There's got to be more to Big Ten expansion than just Nebraska

If Nebraska turns out to be run-of-the mill in football as the years turn into decades, will the Big Ten ask itself why it bothered adding the school?

In an April 19 e-mail to Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany wrote “need to make sure we leverage this to increase chances of hr additions.”

“HR” clearly meant “home run.”

Gaining Nebraska, to use irony given its that school's divorce from the Big 12, seems more like a Texas League double.

Look, it's an excellent university with a strong overall athletics program, especially if you ignore its men's basketball. But if it had Missouri's football tradition and vice versa, Delany would have been in Columbia, Mo., Friday, and not Lincoln.

The Big Ten wouldn't have touched Penn State with a 100-yard pole two decades ago were it not for the school's storied football program.

Today, Nebraska football is a good, solid brand name. But it was a marquee name 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.

What if the Cornhuskers are more like their 2004 (5-6) and 2007 (5-7) teams over time than their 9-4 and 10-4 squads of the last two seasons?

That was a really good Nebraska team in the second half of last season. After its shocking 9-7 home loss to Iowa State, it ripped off five straight Big 12 wins and lost in the last second to Texas in the league's title game. Then the Huskers plastered Arizona 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl.

Nebraska has a good coach in Bo Pelini, and is projected to do big things in what has suddenly become its last Big 12 season. Phil Steele, college football guru, picks the Huskers to finish the coming season ranked No. 5. A few months ago, ESPN.com had them ninth in its 2010 preseason rankings.

That's sweet stuff. Maybe Pelini delivers some bigger goodies this season and brings Nebraska into the Big Ten next year on a high.

But if that high doesn't last and Nebraska turns out to be just another program in a Big Ten that has several very capable football programs? Will the Huskers matter much to America in general?

Certainly no more than Wisconsin or Iowa when they're strong, and not as much as national programs Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan.

Right now, Eastern time zone members of the Big Ten must be thinking “There's got to be more to us expanding than this.”

And there does. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany reminded us Friday night that the league is just one-third of the way through its 18-month exploration of expansion options.

It seems highly unlikely such expansion will consist of Nebraska and only Nebraska. Otherwise, it would have been for a league title-game in football and nothing else.

You have to believe Delany still wants that “HR.” His Big Ten Network won't ascend into cable-subscription heaven simply by adding the TV audiences of Lincoln, Omaha and Ogallala.

The league's not getting Texas. So the only other home run available is Notre Dame.

“There's been nothing at all that's happened that directly impacts us or our evaluation of what's going on,” Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick told the Chicago Tribune on Friday.

“We continue to be focused on trying to do what we can to maintain our football independence and ensure the long-term viability of the Big East. Those two things aren't impacted by the events of this week.”

The only thing that might change the school's mind is if the Big East starts losing football-playing members and Notre Dame's teams in all other sports no longer have a secure conference home.

Which means if the Big Ten doesn't start poaching from among Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Connecticut, it isn't likely to get Notre Dame.

Nebraska is a nice addition to the Big Ten. But if it isn't more than the early part of the league's expansion story, it may not turn out to a big story after all.