The Big East needs to be reinvented.
by adselver15 on Nov 29, 2010 10:06 PM EST
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PrintSo I'm sure you all heard by now about TCU joining the conference, and I bet a lot of you are excited. Yes, in the short term, the football will improve. But this still doesn't solve a lot of the issues facing college sports:
1. We now have 17 basketball schools. If that's not bloated I don't know what is. It's just ASKING for the conference to collapse.
2. In football, this shows the Big East is just a "stepping stone" conference, especially if the pesky Big Twelve (as opposed to the Big X) comes-a-knockin' (remember, this is the conference that is singlehandedly holding back a playoff). In other words we're just bailing out the conference, not reinventing it.
3. The Big East, a conference that was supposed to be confined to the Northeast, is now west of the Mississippi.
The Big East needs to go in a COMPLETELY new direction. Instead of grabbing established powers like TCU just to provide temporary stability, we need a long-term solution. This involves bringing the conference back to its roots in the Northeast and grabbing up-and-coming football programs, many of which have promising basketball programs as well.
We need to dump DePaul, Marquette, and Notre Dame. They'd be good fits for a conference that has Butler and Xavier in it. They're just too far west and we know ND football arrogance by now.
Now, we have to keep Georgetown in the conference for its perrennial strength and Northeast hold, and unfortunately Providence, Seton Hall, and St. John's MUST stay unless they want to leave. Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall, and St. John's will be the only four schools in the conference that don't play football.
This leaves us with Syracuse, UConn, Rutgers, Pitt, Louisville, Cincy, WVU, and USF for football. We now have 12 schools total, and 8 for football. Well, where do we get the other schools?
The obvious choice here is the obvious school I left out: Villanova. Nova football brings the Philly market, establishes an in-state rivalry with Pitt, and could ramp up the recruiting battles in PA, probably getting more athletes to stay in the area and not go to other parts of the country. Plus Nova is already a basketball member AND is a good football team; I say they have to come.
We need three more teams though to become full members. Where do we get them? We need to plant our own seeds and make some investments, and convince our investments that they're worth it. To do this, we need to take a dip into FCS.
The first choice is obviously Delaware. The Fightin' Blue Hens have a deep football tradition, a I-AA NC, and was the runner up several years recently; they could compete with a good number of FBS teams, and proved they could play with Maryland a few years back. Plus Delaware's up-and-coming lacrosse program could benefit.
After that comes UMass. With this we basically get back the state of Massachusetts without having to try to convince BC they were better off in the Big East (they were; the ACC tanked after they raided us), plus UMass brings decent basketball prowess and of course could increase Big East lacrosse depth.
We still need one more school. I'm thinking looking towards Appalachian State because of their uber-dominance of I-AA, and even some I-A teams, including those ranked in the polls (oh hello Michigan!). They try to get top I-A competition on their schedule every year, too.
With this, we have a solid conference with a lot of different markets, granted we don't have Chicago anymore, but it's much more of a conference that could get casual fans excited and thus more revenue.
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this...
is a good way to lose the automatic BCS bid and kill the conference… we don’t have 10 years. The system gets reevaluated in 2.
by Quint Stevenson on Nov 29, 2010 10:48 PM EST reply actions
You worry too much
#1, the most important thing for the Big East is retaining its BCS status. There was little risk of losing it before and, with TCU, there is no risk of losing it now. TCU’s past few seasons will count for the Big East. We very well could have a profile that is better than the ACC come 2013.
#2, the second most important thing for the Big East is to cling to its roots. Its roots were in focusing on TV markets, rather than programs. TCU = Dallas, even if TCU is not as important locally due to other influences. No different than USF, where Tampa has tons of Florida/Florida St. fans. Marquette is Milwaukee. DePaul is Chicago. Notre Dame is everywhere. Delaware, UMass, and Appalachian St. are not markets—either in theory or reality.
#3, geography is overrated. Utah is in the Pac 10. Colorado is in the Pac 10. The Pac 10 and Big 10 were wooing Texas. BC is in the ACC. Penn State is in the Big 10. Miami was in the Big East, and now USF is. TCU is in the Big East. It’s all good.
#4, numbers are overrated. 17 is bloated? Says who? You? Guys who get paid to write articles to get people inflamed? 12 is the perfect number? Says who? With 12 teams, you run the risk of repeat games in the championship game in football. 16? After all, the Pac 10 was looking into being the Pac 16. I guess they would not have been bloated for basketball because they avoided the dreaded 17. Maybe 18 would be best for football. Play each team in your division once, four home and four away… and then the champions play each other—for the first time all year, avoiding repeats—on a neutral field, to decide who goes to the BCS.
