CHICAGO – There wasn’t much Jim Delany said at Monday’s Big Ten media day that was definitive.

But if the Big Ten commissioner has his way, changes will be coming to the Big Ten, perhaps some in as soon as a month.

Before a room full of reporters on the first of two conference media days at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Delany discussed schedule changes, division alignments, future expansion and the likely addition of a championship game in 2011.

For now, the conference isn’t pursuing expansion, but Delany said he would continue with his plan of evaluating the possibilities over a 12-to-18-month period.

“We’ll pause, but we are not necessarily turning our back on expansion,” Delany said. “We said we wanted to study it for 12 to 18 months, and we’re only about six months into that study. So I think what we’ve done is we’ve paused to spend the time necessary.

Notre Dame is not in those plans.

Delany said he feels Notre Dame is not a player because Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick appears content to remain an independent in football and a Big East representative in other sports.

With the conference currently at 12 teams and poised for its first-ever title game in 2011, Delany said no decision has been made yet on how to separate the two divisions.

Talks among the league’s athletic directors will continue into the fall with the committee’s emphasis on competitive balance, geography and rivalries.

“There are a lot of different ways you could do it,” Delany said. “I’m sure if you gave people this opportunity to look at these three principles and then divide up, you could probably get 10, 12, 15, 20 [outcomes].”

Delany also said he would like to expand the Big Ten schedule to nine games, meaning a fifth conference road game every other year, a move that results in the loss of at least one home game — perhaps two in the year a road nonconference matchup is scheduled — a blow for self-supporting athletic departments, such as Penn State’s.

“I think to play each other more is what our fans want, and I think that’s what the athletes want,” he said. “To be honest with you, the nonconference schedules that we’ve seen develop as we’ve added a 12th member have not been good for the fan base nor have they necessarily been embraced like they might be embraced by the players. I think players want to compete. And I think fans like to see good competition.”

That matchup would take away from an early season home game, as the Nittany Lions had all four nonconference contests at Happy Valley last season and will have three this season. The extra road game coupled with a neutral-site conference title game could also make the road to the national title more difficult for a Big Ten team, who would also have to play a neutral site title game in December.

As for where that conference title game would be held, Delany said he would spend the next few months evaluating options. Indianapolis, Green Bay, Chicago and Detroit are among the cities that have expressed interest in hosting the game.

It is likely, Delany said, the league will sign a one-year deal with a venue before looking long term after that because it’s not logistically possible to visit six venues in the time frame Delany wants this done by.

It’s been an eventful offseason for the Big Ten, and Delany said he hopes to have some of the lingering questions cleared up in the next month or so.