Big Ten commissioner comfortable with 18 teams for now

Reserving the option to change his mind, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is not seeking to add to his 18-team conference.Petitti said at Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis on Tuesday that he remains “focused on the 18 for now,” echoing the sentiment shared by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey about his conference earlier this month.”I think we’re really comfortable with where we are. We’ve got to get this conference right, and that’s where our focus is,” Petitti said.Four teams are making their Big Ten debut this season following a mass exodus from the Pac-12 that began with USC and UCLA and multiplied to include Oregon and Washington.Because the integration of West Coast teams complicated scheduling across sports, Petitti said he’s not focused on any other prospective members, including any programs that might have interest in jumping from the Atlantic Coast Conference and taking the Big Ten to the Big Twenty.A key point from an educational and health perspective for the Big Ten was finding ways to restrict travel, particularly back-to-back road games. The conference focused on blocking cross-country travel in consecutive weeks in its first year of scheduling matchups such as Maryland and at Oregon (Nov. 9), which is about 2,820 miles by car or a long flight.

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