With 17 teams, you just play each team once—8 home and 8 away. If you want, play 2 repeats, a home and away with 2 teams. Have a play-in game for the tourney. Have the 17th team left out. Whatever.
#5, the concept of a NE football conference died when the Big East froze out Penn St. Once Penn St. went to the Big 10, it was game over. FCS programs aren’t changing that reality.
#6, olympic sports. WHO CARES??? If the volleyball team needs to get on a plane and go to Dallas instead of Washington DC or Boston, what is the difference? $20/ticket and an extra hour? The reality for TCU is that it will be cheaper and quicker for them to travel to the metro areas in the Big East too. Let the ADs worry about the logistics of this. You know, the ones that weighed the pros and cons of the move (along with the school presidents) and voted to approve the plan. They get paid to worry about it. I am not going to.
#7, what is good for the Big East is good for Syracuse. We are wedded to the Big East for the foreseeable future.
Sounds good
but I worry about the hot-hot-hotness of Appalachian State.
Anyway, I say that if the Big East must now go into Texas, they might as well bring on Houston. Mediocre football and legendary basketball — a perfect fit for the BE.
Id love
a true Northeast market BCS level conference. The Big East just isn’t motivated to create one for some reason. You’d think there would be more than enough opportunity for the Northeast schools to create one, but due to extreme ineptitude we dont see to be able to do it, hell we never really recovered from the ACC pilfering in ’04.
It is virtually impossible to create a NE conference
To get BC and Maryland, their schools would have to agree to a $8M cut in revenue. Penn State would have to take a $15M cut in revenue. What quasi-responsible school president, much less athletic director, could approve that?
The only way for the Big East to lure those schools would be to put together a package that exceeds the Big 10/ACC packages. And probably have to exceed them significantly to justify it. How many people quit their jobs to make 10 cents an hour more? You can, but that is foolish. Especially when you have had a reliable paycheck for many years and are happy where you are (even if there is some imperfection).
If anyone can think of a way for the Big East to quintuple their revenue per school… and do so in a way where they could add three schools in the process, you will be the first to come up with such an idea. Frankly, it is hard enough coming up with a way for the Big East to simply narrow the gap between its revenues and the revenues of the ACC—which are both dwarfed by the Big 10’s revenue.
The NE conference ship has sailed. The one exception is if the Big 10 and SEC raid the ACC. But Penn State is not coming back. The best we could hope for is being paired with BC again.
If you were to take 3 more schools just because they are located in the Northeast, that would dilute the Big East revenue even further, while adding nothing. It would turn the Big East into the Northeast MAC in terms of money and prestige.
Without Penn State there can't be a true Northeast conference and Penn State isn't walking through that door.
The days of regionalism are drifting away really. There isn’t enough athletic talent in the Northeast to sustain an entire conference at a BCS level, so stubbornly trying to do just that would send all the schools involved into near-FCS level quality of play.
Thats what it really seems like
Too bad though, it was nice to have that regional flavor. Now it seems like schools are scattered into conferences all over. The stupidest thing about the Big East these days is the name. Theres nothing really Big or East about it, so its not even a clever name?
Yea.
But at least we aren’t the only conference with a name that doesn’t make sense. Maybe they will rebrand for the 2012 year.
The "Big Ass Conference" ?
I mean, we are going to be really, really big.
If it was easy, I'd be doing it...
How about Bad Ass Conference?
It’s true for basketball and maybe the football teams will play up to their conference name?
I couldn't tell if you were serious...
But do you want the Big East to become more of a laughing stock than it already is?
Need to be careful
Because I think the BE is getting to such a big size that the all sports playing members are going to say “screw this” and branch off. Syracuse,Pitt,WVU,TCU,Cincy,USF, Louisville, Uconn, and Rutgers will hold all the power in conference. Those 9 schools can then grab 3 of the remaining basketball schools and do their own thing if they choose. That conference could easitly market their own network.
the fact that the football schools are also the majority of the basketball powers is going to lead to a fraction. It looks inevitable at this point
Good
Let the damned Catholic basketball schools go slog off and form their own league already, and be done with it.
"(BARF)" - Donovan McNabb, during his game winning drive against Virginia Tech in 1998
I would agree
but those 9 football schools probably would take G-Town, Nova, and St johns with them. Everyone else can GTFO.
We need a new direction.
We’ve gone East, South, and West already.
The only other option is NORTH.
McGill University, come on down.
