When it comes to news regarding college sports, the sports departments of most TV stations come in somewhere ahead of Bleacher Report, message boards, and sports talk radio — but behind the Onion.
So, let’s wait and see a bit on this (via Deadspin).
Local 6 Sports Director David Pingalore is reporting that multiple college football sources have said that the University of Central Florida and Memphis could be invited to join the Big East conference as soon as next week.
Shocking. The same day an Orlando columnist makes the case — again — that the Big East should invite UCF to join there is a rumored story.
And of course, FedEx Chair, big time Memphis booster, and the father of the Memphis QB, Fred Smith has all but openly made an offer to pay the Big East any conference that will take Memphis.
There is no question, that of the options for Big East football expansion, UCF is really the best and only choice.
Just like everyone in the Big East would leave for any other BCS conference, no one in any other BCS conference would leave to go to the Big East
USF fans don’t want to see anyone else from C-USA come to the Big East. Especially UCF. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about Memphis in the conference.
I guess I have a hard time buying any of it right now. The only way they can really expand is to split from the basketball schools — whether completely or in some sort of weird alliance. I just don’t see the Big East leadership with the guts to do that.
I don’t particularly want Memphis in the Big East. UCF made sense for several years. That said if you are these teams, you have to go all the way.
I agree, Memphis is a terrible fit but expansion is about $$$$ and the Fed Ex guy has lot’s of it and is willing to part with it!
I can’t see it happening but you never know!
To save football, the BE needs to:
1. Add 4 schools with viable football programs to hold a conference championship. They can add UCF and maybe even Memphi$ as two of those, but they also need to go hard after BC, Miami, Clemson or Maryland as #3.
2. For FB school #4, they need to tell Notre Dame to either join as a FULL member or hit the road.
3. Split out the baskeball-only schools into a separate division with 7 members (and perhaps add an 8th to round out the numbers for scheduling ease). The BB-only division would have only 4 spots available for a 12 team BE basketball tourney. The BB/FB division would have 8 spots.
All of this would take “testicular fortitude” on the part of BE leadership to quote Desmond Howard on “College Football Live” yesterday.
Of course that doesn’t exist, so it will never happen. Therefore, I hope Nordenberg and Pederson have made dinner plans with both Delany and Swofford.
The MWC can’t STEAL the Big East’s BCS bid. If the MWC elevates itself it merely gains a bid, it doesn’t take one away from another conference. Also, in the BCS’s criteria the Big East is not the lowest ranked conference anyway.
I would of course love to see BC and Miami but dont see that happening either.
The best thing that could happen is Pitt is asked to join the ACC.
Sadly, I’m only half joking…
According to current thinking, you are correct.
However, the contract that includes the BE only runs through 2013. There is no guarantee that the BCS will add a 7th automatic bid in 2012 or 2013, and even if they do they could always vote to drop it back to 6 bids starting in 2014. Why? Because they want to give an independent Notre Dame every chance possible to get into a BCS game for the MONEY they bring.
And those conference ranking formulas can always be adjusted again. The BE ranks well because the formula is weighted. If every other major conference has 12 teams and only the BE has 8, do you think they’ll continue to apply the weighting? I don’t.
Plus, I’m sick of hearing how weak the BE is as a football conference down here in SEC/ACC and Big Ten transplant territory.
While there aren’t any good options out there the BE really does need to add a 9th team for football just because all the current members are having a hell of a time finding 5 OOC opponents.
UCF isn’t a name but its certainly worth it if it eliminates the risk of having a season with two 1-AAs on the schedule.
I’d really like to see something happen with the service academies, and Pitt has always had a good relationship with Navy.
I think even BE BB is in serious trouble if the football is not stablilized. However, until it is, the decision-makers are not going to do anything potentially adverse to BE BB.
Face it, BE is a BB conference now. Time to start treating it as such. Add 5 football schools who cares? The BE bread is buttered in hoops….
