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If you thought all the expansion hullabaloo of May and June was in our collective rearview mirror, think again.  The Big Ten still has its eyes open.

According to a weekend piece penned by Len Robbins of The New York Post, the Big Ten is still interested in adding Eastern teams located along the Boston-New York-DC corridor.

“It’s the center, it has been the center of media activity for a hundred years,” said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.  “It’s the center of financial activity and it has been that way for 150 years.  To me it’s sort of where a lot of things start in the country.

“I consider the East Coast to be as important to us as the West Coast is even though the West Coast has got the Rose Bowl and the Big Ten-Pac-10 relationship.  And it’s so because of the recruitment of students, the recruitment of athletes, the size and scope of the markets.  I hope it becomes more important.”

The author of the piece points out that the Big Ten’s original “12 to 18 month” expansion schedule is winding down.  “… FBS schools in the Boston (Boston College), New York (Rutgers and Syracuse) and Washington, DC (Maryland) markets” are “prime properties.”  “Should the Big East lose two members and/or the ACC lose Maryland, a charter member that is cash-strapped, it could reshape the Eastern seaboard.”

Could the Big Ten expand to 16 by grabbing BC, Maryland, Rutgers and Syracuse?  And if so, would the SEC feel the need to keep pace via expansion maneuvers of its own? 

As we saw in June, Mike Slive made a pretty strong push to land Texas A&M and Oklahoma… only to lose out to a rejiggered Big 12.  The SEC supposedly has no desire to “attack” a league that stands on solid ground, but if the ACC lost one or more teams to the Big Ten, would Slive and crew make a move on Florida State or Georgia Tech or Miami, Clemson, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, etc, etc?

This final version of this expansion story has yet to be penned.