The ACC began making its move when Nebraska joined the Big Ten. The ACC formed a committee that researched this for a year before taking action. It's true that the Big XII overture to Pitt triggered the action at the time, but the planning was already done.
When the Big Ten made its selection of Nebraska during its last expansion, it carefully evaluated Rutgers. It also carefully evaluated Missouri. Both Rutgers and Missouri threw themselves at the Big Ten then. At the end of the day, Nebraska was offered membership. The Big Ten obviously doesn't believe that Rutgers offers it much. Missouri brings Kansas City and St. Louis, and it was not selected either. UConn doesn't appear to have ever been on the Big Ten radar at all.
Could the Big Ten come back and look again? Sure. But, with the PAC-12 alliance thing, they don't show any signs of interest. The ACC could revisit Rutgers and UConn as well, but it would only do so if ESPN was offering about $40 million a year for each for the television rights to the ACC. The ACC won't do this unless it thinks it needs to. Right now the ACC doesn't think it needs to.
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Good points: however:
1) The Big 10 expansion, in selecting Nebraska as team 12 to permit a conference playoff; selected a traditionally great football school, with huge attendance and strong traveling fan base, located in the midwest, similar in many ways to the current Big 1o schools.
2) One might note the selection of Nebraska, or at least the timing may have been influenced by the Big 12 pressure and discussions at that time, where the PAC 10 was an option for Texas and company and the question was put to Nebraska and Missouri, are they in or out.
3) The Big 10 obviously spent a huge amount of time deciding what they wanted to do; there was every kind of rumor floating around. They found out ND and Texas were not options.
My feeling is there was no consensus or strong motivation at the time to expand beyond more than one team; an expansion to the northeast without ND might have required at least 2 northeast teams. They made a smart selection based on a consensus.
4) My post is basically to challenge the idea that some supposed insiders can predict the mindset when the Big 10 media negotiations come up again in 2016.
The Big 10 will have more time to evaluate the progress and opportunities of their conference channel and the options for selling national and regional rights. They will have the experience of this past expansion, which seems to indicate Texas is not a likely possibility and neither is ND.
In the meantime the ACC has expanded to include SU and Pitt to combine with BC (and Maryland) in the northeast.
It would not surprise me if the Big 10 doesn't decide to take another long term look at the potential markets available and the potential universities available by 2016, with or without ND, not just as a midwest conference but as a conference channel owner.
There are also the downside risks of expansion where existing rivalries are diluted. And consensus for change may not happen if the conference lacks a strong motive or if the option moves them outside their traditional midwest identity.
