The Big Ten expansion soap opera is really stirred up this week, and the Hlog loves it

WHB-AM in Kansas City reported (without a named source) Monday that Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Rutgers have been offered invitations to join the Big Ten. The station cited  "multiple sources close to the negotiations."

Well, that's nice.

Big Ten expansion has been a favored topic at the Hlog because people like to talk and read and write about it, and because it's like a Sudoku. There appear to be a zillion possibilities in the beginning. Getting the right one, though, takes time.

That said, if you're Iowa you would like the concept of the four schools named in the report. If Notre Dame climbs aboard, according to the WHB story, a fifth addition would need to be made to have an even number of schools. Not that there's an even number now, but an odd number would be problematic for a league that would break into two divisions.i

Missouri and Nebraska would be easy drives for Iowa fans and, uh, media. You would have instant rivalries in multiple sports. Like, you know, Iowa State has with those schools now.

Notre Dame is Notre Dame.

And Rutgers is easier to reach via commercial air from Cedar Rapids than, say, State College or Bloomington.

Plus, in the every-fourth year Iowa played football at Rutgers, it would be like a mini-bowl trip. You go for a long weekend, see New York City in the autumn, have a big old time.

But the problem with this WHB report is there's this little matter of Big Ten presidents signing off on it. Conference commissioner Jim Delany, who has basically been called the new dictator of college sports, works for those presidents.

Maybe Delany is a power-mad monster who wears nice suits and uses an impressive vocabulary. Maybe he bends the presidents to his way of thinking. Or maybe he actually works for those presidents, who may have different priorities than crushing the Big East and Big 12 conferences to form a superpower that would give even Batman fits.

In this column, Tom Shatel of thte Omaha World Herald says he doesn't believe Nebraska has been offered Big Ten membership, but sees the WHB report as plausible. Shatel wrote:

Another reason to take this seriously: not just that the UNL administration sent out a statement on the matter - there have been countless reports the past several weeks on Big Ten expansion, and UNL didn't issue statements on those. Moreover, it was what Chancellor Harvey Perlman said - or didn't say.

UNL offered your basic nondenial denial. It said no offer has been made to join the Big Ten. It also added that “we remain committed to the success of the Big 12." But in the next sentence, the statement said “until the Big Ten makes an announcement, we'll have nothing to say on the subject."

In other words, NU is committed to the Big 12 - until the Big Ten tells you otherwise.

To get an idea what kind of eggshells Missouri and Nebraska are walking on these days, I direct you to the opening of Vahe Gregorian's Tuesday story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Seeking to dispel indications of an enchantment with the Big Ten, the University of Missouri chancellor wrote to the school's longtime conference home expressing his hopes of a "long and highly positive relationship."

Just the same, he added: "It is my responsibility... to evaluate carefully any and all options (that) could enhance Missouri's ability to carry out its mission of teaching, research and service."

And how about this nugget in Gregorian's story:

While Illinois interim president Stanley Ikenberry last fall told the Champaign News-Gazette that there's "not a good academic fit" with Missouri in the Big Ten, it was unclear what he meant specifically. He was traveling and unavailable to comment last week.

Conceivably, he was referring to measures used by U.S. News & World Report, which ranked Missouri 102nd in its 2010 report on the nation's best colleges.

Nothing can be approved until the Big Ten presidents and chancellors meet the first week of June in Chicago.

Is this about television sets and money and being the big bad boss of college sports, or is this about something more?

Thank you, thank you, Big Ten. Seldom does college sports ever provide such a juicy, ongoing soap opera in the offseason.

Speculation, rumors, denials, carefully worded statements, unnamed sources, repeat. It's fantastic.

Perhaps the most-accurate story on the matter posted so far this week comes to us from Black Heart Gold Pants.  How they got this information, I don't know. But it's potentially explosive. The crux of the piece:

Multiple sources have confirmed to Black Heart Gold Pants that the Big Ten has extended offers to five different institutions in order to expand the conference.

BHGP's sources indicate that the five schools are as follows: the University of Phoenix, La'James College of Hairstyling, the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, the Electoral College, and Rutgers.

The University of Phoenix would be a heck of a get. It's everywhere, which you can't say about Nebraska.