The Big East this season, appears to be as tough as expected, with WVU being the early surprise. A bit of a round-up piece, including how the Big East has fared against other conferences and what might of been with Alex Galindo.
A column from Bob Smizik on breaking apart the Big East. Now, I agree with his basic point of splitting, and he is actually being consistent from the past. He is, however, completely insane as to the approach and understanding why things are the way they are for now.
No one has been a bigger proponent of splitting the BE up than me. Every delay upset me. When they decided to remain together I was pissed. The problems were obvious. So why? Why did they remain together?
The answer is the BE Commissioner, Mike Tranghese. In the post-ACC raid days, there was a lot of talk about splitting the BE. Tranghese came out and said that he would not be commissioner of either conference if there was a split. Tranghese was a b-ball college only guy (Providence). His core loyalties are there. Actually understandable, if frustrating, for those of us on the football side. The BE football schools needed Tranghese. They needed his personal connections to the rest of the BCS commissioners. Tranghese knew the other commissioners well and could lobby them easier and make it more difficult for them to rip away the BE’s automatic BCS bid.
Tranghese finishing up his 2-year term as the main flak of the BCS conference. In other words, he was the guy who had to go out in front of the cameras and defend the BCS when #3 Oklahoma played #2 LSU for the BCS championship while #1 USC was in the Rose Bowl, because the BCS rankings didn’t drop OK out of contention even though they lost their Big XII championship.
And it worked. The BE is still a BCS conference with an automatic bid. Yes, there is the probation period. But Tranghese even kept that from fully kicking in this year.
That’s why the BE is going to its behemoth format for the short term (about 5 years max, would be my guess). Give the both sides time to stabilize and then split and expand.
