Ohio State football: Ohio Stadium expansion coming?

In a report from Tim May of the Columbus Dispatch, it appears the athletic department will make a formal recommendation to Ohio State's board of trustees in a meeting next week to potentially add an additional 2,500 seats to Ohio Stadium in 2014. The total cost of the project is expected to be in the $9 million dollar range.

The project, which would add seats to the south end zone, was broken by the Dispatch despite athletic director Gene Smith being on vacation. Smith did confirm the planned proposal to the board (which is likely to be green lit) via text message to May and the Dispatch.

The move tentatively would make Ohio Stadium the third largest stadium in college football behind only Michigan Stadium and Penn State's Beaver Stadium. Tennessee's Neyland Stadium and Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium would be next on the list after the renovated Ohio Stadium.

Texas A&M has aggressive expansion plans for their Kyle Field set to go into effect in 2015 (which would bring them from a 90,000 capacity to over 102,000). In true rivalry fashion, there's already talks that Texas could expand their Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium to between 115,000 and 125,000 sometime in the next 10-15 years. Kyle Field's $450,000,000 expansion (which is believed to be the most extensive college stadium redevelopment in the history of the sport) has already been green lit, but Texas' keeping up with the Joneses counter remains speculative at this time.

Here is how the Top 10 college football stadiums by capacity would look should the Board of Trustees move forward with the Ohio Stadium expansion plans as expected: