Just a day after giving the green light to Maryland, Big Ten officials unanimously welcomed Rutgers as the conference’s 14th member.

Taking a wait-and-see approach, Rutgers officials on Tuesday submitted their application after receiving blessing from the school’s board of governors the day before. Rutgers’ decision to leave the Big East was made public in a joint news conference at the university’s flagship campus in Piscataway, N.J.

“This is about a university-wide deal. Rutgers University won today. The athletic department did not win today,” Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti said.

According to conference bylaws, a 27-month notice is required for departing members. According to reports, Rutgers will begin play in the 2014-15 athletic year — the same year Maryland is set to join the conference — so the school will need to leave earlier, like Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia have done before.

But Pernetti said no start date is set in stone, saying school is working “as productively as we can” with the Big East to negotiate an exit.

Maryland’s and Rutgers’ move to the largely Midwestern conference is most recent shift in the college landscape that has seen realignments breaking traditional geographic boundaries. The discussions between Rutgers and the Big Ten have been ongoing for a few years, Delany said, but talks with Maryland were more recent.

These two schools, along with Penn State, will give the Big Ten a bigger East Coast presence, opening the door for more lucrative TV deals with cable operators in the New York City and Washington, D.C. area. Each Big Ten school reportedly earns $24 million in revenue.

“It was a factor. It’s been a factor that’s been a little overplayed, to be honest.” Delany said of the nation’s largest market, adding that the paradigm shift in college football was the driving factor behind the two-team expansion. ”We weren’t seeking the New York market, we were seeking a great institution located in an adjacent state with a prosperous academic and athletic approach. It wasn’t a TV play.”

Delany reiterated Tuesday that no division alignments within the conference have been set; the athletic directors will begin meet in early 2013 and have those finalized by spring. This addition also forces the conference to make a decision regarding the future of its conference football games.

The Big Ten can stick with its current eight-game format in which teams play every school in their division and three in the other division, alternating inter-division opponents every year. A nine-game schedule would be more preferred, Delany says, allowing programs to maintain their three out-of-division matchups.  Another possibility would be 10 games within the conference, but Delany says he is not sure if teams have that flexibility as they have scheduled more national opponents in recent years for strength-of-schedule purposes.

This move will ease the financial burden on the athletic department. Rutgers has been forced in 2006 to cut some varsity sports, including men’s tennis and men’s crew, but Pernetti said he did not have immediate plans on reinstating those.

But unlike Maryland, the move has generally been met with positive reactions from the Rutgers community on social media.

“The hope was always to join the Big Ten, and it was always kind of the thought they’d be tagging along with someone else. But that was always Notre Dame, not Maryland, so when Notre Dame went to the ACC, there was some concern that Rutgers might be left out,” said 2012 graduate Steven Miller, who lives in New Brunswick, N.J. “Obviously with this news, I’m thrilled about it.”

The Scarlet Knights have competed in the Big East in football since 1991 (1995 for all sports).They are 9-26 all-time against the Big Ten in football, including splitting two home-and-home meetings with Illinois in 2005 and 2006. After years of football futility, including a 1-11 2001 season, the Scarlet Knights have appeared in six bowl games since 2005, winning five of those.

“The very first college football game was played on the Rutgers campus, adding to the historic traditions in the Big Ten. This has been a very exciting week in the Big Ten as commissioner Delany and the leadership of the Big Ten institutions continue to be extremely forward thinking,” Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas said in a statement.

Jamal Collier contributed to this report.

Darshan can be reached at [email protected] and @drshnpatel.