[KChiefs1]

http://www.freep.com/article/2010060...on-at-meetings

PARK RIDGE, Ill. -- The Big Ten chancellors and presidents met here at the Big Ten meetings today but did not take a vote on expansion.

Michigan State president Lou Anna Simon, the chair of the council of presidents and chancellors, said the outside swirl of expansion talk may affect the timeline but that is not a certainty.


"What's obvious in following all of the news you write is that our announcement in December has caused institutions as individual institutions to consider their future and conferences to consider their future," Simon said. "As a result of that that has an impact on our deliberations. That has not had an an impact on the criteria or the deliberatness of the process."


She and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany pointed out that it could handled in phases, with one or a group added, then one or a group added later, or only one group or still not at all.


They said there have been no applications to this point.


A substantial part of the four-plus hours of meetings were about expansion discussion.


Simon suggested that the academic fit is still very important, maybe moreso than has been portrayed in publicly.


They would not address specific schools despite reports of the Pac-10 offering teams, the supposed deadline to two Big 12 schools to stay or leave or even the report about Delany's emails with the Ohio State president regarding Texas.


"Obviously we are moving through a process, we had targeted a timeline as long as 18 months, it's possible that the timeline may be altered, but not the process," Simon said.