Here's Ohio State's Place in Hypothetical Big Ten Conference Realignment

The Big Ten has no plans to make any immediate drastic changes to the conference, having expanded from 14 to 18 teams ahead of the 2024 college football season.

But if college football podcast host and frequent ESPN and On3 contributor Josh Pate had it his way, the Big Ten would live up to its name, literally.

Instead of 18 teams, the literal number would be 10 as Pate's criteria are geographic symmetry, along with maintaining rivalries from year-to-year.

In doing so, Ohio State would remain a key member of this new-look conference along with the Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans, Penn State Nittany Lions and the Indiana Hoosiers from the old Big Ten East.

Meanwhile, every team from the formerly Big Ten West, minus the Northwestern Wildcats, would stay put. This includes the Iowa Hawkeyes, Illinois Fighting Illini, Purdue Boilermakers, Wisconsin Badgers and Minnesota Golden Gophers.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers would move to the "Big 8" league, bringing back the nostalgia of the old Big 12. Meanwhile, the West Coast schools, including the Oregon Ducks, Washington Huskies, UCLA Bruins, and USC Trojans, would return to their rightful Pac-12 home alongside the Arizona Wildcats, Oregon State Beavers, and Colorado Buffaloes, to name a few.

Under this new-look league, the Buckeyes would maintain annual history with the Spartans and Wolverinws while continuing their trophy rivalry with Illinois on a potential annual basis. The Penn State series, largely dominated by Ohio State in recent years, would not take a back seat either.

With the dominance the Hoosiers have demonstrated since Curt Cignetti's Bloomington arrival in 2024, the Buckeyes-Hoosiers matchup would be more than just a rare heavyweight treat. It would be appointment television every single year to potentially determine who wins the Big Ten regular-season league championship.

Pate can dream. But like many college football fans, having a commissioner major solve all of the problems the sport currently faces. Whether that's uneven distribution of conferences, not taking care of rivalry games when necessary, and removing any geographical hurdles, his version seems to make logical sense given the criteria he presented.

Whether it will happen in five, 10, or 15 years remains to be seen. But it is clear that he wants to see change and he wants to see change for the sport as a whole, and to make it better and much more traditional, just like it was 40 or 50 years ago.

Only time will tell, though.