Maryland Joins Big Ten, Rutgers Expected to Follow

Conference realignment has been the norm lately in the big business of college sports. Over the weekend, rumors dominated headlines about Maryland possibly leaving the ACC for the Big Ten. They have now become facts after multiple reports confirm that Maryland’s Board of Regents voted on Monday morning to apply for Big Ten membership and leave the ACC. Rutgers is now reportedly also likely to follow.   From USA Today: “The University of Maryland’s Board of Regents voted to join the Big Ten Conference on Monday, leaving behind a league it helped create in 1953. Patricia Florestano, a member of the Board of Regents, confirmed to USA TODAY Sports the regents had voted to apply for admission for the University of Maryland into the Big Ten. “There was certainly discussion about the tradition of the ACC. And the question is what’s the future. And we’ve got to look to the future,” Florestano said in Baltimore before a previously scheduled public meeting on education policy. The Big Ten issued a news release that said Maryland would hold a news conference at 3 p.m. Eastern in College Park, Md., with university president Wallace Loh, chanceller Brit Kirwan, athletics director Kevin Anderson and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. The Big Ten has scheduled a national teleconference for 4 p.m. with Delany, Loh, Kirwan, Anderson and University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman. “I did it to guarantee the long-term future of Maryland athletics,” university President Wallace Loh told Maryland’s student newspaper, The Diamondback. “No future president will have to worry about cutting teams or that Maryland athletics will be at risk.”