My guess: Big Ten will go East or South (Bend), not both

Predicting how the Big Ten will expand is like trying to forecast durations of volcanic ash clouds.

By the way, this probably isn't a good time for the conference to consider adding the University of Iceland.

But it's fun. Jawing about Big Ten expansion stuff, that is, not moody volcanoes.

One school of thought says this is all a charade to pressure Notre Dame into joining the Big Ten's fold. You would have 12 schools that are like-minded academically, you'd have locked up every football colossus between Happy Valley and Coralville, and you could have your precious conference title game.

Notre Dame has to see the long-term light, many say. If it remains a football independent, it risks fading away as superconferences get all the more, well, super.

There's no question the Big Ten would welcome Notre Dame with a warm hug and a complimentary hot breakfast if the Golden Domers changed their philosophy about wanting their football freedom.

But for the Big Ten Network to get into more markets and become even more of a money-grabbing success, the league may want to go East, young man.

There's a large frontier out there, one that encompasses so many Nielsen homes and the media capital of the planet. That's called New York/New Jersey/Connecticut. The Tri-State Area. The hub of civilization, or so many there would tell you.

Which might mean Rutgers University.

It doesn't ring a very loud bell when it comes to football, and football drives everything. But allowances can be made.

Had Rutgers been a Big Ten member in 2009, its total athletics revenue of $54.3 million would have ranked 11th of 12 schools. Of course, the Scarlet Knights weren't playing Big Ten football and sharing in Big Ten Network goodies.

And how much would advertising rates rise for the BTN if it started getting carried by most cable systems in New York/New Jersey?

Rutgers' newly renovated football stadium has a capacity of 52,454. Rutgers averaged 49,113 fans in 2009, so football interest is there, especially with five straight winning seasons.

Those capacity and attendance figures are half of what exist at Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. But Minnesota's new stadium seats just 50,805. Purdue's average home crowd in 2009 was 50,457. Indiana's was 41,833, Northwestern's 24,190.

You could easily sub Connecticut for Rutgers in what it brings to the table. According to a Chicago Tribune report, the five athletic programs a Chicago-based investment firm was assigned to analyze for the Big Ten were Missouri, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Syracuse. But that doesn't preclude UConn (or others, including Nebraska).

Having a Big Ten school just across the Hudson River from Manhattan wouldn't move the Yankees, Mets, Giants and Jets off

 the sports covers of the New York tabloids. But just a little headway in that region would add a lot more to the Big Ten's national branding than completely consuming, say, the state of Nebraska.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse don't do much for me as expansion targets unless the Big Ten simply wants to balloon to 16 schools and make a total Eastern land grab. That doesn't seem compatible to the way the league thinks, and the thought of expanding to 14 is quite enough to wrap one's mind around.

Pittsburgh wouldn't be a new world to conquer. Syracuse is in upstate New York, not the New York with all those big buildings.

Looking in the other direction, Missouri makes a fair amount of sense as a Big Ten expansion target. It would give two large markets in St. Louis and Kansas City, as well as a domed stadium in St. Louis that could become part of the conference title-game rotation.

Missouri's athletics revenue in 2009 was similar ($57.8 million) to that of Rutgers. The Big 12 isn't big on equal sharing of revenue from television deals and NCAA tourney appearances. That's nice for Texas and Oklahoma, not so great for Missouri and Iowa State.

If Notre Dame's game, I'll say the Big Ten takes the Fighting Irish and no one else. If not, I'll go with a crazy guess and say the conference grows to 14 members with Missouri, Rutgers and ... Connecticut!

I'll be the first to say it. I should probably stick to forecasting the whims of volcanoes.

I still haven't given up on these guys, though: