Arena NCAA conference realignment?

Does basketball even qualify as second fiddle? Well, for conferences not called ACC, at least?

At least the ACC's interest in Syracuse clearly wasn't football related

 

C'mon now. Football is second-fiddle (at best). Everyone knows it's all about money.

 

True.

 

I'm just getting tired of the Longhorns, period. I'm not exactly sure why they are considered to be such huge players in all of this. I got that they have their own network, land a lot of their own in-state recruits and all of that, but they've only won 1 National Championship since 1970. No one outside of that state gives a crap about the Longhorns, so I don't get why they feel such a sense of entitlement.

 

Because it's not about who is winning, it's about who has the most people watching. More eyes means more money.

 

I understand the money part, but in that article you posted, they only showed two tv markets, New York and Omaha, and Texas was on neither of those lists. I wish they had put the LA tv stats up there, because I doubt they would have been on that list as well.

 

True, but to them, football=money

 

Well, an example..... Texas travels well. Which I'd project to also meaning they follow the games well.

 

It's also selling the name brand on ESPN and ABC. Think about how much hype ESPN could put into the first Pac-16 meeting of USC and Texas.

 

Texas A&M officially joins the SEC.

Guess that the lawsuit by Baylor means nothing. Welcome to the SEC.

 

I wonder what the Big 12(-3) will do now...add BYU? They can't sit at 9.

 

BYU seems like a no-brainer invite. I think Memphis makes a lot of sense, too. And, maybe another Texas team, like Houston or SMU.

 

As a Notre Dame alum, I'm really a bit bewildered by the realignment. Stunning that Syracuse would bail on the Big East, given how significant a role it always played in the league. As for us, clearly the end of our time as a football independent is coming. I'm pretty sure we'll leave the Big East, mainly because of other (especially women's) sports, where ND has set clear priorities in achieving national prominence. And there's no way we're going to have football join the Big East given its current make up.

Going to another conference will almost certainly mean football losing its independence -- no one is going to take us for other sports and not football. And scheduling football games as an independent is going to become increasingly difficult with schools only having a few open dates per year. Two possibilities conference-wise would be the Big Ten (obviously) and the ACC. I'd prefer the latter, honestly. A big problem with joining the Big Ten has always been its ipact on recruiting -- ND has to recruit nationally to be competitive. If it joins the Big 10, its exposure on the coasts would decrease, and its ability to recruit likewise. The ACC would mean losing exposure on the West Coast, but it would still have enough exposure elsewhere to mitigate the damage.

And besides -- ND applied to the Big Ten for decades (going back to Rockne) and were rejected by the WASP elitists not wanting to have us dirty Catholics crash their party. I say let them rot.

 

Memphis missed it's BCS chance back when Louisville, Marquette and Cincy left Conference USA for the Big East. For whatever reason Memphis said "No thanks" to the invite. The Memphis football program is too much of a joke to be looked at seriously by anybody. They can't recruit their own local talent in the middle of $EC country and the outdated Liberty Bowl is also a major hindrance. Going to the Big 12(-3) might help in recruiting against the $EC, but that would be a gamble on the Big 12(-3)'s part.

With the Big 12 looking for schools right now I bet TCU is banging it's head right now... especially in light of the recent Big East defections.

 

Well, TCU doesn't tend to stay in the same conference for very long. They might end up in the Big 12 yet.

 

If Memphis were playing good basketball again, they could maybe get in a better conference. Right now, with the idiot that's AD, and the coaches and athletic program they have... they're are a study in how to be as bad as you can be. Two "great recruiters!!" as coaches, but no X and O folks.

 

Hey, my non-commital prediction might be true!

Story. Sounds like they're waiting on the regents.

 

Can we just rename the Big East the Big LOL?

 

Realistically what options to the Big East have for football? They are slowly turning into the WAC or Conference USA type conference. I wouldn't be surprised if it all fell apart here soon.

 

As long as the Big East maintains its competitive status in other sports (basketball), I think that the conference will have to stay together for football. Maybe it will be knocked down to second-tier FBS like C-USA, but I don't see it dissolving anytime soon. Besides, the smaller FBS conferences are far away (Sun Belt, anyone?) from the Northeastern schools. It would make travel hell, and the Big East schools wouldn't want to drop down to that level.

 

Just when it seemed like geography was starting to matter again (well, at least in the tiniest, tiniest way) with TCU going to the Big 12... heard a rumor today about Boise State and the Big East.

Talk about expanding the geographic footprint, maybe?

 

Oy. That would make my head hurt, if it were true.

 

It sounded like far from a done deal (and also sounded like both were still unsure if either was interested, but both were still considering it), but if it did happen, it would make TCU look like a good geographic fit for the Big East. Were it still going, that is, which obviously isn't the case anymore.

 

ESPN's Bottom Line said that Boise State wasn't too keen on the idea. I think that we're probably safe now.

 

This is probably the news we'll remember as the time Conference Realignment jumped the shark ...


Navy (ok), UCF (sure, that makes sense), Air Force (I guess, if you add Navy, I could maybe see it), and Boise State (Really???) to get Big East invites

Oh, and because a team in Idaho being in the Big East wouldn't be ridiculous enough ...

22-team conference planned with merger of Mountain West and Conference USA. If they could add a team in Alaska, they would literally cover every time zone in the USA.