Whispers about the next round of conference expansion continue to grow louder this offseason. Who will make the first move? When will it happen? And should the Big Ten take notice?

We debate in the latest Take Two installment.

Austin Ward: No.

Maybe 16-team superconferences are the future of college football. Perhaps the Big 12 is about to make its last stand and the fight for its members is about to begin.

But until either of those look like much more of a reality, the Big Ten is well-positioned and should stay put.

It’s fun to speculate about what the league would look like with Oklahoma and Texas joining the ranks. Those two powerhouses would give the conference a couple of evenly balanced eight-team divisions and likely make the ensuing television deals all the more rich, thanks to the combination of new eyeballs and prestige. But the Big Ten has already spread itself out pretty wide in terms of its footprint. Going to 16 teams would only further dilute the conference schedule and at some point any sense of identity the league has established over the years would simply be lost by snapping up teams that obviously aren’t a regional fit.

Didn’t the Big 12 already teach the rest of the nation that lesson by adding an outlier in West Virginia?

Again, there’s a decent chance factors such as tradition and geography are going to be ignored in this process, just like they already have been to some extent when the Big Ten has made its expansion plays in the past. And it’s certainly far better to be proactive if the dominoes are going to fall, considering there are only going to be a few properties worth adding to the conference portfolio.

But in this case, standing pat and and pulling for the Big 12 to make it on its own is best for the Big Ten -- at least until it becomes more clear that change is needed than it is now.

Jim Delany has the Big Ten in a great position going forward, regardless of what happens in the Big 12 or in college sports as a whole. Paul Beaty/AP Photo

Mitch Sherman: Yes

I heard commissioner Jim Delany loud and clear at the Big Ten meetings this week. He said the league is not concerned about its next move in the conference-expansion chess match. Delany said the Big Ten is “laser focused” on reform in college athletics.

And that’s what he needs to say. Reform in recruiting and with student-athlete rights are hugely important. It’s a timely issue, likely to dominate discussions and media coverage later this year and in 2017 as the NCAA takes action and court cases advance.

But Delany doesn’t simply think one step ahead. He’s two or three levels beyond even the other progressive thinkers in college sports. The acquisition of Penn State a quarter-century ago and Nebraska in 2011 allowed the Big Ten to maintain a position of strength in the college marketplace. Say what you want about Rutgers and Maryland, but their additions made solid business sense.

Upheaval is coming -- if not in the next few years then likely before 2023, when negotiations for new deals on media rights in college sports may flip the landscape as we know it. Be sure that even if Delany, who turns 70 in 2018, retires before the next seismic shift, he’ll make the right moves to leave the Big Ten in a spot to capitalize on change.

So, of course, the league decision-makers should think about conference expansion. If the Big 12 disintegrates in the next five to 10 years, the Big Ten needs to know which schools it would pursue. It's likely that Delany already knows.