To get to 16 teams the Big Ten would need to add 5 teams. For the purposes of this exercise let's assume it is Notre Dame, Missouri, Syracuse, Rutgers, Nebraska. The divisions would looks something like this.
| East | North | West | Central |
| Penn State | Iowa | Nebraska | Ohio State |
| Notre Dame | Wisconsin | Illinois | Michigan |
| Syracuse | Minnesota | Purdue | Michigan State |
| Rutgers | Northwestern | Missouri | Indiana |
I did this pretty quick but I think this protects most of the historical rivalries like Iowa-Minnesota-Wisconsin and Ohio State-Michgan-Michigan State. I could easily see new year end rivalries forming from this like Notre Dame-Penn State and Illinois Missouri. I would love to put Nebraska in with Iowa as they seem to be a better match but I can't do that without affecting Iowa-Wisconsin. If these teams are willing to part ways then flipping Purdue and Iowa is much better. Michigan-Notre Dame is going to be affected as well but I don't see any way to save this rivalry without affecting others or making the Central way too tough.
Every year each team would play the 3 other teams in their division. In addition, each division would play one of the other 4 divisions on a 3 year rotating basis. At the end of the 7 game conference schedule teams would be ranked in their cube from best to worst and the 4 division winners would advance to the playoffs. You might wonder how the Big Ten could have a two week playoff but the answer is simple. Today the Big Ten has 8 conference games. Under this scenario the conference would have only 7 conference games so the 8th game would be the first week of the playoff. The other teams in the conference would also play get their 8th game based on how they did in the regular season. It would look something like this (assuming it is a North/East and Central/West year).
Week 1 of Playoffs
NorthEast 8 @ CentralWest 3
NorthEast 7 @ CentralWest 4
NorthEast 6 @ CentralWest 5
CentralWest 6 @ NorthEast 5
CentralWest 7 @ NorthEast 4
CentralWest 8 @ NorthEast 3
Week 2 of Playoffs
North Champion vs East Champion
Central Champion vs West Champion
Week 3 - Conference Championship
Week 1 of the Playoffs would be held the week after the regular season at the higher seeds home field. Week 2 would be held at the team with the better conference record's home field a week later. The conference championship would be held the same time as the SEC/ACC championship games.
I like this plan because it keeps the schedule at 8 conference games for all schools with one additional conference championship. It also ensures that all teams will see each other at least once every 3 years. The other thing I really like about this is no conference champion will be able to make it to the championship due to a fluke in not scheduling tougher competition.
There are only two things I don't like about this idea. The first is that the two teams that finish first in their division but have to play on the road will actually lose money since they are losing a home game. I'm sure this can be fixed by giving teams that make it to the championships a bigger slice of the TV money. The bigger issue is the fact that by having two weeks of playoffs the Big Ten is assuring that 3 of it's 4 top teams will end the "regular" season with a loss which will affect their ranking and bowl invites. There is a simple solution to this as well which is to negotiate with the BCS that it will take 2 Big Ten teams every year. If they are able to add 2 quality programs like Notre Dame and Nebraska this should be an easy sell considering the Big Ten gets 2 almost every year. The rest of the schools would goto the remaining bowl games based on overall league standings.
That's my plan. This is the first 16 team plan I've heard that I actually like. I'm not a fan of 14 team leagues at all so my hope is either for the addtion of 1 team or something like I described above.
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