CHICAGO -- When Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany walked onto the stage at the Hyatt Regency for the Big Ten Media Kickoff, he was sweating and looking pale. He told reporters to "hang in there."

Delany, entering his 19th year as the league's commissioner, said he had "the worst flu I've had in 20 years."

Despite being sick, Delany answered questions on the Bowl Championship Series and shot down the perception that the Big Ten is one of the weaker conferences in college football. Delany acknowledged the last two losses by Ohio State in the BCS National Championship games to Florida and LSU, and said he feels that the BCS is the right formula for postseason play.

"While it's a controversial property," Delany said, "there's no doubt in my mind that the BCS has injected a life into the postseason that wasn't there prior to it and has given great impetus to the regular season."

The commissioner also said the conference would not expand to include a 12th team in the near future, saying "there's no expansion on the horizon."

When asked about the off-field issues of players at some Big Ten universities, Delany said people shouldn't rush to judgement, using the Duke rape case as an example.

"I think the difficulty is that these are very young people who happen to be public figures and they're going to be covered like public figures," Delany said. "A football player in Iowa is going to be covered like a 40-year-old politician in Iowa. It's not easy because the individual deserves due process, presumption of innocence."

Pryor will suit up

The Ohio State Buckeyes already have a quarterback. Todd Boeckman made the trip to Chicago along with teammates Malcolm Jenkins, James Laurinaitis and head coach Jim Tressel.

Although Boeckman threw for 2,379 yards and 25 TDs last season, it didn't take long for a reporter to ask Jim Tressel about Terrelle Pryor.

Just minutes into his address on Thursday, Tressel was asked how soon he planned to use the Jeannette Jayhawk-turned-Buckeye quarterback in the Ohio State offense.

"August 4th he gets to start practicing," Tressel said. "He's going to be incorporated into our offense that day."

Michigan and Penn State head coaches Rich Rodriguez and Joe Paterno, who also tried to recruit Pryor, didn't say much about Pryor. Rodriguez said he would only talk about Michigan players.

Paterno told reporters "that depends on what Tressel wants to do" when asked how the Buckeyes should use Pryor.

Going on the road

With the start of the season still more than a month away, some players from around the Big Ten have already circled a few games on their schedule.

Aside from playing in their home stadiums, some players can't wait to make a trip to play inside Beaver Stadium, while others are dreading it.

Michigan cornerback Morgan Trent said he's looking forward to playing in front of 110,000 plus fans for the second time in his career.

"I love playing there," Trent said. "Who wouldn't want to play there with all those fans? It's a great atmosphere."

Illinois offensive lineman Ryan McDonald spread his arms and raised them in the air to simulate the dimensions of Beaver Stadium on a smaller scale. He compared playing in Happy Valley to playing a home game in Urbana-Champaign.

"Memorial Stadium seats like 70,000. It's not that huge, but it's not small," McDonald said. "Beaver Stadium is something else. It's one of a kind. It's enormous. It just keeps going up and up and out and out, but it's a great place to play. It's a night game so it should be rowdy."