Making sense of the expansion talk

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Big Ten's expansion timetable has moved up considerably. What was once presumed to require another year may take shape as soon as this summer.
If the league adds only one school, the domino effect will be relatively minor. But if it wishes to go the superconference route and expand to a whopping 16 members, watch out.


Plus One
The first option here, of course, is Notre Dame. If the Big Ten can finally get the Irish to abandon football independence, the conference won't need to do anything else.
A  more feasible one-school plan is Pittsburgh. I'm not buying the notion that Penn State would fear the Panthers' entry and would block it. They Are Penn State. They're not going to back down from Pitt, and they would like the (admittedly minor) reduction in travel costs associated with inviting a neighbor.
I can't see Syracuse flying solo to the Big Ten. The school, a charter Big East member, quashed the ACC's original expansion plan when it held its ground and declined to join two other Big Easters in the move in 2003.
Politically, Nebraska, Missouri and even Iowa State would have an easier time making the jump than other current Big 12 schools because they wouldn't be burdened by the politics of leaving behind another in-state school. (Translation: It's hard to imagine Texas going without Texas A&M or Kansas moving without Kansas State. Legislatures and/or higher educational governing bodies would almost certainly try to intervene.)

Five Alive
If volume becomes necessary and/or advantageous, you might as well go to 16 rather than stopping at 14. If Texas is bolting, you know A&M will insist on going along for the ride, too. Ditto for Kansas State and KU or the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State duo. Faced with the loss of four Big 12 brothers, Nebraska would have to lobby for inclusion in the Big 16. (Or whatever it would be called.)
Colorado would probably want to get comfy with the folks in Walnut Creek, Calif., home of the Pac 10.
The Big 12, which has had revenue-sharing issues in the past, would be imperiled at the very least. If it could continue, it would have to raid the Mountain West or really swallow its pride and court Conference USA.

Why

One of the major reasons behind all this chatter is the success of the Big Ten Network, which has earned mainstream support among Midwest cable providers and has secured a place on upper tiers of satellite outlets nationwide. If the channel had stagnated or failed, the league wouldn't really be in a place to spread its wings. 

Reason No. 2 is peer pressure. Everybody's doing it. The SEC created the first 12-team, made-for-championship-football league and the Big Eight expanded to the Big 12 a few years later. Now even the ACC is part of the first Saturday in December title game troika.

In the past five years, the Big Ten has concluded its season two full weeks before those three leagues, and the inactivity has become obvious. Nobody talks about the Big Ten after the third week in November, and the silence doesn't help teams competing for a spot in the BCS title game. The league has addressed the issue by moving the regular-season schedule back one week, but that won't generate buzz the way a championship game would.