What would a 20-team Big Ten look like with Utah?

When asked how many schools he believes the Big Ten will have in its conference by 2030, first-year Maryland athletic director James Smith indicated the 18-team league could add two more members by the end of the decade.

According to college football insider Brett McMurphy, Utah is one of the schools Big Ten leaders could look to as an expansion target.

"I reached out to somebody that I trust a great deal, and they actually brought up a school in the Big 12," McMurphy said on On3. "It was actually Utah. And the response was, 'it's an untapped market (Salt Lake City); team on the uptick. Obviously Kyle Whittingham will no longer be there in five years — at least, we think he won't. Who knows? He may surprise us."

Critical to any Big Ten expansion, according to McMurphy, is whether a school is a member of the Association of American Universities, an organization consisting mostly of research institutions in the United States and Canada. Utah is in fact one of the AAU's 69 members, along with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Kansas from the Big 12.

The ACC also has a select group of potential candidates to leave for the Big Ten, based on their AAU affiliation: Cal, Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Pitt and Virginia.

"I feel like those guys — some more than others — have a really good shot [to leave for the Big Ten]," McMurphy said.

Of course, any team's on-the-field results will come into play when discussing possible realignment scenarios. For the Utes, they hang their hat on back-to-back Pac-12 championships during the league's twilight years, on top of finishing with a winning record in 17 of Whittingham's first 20 seasons at the helm of the ship, including a streak of 10-straight from 2014-2023.

Aug 30, 2025; Pasadena, California, USA; Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham watches game action against the UCLA Bruins during the first half at Rose Bowl. | Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Whittingham has admitted that if it weren't for the disappointing end to last season, he might've considered retirement instead of coming back for his 21st season as the Utes head coach. With defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley waiting in the wings, Utah has a vision for how it'll want to move forward when Whittingham decides his head coaching days are behind him, though only time will tell whether it's a flawless transition from one regime to the next — which is sometimes easier said than done — or a bumpy ride.

If the Utes put together the "bounce-back" season that many prognosticators predicted they'd have heading into the 2025 campaign, they'd become even more attractive to a league that's trying to keep up with the SEC as college football's powerhouse conference.

But what would a 20-team Big Ten look like on paper? Here's how the league might shape out one day if Utah and Kansas were to join.

20-team Big Ten featuring Utah, Kansas

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Oregon
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
UCLA
Utah
USC
Washington
Wisconsin

Bring back divisions?

The Big Ten discontinued using divisions after adding the former Pac-12 schools to the mix in 2024, though a 20-team version of the conference could look to bring back the two-division model. In that case, each team would play its division mates once for a nine-game conference schedule. Here's what that reality might look like in this scenario.

Big Ten "West"

Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Nebraska
Oregon
UCLA
Utah
USC
Washington
Wisconsin

Big Ten "East"

Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers

Geographic limitations?

"And when I mentioned Utah again, I'm thinking, Utah — what about geography?" McMurphy said. "Obviously, doesn't matter. [The Big Ten goes] from coast to coast."

To McMurphy's point, the Big Ten spreads far and wide. And if the league went back to having divisions, travel complications would be less severe for the Utes if their road games in conference play were in Seattle, Washington, or Portland, Oregon, as opposed to New Jersey or Maryland.

Would it feel like the old Pac-12 days? Perhaps. But maybe that's a good thing.

Why 2030?

The Big Ten is in the middle of a seven-year, $7 billion media rights agreement with Fox, CBS and NBC that's set to run through the end of the 2029-30 athletic season; typically, though not always, conference realignment moves occur around the time those kinds of negotiations take place.

The Big Ten's per school distributions for the fiscal 2025 were estimated to be around $75 million for all except Oregon and Washington, according to a report from USA Today.

The Big 12, having signed a six-year, $2.3 billion media rights deal, reportedly had per-school payouts between $37.8 to $42.1 million for all except BYU, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati in 2024, per USA Today.

UNLV AD Erick Harper on remaining in Mountain West: "For one thing, the Pac-12 is no longer what it once was. It’s the same logo but w/out USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Utah, it’s not the same conference & that’s no disrespect to those schools in the Pac-12 right now"
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 28, 2025