Almost as if he planned it this way, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren cuts himself off mid-sentence. He’s sitting in a comfy chair in an end zone suite at Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Stadium, and 50 yards away Indiana coach Tom Allen is on set with the Big Ten Network talking about expansion. Warren, who was working through a thought about recruiting opportunities for his coaches on the West Coast, notices the UCLA and USC logos pop on an on-screen graphic on the TVs under Allen and turns the volume up.
“We’ve had meetings and we’ve already started reaching out to young men in that part of the country as soon as the announcement was made because we understood what that meant,” Allen said on the TV. “It’s a little bit tougher to sell all the way from there to come to the Midwest, but now we’re gonna be playing games out there.”
Warren quips that Allen took the words out of his mouth before he continues.
