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Big East
fighting for AQ survival
From staff and electronic reports
�2011 Bonesville.net.
All rights reserved.
The Big 12 Conference reached hundreds of
miles outside its geographical footprint on Friday to bolster
its ranks, dealing a forearm shiver in the process to the
already-reeling Big East Conference.
West Virginia, a Big East charter member and
the league's flagship football program, accepted a formal
invitation to join the Big 12, putting further stress on the Big
East's precarious hold on its Bowl Championship Series
automatic-qualifying status.
The Mountaineers and Big 12 officials
asserted that WVU would begin play in its new league next
season, a contention that Big East executives firmly countered
with their insistence that they would hold the Mountaineers to
the 27-month advance notification clause that applies to schools
planning to depart the conference.
The Big 12 has slotted West Virginia as a
replacement for Missouri, which appears destined for the
Southeastern Conference. The Mountaineers' arrival combined with
the Tigers' departure would keep the Big 12's membership ranks
at 10.
WVU's defection is the latest setback for the
teetering Big East, which is now down to five football-playing
schools in the wake of the announced defections of Pittsburgh,
Syracuse and Texas Christian to more stable BCS AQ conferences.
Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Rutgers and South Florida
are the lone holdovers, and the attrition may not be over.
Big 12 and WVU officials
signaled to media members earlier this
week an invitation and acceptance were
forthcoming, but the move stalled when Louisville and its
advocates in the political establishment mounted an aggressive
lobbying effort to wrest the bid away from the Mountaineers.
Subsequently, WVU's own political allies rallied forcefully to
the school's defense.
Friday's development presumably brought
closure to the kerfuffle between WVU and U of L. But it did
nothing to quell the restlessness among Louisville and the Big
East's other remaining gridiron schools.
The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that
U of L athletic director Tom Jurich declined to pledge that the
Cardinals will remain in the Big East Conference for the
long-term. Cincinnati, which had also coveted a spot in the Big
12, did not publicly protest when it was left out but has made
it known that it is analyzing its future options.
It is a foregone conclusion that both
Louisville and Cincinnati will put themselves forward as
candidates if the Big 12 decides to expand to 12 teams in the
future, an eventuality that is not far-fetched considering the
lucrative championship game such an alignment would allow the
league to stage.
The governor of Connecticut has openly talked
about UConn being suitable for membership in the Atlantic
Coast Conference, and Rutgers is thought to be a potential Big Ten
target if that league decides to establish a northeastern
presence for TV demographics purposes.
Considering the crippling depletion of the
Big East's football powerbase, there's little doubt that South
Florida would also welcome overtures from other BCS AQ
conferences.
Even the Big East's core basketball
membership is feeling the fallout from the football-driven
realignment of conferences. The Kansas City Star reported this
week that
Notre Dame, a linchpin in the Big East's hoops lineup and a member of the
conference in all sports except
football and hockey, has been identified by the Big 12 as a
potential candidate as an associate member
retaining its football independence.
In addition to the Fighting Irish, seven other Big East members � DePaul,
Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton
Hall and Villanova � do not compete in the league in football
but are prominent on the landscape of college basketball.
Meanwhile, the Big East is left trying to
catch its breath and maintain its tenuous grip on what it's got
left while courting reinforcements from schools in the non-AQ ranks
of Conference USA, the Mountain West Conference and
independents.
It has been widely reported that Navy, MWC
members Air Force and Boise State and C-USA schools Central
Florida, Houston and Southern Methodist are being solicited as
members by Big East Commissioner John Marinatto. Assuming no
further defections by existing members, the addition of all six
of these targeted schools would increase the league's projected
football-playing membership ranks to 11, one shy of the 12-team
alignment sought by the conference.
The New York Times reported Friday night that
there is "a notion percolating" that the Big East needs to
expand beyond 12 football teams in order to gird itself against
further poaching. Army, Brigham Young, East Carolina, Memphis,
Temple and Villanova have been mentioned in various reports as
potential targets for any additional spots.
The stakes are high for the Big East and the
potential new members. The Big East is one of the six BCS AQ
conferences, each of which is guaranteed an annual bid to one of
the lucrative BCS bowl games. But if it is unable to replenish
its membership roll with quality football programs, the Big East
will likely be on the outside looking in after the current BCS
contract expires at the conclusion of the 2013 season.
Before West Virginia's exit, many analysts
had calculated that the Big East could potentially secure its
place place among the BCS AQ leagues by enlisting Boise State to
help shore up the league's credentials. The Broncos, who first
entered the major college ranks in 1999, have been a football
powerhouse in recent years, earning at-large BCS bowl berths
after the 2005 and 2008 seasons. But that equation may no longer
be valid after the loss of the storied and traditionally
powerful Mountaineers program.
If the Big East is unable to restore its
football credibility by attracting the appropriate mix of new
members in fairly short order, the league may be forced to
consider a
collaboration with Conference USA and the Mountain West to form a 28- to 32-team, nationwide,
football super
conference. The objective would be to position the super
conference for inclusion as an automatic qualifier in the next
round of BCS negotiations.
The contemplated super conference would in
effect head off a looming showdown over AQ status after the 2013 season between the
Big East and the
22-team football alliance announced
earlier this month by C-USA and the MWC.
PAGE UPDATED
10/29/11 09:47 AM.
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