Yes, Big Ten, we see you

Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez had the look of someone who was withholding.

Wry smile, play-along statement here and there and talk of "talks."

Maybe Alvarez is always like this. Maybe he enjoys the interplay with the press -- especially when he knows something it doesn't. In reality, he might have a general outline of what Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is thinking, but that only makes him slightly more educated than the rest of us.

"This is Jim's baby," Alvarez said Wednesday at the conference meetings in Chicago.

And look at the Big Ten now.

It leads ESPN's "College Football Live" nearly every day with expansion talk. It dominates all the dotcoms, from ESPN to CBS to SI. It drew several TV cameras to the Hotel Sofitel on a Tuesday in May, a million miles from a football or basketball game and with the Chicago Blackhawks in the midst of a Stanley Cup run.

Never mind that the Big Ten has been beaten back in the national title game in its last two tries (ugly fashion, by the way).

The Big Ten may or may not expand (it will expand, this is not a test). And the college football world is at attention.

That's not the point of all this, an attention-getting flare. It's the reality of the Big Ten. A lot of the college football nation wears the Team Big Ten bracelet, if you want to boil it down to "Twilight" terms.

The point is expansion. There are sub-points, including growing for the future, monetizing the Big Ten Network to the greatest degree and providing a top-notch TV product.

The Big Ten will expand, but, after listening to Delany for 37 minutes Tuesday, it will do so in the most genteel manner possible.

The only power-play scenario is melting the Big East to put the heat on Notre Dame. How many schools would the Big Ten be willing to take in this real-life game of "Risk"? Two? Three? I didn't read any want in Delany when Notre Dame came up Tuesday. The Big Ten went after the Fighting Irish in 1999. The Irish said no. That's life. Delany has moved on, from the '99 move, at least.

If Notre Dame is the object of his desires, Delany hid it well this week.

Delany doesn't want to be the doofus holding a corsage in the corner at prom. He also doesn't want to put any school in that position.

Put the timeframe in the next six to nine months, maybe January 2011. Definitely not at the June 6 meeting of the Big Ten's presidents, although the briefing from Delany could be more extension (fewer media will be there).

Confidentiality and collegiality demand a careful, plodding pace.

The AAU thing will be waived if ND wants in. Let's get over that. Yes, academics hold sway. The Big Ten isn't going after Captain Gomez's Taco Stand and Law School. But push comes to shove, ND's lack of AAU won't factor. The school's strong academic repuation will be more than enough of a calling card.

That stuff about demographics and the south? I feel that was blown way out of proportion. A few reporters at this thing heard that, liked it and ran with it. No chiding, but I don't think that's where the league will go. If Maryland is south, then maybe. Texas, of course. But if it's a multi-team move, it'll be balanced with something west (Nebraska or Missouri) and something east (Rutgers, Syracuse).

Notre Dame is one home run. Texas is another. The two are maybe the most unrealistic.

Nebraska might be the Big Ten's home run. That's a football-only home run. The Cornhuskers make sense geographically and still carry a weight in football.

A single addition isn't going to end the college football world as we know it. A 14- or 16-team league will test the tensile strength of the axis that keeps the college football world spinning. The Big East and the Big 12 are on the menu in 14 and 16 scenarios.

Tom Shatel, the terrific sports columnist from the Omaha World-Herald, asked Alvarez flatly about Nebraska.

"I'm not going there," Alvarez said. "I know you're from Omaha and came a long way, but I'm not going there."

Yes, Big Ten, we see you. The college football world awaits your next move.