I've said it a few times here
but it bears repeating:
I would love to see the Big East succeed and “return to glory” à la Notre Dame (except succeeding at it), but the fact is that the conference very probably will be “raided” and fall apart at some point, or lose its BCS auto-qualifier status (which would be as bad if not worse).
While Syracuse is here and the BCS is in the picture, SU should try to be a good citizen in the conference it helped birth—help it succeed and grow.
But when push comes to shove, and shit falls apart for the Big East, Syracuse NEEDS to make sure it is doing/has done everything possible to be one of those schools picked for Voltron Big Ten / Megazord ACC.
This school has a strong, proud athletic tradition and ending up in Conference USA Northeast shouldn’t be good enough for us—alumni, students, fans, athletes. It’s not worth sacrificing the future of SU Athletics for some misguided pride in a 20-year-old football conference.
It's the most bullshit thing I've seen in thirty years.
You can not keep inviting schools that don't play BCS level football to play BCS football...
it dilutes the product (see baseball expansion, NBA expansion etc). Think about it, just 10 years ago, there was no UConn and RU was a joke no one would ever play for. If you made an all star team of RU, Cuse and UConn Fball players, I’d say you would have a pretty good effin team that could compete with any in the country.
Now you want to add Nova, Umass, Deleware, GTown etc. All that does is dilute the pool even more. Also, tight geograpghy is great and all, but that also limits recruiting. A kid is less likely to come to your school if you arent playing with a few hours drive of his friends and family somewhere in the conference.
The Big East can’t keep that status quo here. If I were in charge, I would invite Big12 North today. It would start Armageddon, but oh well. Let the chips fall where they may. UK, KState, Mizzou, and Iowa are much better than any of the schools being talked about now.
iowa
state you mean, right? but i’ll agree and say i’d rather have those 4 than the ones listed to start this discussion.
my bad, Iowa is in the big 10...no room at the inn for mediocre football and zero basketball
i say thanks but no thanks to Iowa State….
Big East East Division,
SU, RU, UConn, Pitt, Wva, USF
Big East West Division,
LVille, Cincy, TCU, UK, Kstate, Mizzou
If we’re going to keep basketball onlies and go hybrid, then bring along StJohns, Nova, GU and Marquette.
Thats a pretty descent Football conference, and a bad a$$ Basketball conference. If the Big10 comes around looking to poach you can replace that school with Iowa State, Baylor UCF etc. If it comes to that, I would hope SU is the one poached, however, I wouldnt be mad ending up in a conf like the one outlined above, Matter of fact, I would prefer it to the Big10 if the payout could be close to the ACC TV contract/payout per school.
by OrangeinJersey on Dec 1, 2010 3:14 PM EST up reply actions
I actually like that lineup a lot.
"(BARF)" - Donovan McNabb, during his game winning drive against Virginia Tech in 1998
Ummm....
This is all fine and dandy, but how can Syracuse play Kansas St. in every other bowl when they are part of the same conference? ;-)
This is actually the best idea I have seen in a long time. Perhaps better than my own. <—-not often stated.
In fact, even if we kept ND, Seton Hall, DePaul, and Providence, this would be workable. Or, drop Seton Hall (sorry) and add Butler (or Xavier or St. Louis, whatever).
Then for hoops you get this:
East: SU, RU, Uconn, Pitt, WVA, USF, STJ, Nova, Gtown, and Providence
West: Lville, Cincy, TCU, Kansas, KSU, Mizzou, ND, Marquette, Butler, and DePaul.
The basketball inventory there would be outstanding. It would be able to generate hours and hours of TV revenue for a “Big East Network” with 7 pm games and 9 pm games every night of the week. Whenever ESPN is not showing us, some other network can pick it up.
Again, great idea any way you slice it.
I guess if we HAD to keep Seton Hall
We could slide USF to the West and keep Seton Hall in the East.
Imagine that tournament. We could divide the Big East tournament into two 10 team tournaments… the West in Chicago, starting on the Monday before the tournament is announced. The West in MSG, starting on the Monday before the tournament is announced. Byes to the top 2 teams. Finals on Thursday.
Then on Saturday night in MSG, the top two teams meet for the “automatic bid.”
Err...
the East in MSG.
And I guess we would have to call the conferences Northeast and Southwest to make sense if we kept Seton Hall.
That would leave two lower level teams in each division… SH and Providence in the NE… TCU and DePaul in the SW. Two middling programs in the NE… Rutgers and STJ (both on the upswing with new coaches). Two middling programs in the SW… Cincy and USF. And then 6 perennial tournament teams in each division battling it out.
It would suck to have games in Kansas count as home games, but small price to pay.
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