Big East In Trouble Again!
Friday, October 07, 2011
Here we go again!
Just weeks after Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced that they will be leaving the Big East conference to join the ACC, another school is reportedly on its way out the door.
Actually, TCU never officially came in the door to the Big East but it now appears that they will be joining the Big 12.
The Big 12 Conference did confirm that it has extended an invitation to TCU to join its conference. The Horned Frogs had recently agreed to leave the Mountain West to join the Big East but that will no longer happen.
Officials at TCU have made no official announcement but they are expected to accept the Big 12’s invitation which will renew old Southwest Conference rivalries with schools like Texas, Texas Tech and Baylor.
Because TCU already has a formal agreement to join the Big East, it is believed that they will be subjected to the $5 million buyout fee.
While this is more bad news for the Big East, it’s still only the beginning.
The Big 12 is believed to be poised to add two more schools with Louisville and West Virginia both being targeted. That would further decimate the Big East football conference which could be left with just 4 football programs in UConn, Rutgers, South Florida and Cincinnati.
Both UConn and Rutgers are believed to be making strong pitches to the ACC for membership but that conference has yet to decide if they want to expand from 14 to 16 teams. If they do decide to go to 16, they would reportedly prefer Notre Dame and Texas.
However, now that the Longhorns appear to be staying in a newly reformed Big 12, UConn should move to the top of the ACC’s wish list. If Notre Dame wished to retain its football independence, Rutgers would then come into play as would West Virginia, Louisville and South Florida.
While Big East commissioner John Marinatto tries to salvage at least an 8-team football conference, the chances appear slim as the days peel off the calendar.
The Big East is targeting both Navy and Air Force as football-only members and is considering Temple for all sports. East Carolina has also applied for admission to the Big East in all sports.
As was written here first, the smartest course of action for the Big East would be to return to its roots as a conference driven by basketball. The difficult part in that would be telling the remaining few football playing schools that they would have to essentially fend for themselves in that sport.
Still, a Big East conference consisting of Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, Marquette, DePaul and Notre Dame would be very solid. Adding schools like Xavier and Dayton would make a nice 10-team league that should be safe from further poaching. It would also give the conference some leverage with the major networks for a lucrative TV contract due to the fact that it would represent some major metropolitan areas like New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Milwaukee and Cincinnati.
Ideally the aforementioned schools would comprise a new Big East providing long term stability for the future. However, turning their backs on remaining football schools will be very difficult. Then again, isn’t that what the football schools that have left the Big East have been doing for the past few years?
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