College football expansion: Oregon reaches out to Big Ten about membership, per report
The college football expansion and realignment process doesn't appear to be completely over just yet.
Oregon has reached out to the Big Ten about potentially joining the conference in the future, according to a report from Action Network's Brett McMurphy.
The school "initiated preliminary discussions in Chicago" with Big Ten officials to see if the Ducks are compatible with the conference, the report says.
Notably, three important people weren't involved in the conversation: Oregon president Michael Schill, Ducks AD Rob Mullens, or Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren.
That indicates that the talks are still very early stage and have not proceeded to the point where any major decision is about to be made.
The report didn't say who represented Oregon in the conversations, but Ducks mega-donor and Nike co-founder Phil Knight has been reportedly working the phones this offseason to see if another league was interesting in taking the school on.
Officials in the Big Ten are open to expanding further to the West Coast in the interest of adding a lucrative media market in the Pacific Northwest or Bay Area.
In all, it's another potential bombshell in the continued expansion process that included news that USC and UCLA decided to join the Big Ten in time for the 2024 college football season.
And that, a year after another seismic shift in which Texas and Oklahoma revealed plans to join the SEC in time for the 2025 kickoff.
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