If The Big East stoops to the low depths of the gutter (I hear our belt buckles scraping the pavement)to add two inferior academic schools just to say that we are growing our football conference I would for the first time in my life be ashamed to be associated with Pitt. I have an Ivy League masters degree because Pitt gave a very poor kid from Noo Yawk a chance to receive a college education. Make no mistake about it I have always had a very special place in my heart for Pitt. The bottom line is that at some point you have decide what type of company you want to keep. If we allow the likes of Memphis and UCF to share the stage with our athletic and academic programs we are only kidding ourselves about the
value of our association with the Big East.
Pitt’s leadership from the top of The Cathedral of Learning has been outstanding in the Nordenberg era……SAY NO TO MEMPHIS AND UCF!!
We don’t have a shared BCS bid with ND. When ND was in 2 BCS games back to back when they had Brady Quinn as QB, the BigEast had their BCS bid with WVU being in the Sugar Bowl one year and the following year Louisvile being in the Orange Bowl. What we have with ND is they agree to play in the other than BCS BigEast bowl games. But as I noted above, ND’s leverage is lightening, as the BigEast lost the Gator Bowl and now we have the 2nd rate(or maybe 3rd rate) Champs Sports Bowl as the top bowl other than BCS
I don’t like the thoughts of CFU or Memphis, but, I don’t know if we can stay put. I will give this to the Pitt admin, and the Big East admin, it is a very difficult situation.
This program would improve the Big East IMO
1. Unless the BE splits FB & BB there is no point to adding more than 1 team.
2. Adding 1 full member playing both FB & BB would work very nicely assuming you aren’t after 12 teams and a playoff game in FB because it allows for a balanced schedule in both FB and BB. With 9 FB schools you get 4 home and 4 away games. With 17 hoops teams you get to play every other team one time per season (8 home and 8 away games). Therfore no more unbalanced schedules in either FB or BB. It’s the perfect solution short of going to 12 FB teams for a playoff and splitting the confernce in some way. By the way the #17 finisher in hoops either doesn’t get to the tournament in MSG or has a play in game with #16 to see who advances.
However, 9 teams still leaves the BE as the weak sister of the BCS, because you can bet the Big 12 will find a way to get back to 12 schools. That means BE football schools will always be targets for any conference East of the Mississippi that’s looking to expand to 14 or 16 teams. The only real solution IMHO is to somehow get to 12 FB schools. But again, that will take some guts on the part of BE leadership.
Hail to Pitt
but i’m biased since my masters is from UCF
Lou (and other posters who wish for Pitt to leave the BE):
The primary sport teams that this board follows are football and basketball. Let’s first take basketball. If we move out of the BE, we lose playing WVU (at least one game), Syracuse, UConn, Villanova, Marquette, Louisville, Georgetown and (for we guys that live in NJ), Rutgers, Seton Hall and St. Johns. With whom would you like to replace these opponents? (Name a conference and teams)
Football? If Pitt leaves the BE, there is no guarantee that WVU stays on the schedule. We have been playing Syracuse for eons. I like to main some tradition. I go to the Pitt-Rutgers game in Jersey every other year. I go to Homecoming regardless of the opponent. There is major interest in any game with any strong conference team (e.g. Cincy last year). If Pitt has a poor team/record, Pitt fans lose interest regardless if we are in the BE or B-10.
Maybe I am different than you, but in my decision process in determining whether I will watch a game, I never asked myself “How much money will Pitt make on this game from shared TV revenues?”
Comments?
By trimming the fat to 14, you open up two slots. Those slots get offered to Maryland and Boston College, of course. Neither is likely to accept. The fallback is to go get Memphis and Temple. Both are above average hoops programs, and each has reasons to succeed in football (Memphis = dollars in the athletic dept coffers, Temple = NFL stadium, NFL city, good recruiting area regionally, good coach). This puts us at 10 football teams. You give Villanova the support it needs to move that program up to FBS. They have a good program, and should be able to do this. That gives you 11 members. You are then in a position to say to Notre Dame: we can be a 12 team league in football with a championship game. That game will take place on primetime in New York at their new stadium.
They still reject probably, but its the best shot we’d have. Fallback to ND accepting, you jettison Providence too, and get ECU or UCF. You have to get to 12 football schools without going above 16 hoops schools. It is doable. It is not necessarily easy.