FanPost

Who are the Bad Guys in all of this mess?



So, ultimately who are the bad guys in this whole expansion/realignment thing this week?

1.  The NCAA

    Good job in not not doing your job.  The preachy NCAA always wants to
play up that they are the guardians of amateur athletics, yet there is no bigger bunch of screw-ups in college sports.  They spend so much time staring at minutiae like phone records, that they miss the big picture.  Mainly that college sports is blowing up.   It was the NCAA that basically rammed it up everyone's ass that you had to have 12 teams to have a conference playoff in football. So when teams raided other conferences to get up to 12,  it destabilized the entire field of conferences.  It also made it harder to be an independent which is what most of the East coast teams were.  They forced teams into weird  alliances that ultimately didn't work out.  Good job! Keep doing what you do best NCAA!

2.  ESPN

    These guys got the ball rolling on this whole mess.  It was ESPN that wrote and signed a contract with Texas for hundreds of millions of dollars that they then, didn't have to share with a anyone else in their conference.  You almost can't blame Texas in all of this.  If ESPN came to my school and offered up the same deal, I'm might have pulled a muscle running to sign the deal, no matter what the consequences.  I'm sure that in retrospect ESPN is kicking themselves, but too late is still too late.  Why they never even considered that this would piss off the other schools in  the conference is beyond me.  Stupid, stupid, stupid
    Also, how about the ESPN "reporters"  tone it down a little bit.  Yes this is a big deal, but it is not the end of the world.   People will always do stupid things when it involves money or security.  There is this thing called journalism and fairness that they used to teach in college and everyone seems to have forgotten that there are two sides to every story. 
   

3.  Notre Dame

    It's easy to pick on Notre Dame.  Oh so easy.  Old, rich, catholic, midwestern, traditional, rich, dedicated alumni, obnoxiously cocky, independent.  I could  go on and on.  They have managed to push their version of BULLSHIT on the Big East for years.  Much of it comes from the fact that the Catholic basketball schools fell over themselves to get them to come, even if that doesn't include football.  The football schools, to a man, grumbled about this setup. Yet there was always hope that it would ultimately  bring them in for football as well.   Well I think a few eyes in South Bend were actually opened this week to the realization that because of that independent streak they might be left out.
     To use an analogy, Notre Dame is the hot chick at the party that everyone wants.  She's turned down guys advances left and right all night and now the evening is coming to a close and pickings have become slim for her.  She can either go home with the nerd or go home alone.  That's when it hits her. Being hot doesn't guarantee anything.
    Notre Dame is lucky in that they are a marketable school that could gowherever they want , but they will have to make concessions of their own if they want to get there.  In the present landscape of college sports, stability and financial security are the only things you can hope  for anymore.  Let's hope they come to their senses and join the more competitive ACC,  because if they do go to the Big 10, the Big 10 will make them their bitch.

4.  the Big East

    Partly for being such giant pussies about Notre Dame, the rest for just bending over and taking it whenever the ACC comes round.  Notre Dame allegedly got to vote on a contract with ESPN over football when they aren't even a member for football.  What bullshit if it's true  The basketball and football sides have been in a Hatfield/McCoy type fight ever since the creation of Big East Football. It's almost juvenile in a way.  The football schools need to man up and just leave for greener pastures before the basketball schools drag them down.  Feel free to have your new football conference align themselves with the Big East  Basketball,  but do it without any of the whiny BB nothing schools like Providence and Depaul being able to control your destiny.  "Marinara" needs to stop trying to repair the damage the ACC has inflicted with a bunch of also-ran programs and try to come up with a league designed to defend itself from future raids.  Uconn, Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia are all basically in play for any future expansion from other leagues. If the buyout was 30 million, UConn would still glady pay it.   Accept it.
    I'm the biggest ra-ra fan of the Big East and it pains me to see them listing like a broken boat.  The reality is that the football schools needto look out for the football schools and the basketball schools need to look out for the basketball schools.  This will instantly affect recruiting in basketball, so they need to move fast if they want to keep what they have. To go from having 11 in the Tourney one year to having maybe 2-3 the next, will force recruits to look elsewhere when deciding where they'll play.
    Being an Syracuse fan, I realize it's easy to say all this since I don't have to worry about it anymore.  But the reality is that I have had a vested interest in this conference for over 25 years of my life and I do NOT want to see it go away over a bunch of bad decisions.  Do you know what great opponents do?  They make you better.  The ACC needs the Big East.  Without them, they will just become lazy.  Who is going to  challenge the ACC?  The SEC?  The Big 10?  Please make it stop.


5 The ACC

    They are the predators in all this.  There is nothing they can do now that will repair their image.   SU and Pitt jumped because  the Big East had become ineffectual and they had to  if they wanted to have any control of their own future.  But what did they jump into?   I would never trust the leadership of the ACC. They have proven themselves time and time again to be jackals and completely untrustworthy.  Ask anyone in North Carolina, what they think of these guys. They think they f'ed up a perfectly good conference seven years ago with the last raid of the Big East.  Ask BC.  Alone and unloved up in their little corner of New England.  I worry about one thing.  Now that we have what we wanted, what do we have?