Fatter isn't necessarily healthier for Big Ten or any conference

It's a wild, revolutionary concept. Choosing not to expand, that is.

Has anyone ever considered that expansion might not be an ideal thing for the Big Ten?

Many would agree that if the conference simply could add Notre Dame and stop there, it would be a pretty good move. You add a fourth national program to go with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. You gain a school with an impeccable academic reputation.

Bingo. Draw up the papers, and have a good life.

But would going hither and yon to pad the league with new members really be a smart idea? Is adding markets for the Big Ten Network worth the possibility of stretching the conference too far?

Sports history is full of expansion. Some of it, like the NFL's, has been sound. That league can support 32 franchises. It may, in fact, be the perfect number.

Of course, you know the NFL won't be happy to stop there and will expand to Europe one of these years. But for now, it has things just right.

Major League Baseball, on the other hand, had no business putting franchises in Miami and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Way too many major-leaguers should be honing their skills in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre right now.

Looking at college sports, the NCAA was getting ready to foolishly expand its men's basketball tourney from 65 to 96 teams. That got shouted down as a horrible idea by one and all in the public, so the expansion was a mere bump to 68 teams. It will be 96 soon enough, but common sense at least got a brief reprieve.

Conference-wise, has the Big East been better served since it became a 16-team league (except for football, where it hangs by a BCS thread at 8)? The Big East has always been Georgetown against Villanova, Syracuse against UConn. It will never be DePaul against South Florida, or Marquette against West Virginia.

In the regular season, Big East basketball teams play three league members twice and the other 12 once. So there are six league teams you don't play at home each year. That's how you determine a true champion?

It's bad enough in the Big Ten (and Big 12, SEC and ACC) that you don't play every other league team in football and don't

play everyone twice in basketball. Something we'll always wonder is what would have happened had Iowa and Ohio State met in football in 2002. Instead, both went 8-0 in the league.

It may seem silly to say this given the Hawkeyes got whomped by USC in that season's Orange Bowl. But, being denied the chance to play Ohio State probably cost Iowa a chance to leapfrog Georgia and USC in the final BCS standings. By facing and beating the Buckeyes, Iowa might have met Miami in the national-title game.

As Big 12 and SEC people can tell you, there are always scheduling inequities in a 12-team football league that plays just eight conference games. This year, for instance, Iowa State is the only Big 12 North team to play both Texas and Oklahoma, and on the road in successive weeks to boot. Kansas won't play UT or OU.

But in 2009, the Cyclones avoided the Longhorns and Sooners while Kansas played both. ISU went 6-6 in the regular season and got a bowl bid. Kansas went 5-7 and stayed home.

Sometimes, leagues need to respect boundaries. In the mid-1990s, the Canadian Football League expanded into the U.S.

Seven different U.S. cities briefly became homes to CFL teams. For some crazy reason, the good people of Birmingham, Baltimore and Memphis never felt inclined to embrace the idea of being part of the Canadian League.

The CFL had five U.S. teams in 1995. It's never had another since.

Before one game, the Las Vegas team had someone sing the Canadian national anthem. He apparently had never heard the song before, improvised, and made “O Canada” sound more like “O Christmas Tree.”

One last thing: The more teams that are in the Big Ten, the greater yours is of slipping to the Motor City Bowl in downtown Detroit if it has a 6-6 or 7-5 record.

You won't be singing “O Christmas Tree” if that happens.