ten knowing the impact that USC and UCLA could bring to the Big Ten and the midwest.

"One of the things that jumped out about USC, UCLA, and even the market of Los Angeles, we have — they’re the largest section of Big Ten alumni, other than in the Midwest, is in Los Angeles,” Warren said during Big Ten Media Days. “And there’s so many opportunities that exist across the country."

The great thing about Warren's statements was how transparent he was about why the Big Ten is being so aggressive.

"We need to become comfortable in change. We need to embrace change,” Warren said. “But all of these things that we’re dealing with now, we had mapped those out even a couple of years ago, even during my interview process, to make the plans to create good partnerships, to stay focused, to keep the main thing the main thing, and that’s to make sure that our student-athletes, that we continually embrace them and empower them."

By what Warren has implied, it looks like the Texas and Oklahoma move to the SEC didn't spark this reaction by the Big Ten, but this was all just a matter of time and has been very well planned out, despite how it may look.

"So I’m embracing change,” Warren said. “I’m going to be very aggressive. I’ve been that way my entire career. And I just want to make sure we build an environment, because our student-athletes and our fans and our universities deserve that. I just want to make sure we’re aggressive how we build this. We’ve got to do it in the right way for the right reasons at the right time."

What this "aggression" could possibly turn into is really what makes this whole issue interesting. The most fitting and most profitable move would be to somehow convince Notre Dame to depart from their deal with NBC and have them to join the conference, or we can get really crazy and somehow see a mix of Oregon, Washington or Utah from the Pac-12 or Florida State, Duke, and North Carolina among other possible schools join the conference from the ACC.

"The Big Ten Conference was also born out of a desire to transform and be transformative. We are currently in a landscape in college athletics that is changing on a daily basis,” Warren added. “We need to become comfortable in change.”

There's really no telling exactly how this will impact Indiana specifically, but the one subject that sticks out to me is how aggressive coaches can be in recrutuing on the west coast. Players coming out of California to play either football or basketball at Indiana have been few and far between, but with how much time they are now going to be spending in the midwest it would be more than logical for them to choose a home in Big Ten country.

We've seen it already with Mike Woodson, going after California natives Andre Stojachovic and Brady Dunlap rather aggressively, possibly setting a standard for the future. In terms of the football team and Tom Allen, besides Jack Tuttle, there isn't another player on the roster from the western time zone originally. You'll see those 5-star and high 4-star players at Michigan and Ohio State, but the lower 4-star and 3-star players very rarely leave the western time zone.

Most of them pick schools like Oregon, California, Colorado, and Arizona State. The draw to play at Oregon hasn't dissipated much, especially since they will likely be perennial favorites to win the conference. But, attending the latter schools is now significantly less sexy than before. You don't get to play in the coliseum, you don't get to play in the rose bowl. Your chances of reaching the college football playoff, given you don't have a gauntlet of a non-conference schedule, have taken a significant dive.

An opportunity to play at Indiana, Purdue, Michigan State, or Iowa may be a more attractive opportunity than it was a year ago. Furthermore, with the transfer portal being used so liberally, why not take a chance?