Can Big Ten return Maryland, Rutgers for store credit?

Does the Big Ten have buyer’s remorse regarding Maryland Terrapins and Rutgers Scarlet Knights football? Well, the Power 5 conference. They are so bad.

In the dawn of the college football conference expansion era, seemingly every Power 5 team has benefited from a new addition or two. In the ACC, Pittsburgh has played in a conference championship and Syracuse has been a ranked team before. With the Big 12, West Virginia has been a ranked team and TCU nearly made the inaugural College Football Playoff.

In the SEC, Missouri has won its division twice and Texas A&M had a Heisman Trophy winner back in 2012. Over in the Pac-12, Colorado has played in a conference championship game and Utah has been a perennial top-15 team. And then there’s the Big Ten…

The Big Ten went from 11 teams to 14 and not one of their additions has worked out. Nebraska has been a shell of its former self and may never get back to being a college football blue-blood. While adding Nebraska made sense from a brand standpoint, what was the Big Ten thinking in bringing both the Maryland Terrapins and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights into the fold?

Sure, adding Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the old Big East would give the Big Ten media market share in the nation’s capital and New York, respectively. However, it has been at the expense of some truly awful football. Maryland and Rutgers have been nothing short of a total disaster this season.

Yahoo! Sports Dan Wetzel tweeted that outside of their annual meeting this year because both abysmal football teams play in the Big Ten East, a game that Maryland won, 48-7, the Terrapins and Scarlet Knights have gone a combined 0-14 in Big Ten play, losing on average, 45-8. This helps nobody and we have to ask ourselves if the Big Ten can have its money back?

Yes, every conference has to have its bottom feeder. The ACC has Georgia Tech, the Big 12 has Kansas, the Pac-12 has Arizona and the SEC has Arkansas. These are teams that have been in their Power 5 conference for years. The worst teams in the Big Ten should be schools like Illinois, Indiana and Purdue. Yet, Maryland and Rutgers are the new kids on the block bringing up the rear.

Unfortunately, the Big Ten can’t send Maryland back to the ACC because even though the ACC is hot garbage outside of Clemson this year, they’re good. They don’t need a 15th football team. Having Notre Dame in there for basketball is enough of a headache to deal with every day anyway. And you can’t send Rutgers back to the Big East because it’s just a basketball conference now.

These moves made by the Big Ten were to expand its market reach on television sets. However, in the era of cord-cutting, the Big Ten can’t be overly product of the football product Maryland and Rutgers are giving them every fall Saturday. So to save some money, just cut the cord on Maryland and Rutgers football. Or just demand they need to be better soon to avoid further embarrassment.

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