Pat challenges Lee and I as to our opposition to the Big East’s reported plan to expand to a 16 team league.

The main problem with this planned Big East conference, is that it is still very unstable. There would still be a sum total of only 8 football programs. This is simply too small a size for a BCS conference now. How happy do you think the SEC and the Big XII would be to give the Big East an equal shot when they have 12 teams to fight through? Same with the Big 11 and the ACC. I used to think that the Big East would have a shot at keeping its exclusive bid, but now I can foresee a change to make it so that the Big East would have to share it with the Mountain West and possibly the WAC conference. This would mean a fight with 20-30 odd schools for one bid. Not so great odds.

Another aspect of the instability is that conference raiding/expansion isn’t done yet, and the Big East schools will be cherry picked. The ACC will add a 12th member in the next year, and you can bet it will be an offer to a Big East school. That school will and should jump off the sinking ship, for the safer and more lucrative deal. Higher exit fees will not be much of a deterrent. Do you think the Big East would still get a bid if Boston College, Syracuse or even Pitt was out of the mix? Who would replace that school in the Big East? Temple? Memphis? East Carolina? UAB?

There is also another expansion possibility in the Big 11. They can talk all they want about how they have no interest in expanding to 12, but sooner or later it will happen. They may be holding out for Notre Dame, and people can talk about how Notre Dame may change its tune when it’s NBC deal expires; but if you have ever talked to the alumni and boosters of ND, you know that it isn’t going to happen. They are passionate/insane about maintaining their independence. Eventually the Big 11 won’t wait any longer. At that time Pitt or Syracuse will get the call. You can bet either will jump.

The bowl money will also start to dry up with only 8 teams. The Big East currently has tie-ins (with Notre Dame) to 4 bowls. It is, to be kind, highly unlikely that the Big East will be able to produce enough teams with winning records to qualify enough teams to fill the slots. Considering how poorly most of the Big East schools travel to bowl games, the Big East could quickly lose one maybe two of the tie-ins.

Over to the basketball side. You are talking about a 16 team conference with 2 eight team divisions. That is a scheduling nightmare for a league and a bad layout. A conference schedule is 16 games. You are faced with the choice of playing every team once and one team twice; or playing everyone in your division twice and two different teams from the other divisions each year.

Then try on how the conferences will look for competitive balance (and this is how it would look according to the reports):

Football
Pitt
UConn
WVU
BC
Syracuse
Rutgers
Louisville
Cinci

Basketball
Georgetown
St. John
Providence
Villanova
Seton Hall
Notre Dame
Marquette
DePaul

No question it would look like one of the deepest and strongest b-ball conferences in the country. It would also get killed in getting teams into the NCAA tournament. Last year, 7 of these teams got in (with BC and Seton Hall just outside the bubble), and 5 from just one division. The selection committee would/could not go more than 6 if they were all in the same conference, because there just wouldn’t be enough slots to pick more than that from any one conference — even one with this many members.

The so-called lucrative TV deal for this basketball conference wouldn’t be so great when split 16 ways — not to mention the difficulty of showing many marquee games — that is unless the Big East pitches the rule saying all teams have to be shown at least once on ESPN/ESPN2.

No, the problem with this plan is that it is too small for football, and too big for basketball.

[Also published in Sardonic Views]

Inevitably it seems that I read something along the veins of this article every year.

This, I submit, is a very good thing for college football. The sport needs USC to be good. Needs Notre Dame to be strong. Needs Oklahoma and Alabama and Michigan to be competitive.
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And the sport is stronger when those schools with the most powerful histories and traditions are strong, and not struggling. It’s fun to see an outsider charge into the big room and challenge for a championship, like Virginia Tech did in 1999, but college football’s touchstones are in places such as Austin and Norman and Columbus.

Every year it sets my teeth to grinding.

Part of it is the sheer arrogance in believing that college football and tradition only belong in certain places that are still producing winning teams. I don’t read any stories about the grand old days of when Fordham, Columbia and the Ivy Leagues ruled. What about poor old Rutgers, one of the true founding schools of college football? Haven’t heard much about missing the great old Southern Methodist University teams.

Part of it is the elitism in denying that college football doesn’t or shouldn’t become that big in other places — that they are less worthy for some reason. Sure schools like Virginia Tech and Florida State have built top-tier programs, and they have created rabid and fanatical fans, but that doesn’t mean they have any right to be treated like Nebraska, Penn St., Oklahoma, Michigan, Ohio St., Texas, or Notre Dame. Why, the nerve!

Mainly, though, it annoys me because what it is really just a chance for sportswriters to get lazy and pretentious. Who cares about really analyzing and writing about a present team, when you can just bask in the comparisons to teams of yore. Or to write about the great old traditions. They write their flowery prose with dreams of dime-a-dozen sportswriting awards, and fantasies of a Pulitzer dancing before them. Never noticing that they are writing the same generic piece that has been written dozens of times before in dozens of cities before.

And when things go south, the same writers quickly turn on the “storied programs” by bleating about how overbearing and unrealistic and arrogant the fans, alumni and boosters are in daring to compare today’s situation to the days when Bryant, Schembeckler (sp?), Hayes, Rockne, Osbourne and so on strode the sidelines. As if.

Spare me.

For yet another perspective on the Pitt win over Texas A&M, it is time to look at what is being said in Texas.

Well, here’s the positive spin on allowing 5 touchdown passes:

Here’s the good news: You can’t call Texas A&M’s secondary untested any longer.

Most of the blame for this loss went on the offense blowing it in the red zone.

Texas A&M enjoyed lots of big plays, gaudy stats and momentum-building moments in the first half Saturday against No. 17 Pittsburgh. Everything except lots of points on the scoreboard.

So the Panthers capitalized on the Aggies’ inability to capitalize by running away with a 37-26 win in front of 79,116 at Kyle Field.

Though some knew who was really to blame.

A remarkably mediocre defense, [former head coach] R.C. Slocum’s legacy to A&M, buckled in the second half again. Two quarters from an upset, the Aggies allowed four second-half touchdowns in a 37-26 loss to No. 17 Pitt at Kyle Field.
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On defense, the Aggies have nothing close to their skill level.

Given A&M’s tradition and recruiting base, that should not happen. Blame it on the talent drain that began on Slocum’s watch.

Of course part of the problem seems to be a second consevutive game where there is a total meltdown in the second-half.

Four games into the season, A&M’s finishing kick has been more like a kick in the teeth.

Continuing a season-long trend, the Aggies melted in the second half Saturday. This time, No. 17 Pittsburgh overmatched Texas A&M and eased to a 37-26 victory before 79,116 at Kyle Field.

The Aggies were ahead 13-9 at halftime, but that lead vanished in the third quarter. The Panthers had two consecutive 80-yard drives to start the quarter and added a third touchdown after an A&M turnover to go ahead 30-13.

Pitt quarterback Rod Rutherford passed for five touchdowns, three of them to Larry Fitzgerald. Although the Aggies had 544 total yards, they were outgained 295-241 in the second half and outscored 28-13.

In four games, Texas A&M (2-2) has been outscored 83-44 in the second half. In the Aggies’ last three games, it is 75-27. Both Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh had long drives to open the second half, setting the tone for a defeat.

Give the sportswriters in Texas credit. They didn’t sugarcoat the loss. They didn’t make excuses. They came out and wrote that Pitt beat A&M .