All Entries in the "Big East" Category
Big East Denies Expansion, Invites
The inertia apparently continues.
The Big East football schools won’t be getting any help with their schedules any time soon, if a recent report from Fan House is true.
Big East commissioner John Marinatto and other league officials said that an Orlando TV report claiming that Memphis and the University of Central Florida would be invited to join the Big East as soon as next week is inaccurate.
“Those reports are not true,” Marinatto said Thursday.
That’s unfortunate. The Big East needs to take some action soon to remedy the football situation.
The University of Central Florida would be an excellent addition to the conference, as would Memphis. So would East Carolina for that matter. One suspects the conference expansion inertia is due in large part to athletic and academic elitism, designed to keep schools, teams and individuals in their respective places.
Regrettable.
Conference Expansion Footnote
Big East football fans should keep this in mind as the conference expansion soap opera continues:
A source with knowledge of the agreement that was entered into by the Big East schools following the ACC raid of 2003 states that in the event that 2 football members leave the conference, the football and non-football members can split the league without any penalty and retain their respective revenues, such as NCAA Tournament distributions. What is surprising is that the Catholic non-football members comprise the faction that is pushing the issue. If you recall, those schools met back in March to discuss “contingency plans”. Apparently, the Catholic schools have decided that they will exercise the split option if 2 Big East schools leave the conference (no matter who they might be) and have informed Big East commissioner John Marinatto as such.
Therefore, if the Big Ten takes Rutgers and Syracuse, for example, it automatically forces the break-up of the Big East (where it’s not just a hypothetical threat). My understanding is that Notre Dame simply will not join an all-Catholic league for non-football sports when push comes to shove. Notre Dame’s alums may believe that it will be okay only because it would still be a pretty good men’s basketball league, but the problem is for all other sports. The athletic department size disparity between Notre Dame and the Catholic Big East members is the equivalent of USC or UCLA moving their non-football sports to the West Coast Conference. That’s just not going to cut it for an athletic department of Notre Dame’s size and stature, no matter how much its alumni base believes football independence matters more than everything else combined.
Source: Frank the Tank’s Slant
Go West Big East
If it’s true that the Big East is in conversations with some of the betrayed members of the Big 12 Conference, there are some exciting times ahead for University of Louisville fans.
One can easily identify with playing schools like Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Iowa State on a regular basis. Why not go ahead and go after Utah and Brigham Young while we’re at it. All of these options are good to great, all competitive in football and basketball, and probably in the non-revenue sports as well.
Go ahead and let Rutgers and Syracuse go wherever. Good riddance to the unfaithful, the starry-eyed wannabes, the annointed prima donnas.
Dump the basketball-only schools. They should be happy with the singular focus on what the college sports world has deemed to be a secondary sport. Football is king. Long live the king.
Add East Carolina and Memphis, or Southern Miss. Let them join the big boys. They will contribute.
What one would have would be a great collection of schools happy to be together, ready to build toward a collective future.
Do it.
Louisville vs. West Virginia, 5 p.m.
Rutgers defeated Pittsburgh and UConn beat Cincinnati in other first round games, and the Do Not Disturb signs are now up at the observer’s place. For U of L-WVU updates, subscribe to UofLCardGame over at Twitter.com.
Nuke Option For Big East Expansion
Of all the conference expansion scenarios being tossed around, the one University of Louisville fans would have to favor is the Big East’s Nuclear Option suggested by Matt Keagan:
Pronounced dead when Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College bolted for the ACC, the Big East has rebounded by adding Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida. Don’t be surprised if the Big East does some poaching of its own as the conference recently hired former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue as its special adviser for strategic planning.
That means Tagliabue is looking at firing the first shot, something that could be announced in the coming weeks or month with the Big East announcing that Villanova has agreed to abandon the FCS for the FBS and with Notre Dame signing on for football. But Tagliabue won’t stop there: he may raid Conference USA for two or more schools, too.
Take that and shove it, Big Ten Conference. Let Notre Dame move to the Big East Conference, grabbing all the Eastern media markets, and watch how quickly Pittsburgh, Rutgers and others quit sucking up to the Big Ten.
Keagan may be dreaming, or he just may be on to something.
Tagliabue is no stranger to football expansion efforts, overseeing the NFL’s expanson from 28 teams to 32 during the Nineties. New franchises included Charlotte, Jacksonville, Baltimore and Houston. He has taken on some enormous challenges and been successful. He may have a few more moves up his sleeve.
Read more of Keagan’s analysis here.
Fear Not Louisville Fans
By Tom Stosberg
Rumors abound that the Big East may be on shaky ground, but the University of Louisville’s athletic program may be in store for its best years ever.
Take a drive past really slick Jim Patterson Stadium, turn left on Central Avenue and cross the overpass. Be sure to take in that over-powering view of the expanded Papa John’s Stadium.
Then turn left on Floyd Street and head down to “the strip” that includes several of the finest, state-of- the-art college sports facilities in America – Ralph Wright Natatorium, Yum Center, Bass-Rudd Tennis Center, the Track & Soccer Stadium, Ulmer Stadium, Trager Stadium, then proceed about six more minutes to the north to see an extremely nifty new basketball palace.
If you have never taken this drive, you need to do that. Then consider the fact that many of the teams who play in those facilities have enjoyed remarkable success in the past two years – women’s basketball team finishing No. 2 in America, lacrosse, field hockey, men’s basketball, golf, tennis, volleyball and rowing teams winning Big East championships.
Whether local wags think so or not, I believe that several major athletic conferences would positively love to have U of L as a member, tomorrow afternoon or sooner.
And the biggest reason the big boys (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC) would be thrilled to have the Cards play in their league is the most basic of all — cold cash money.
Louisville has one of the most profitable revenue producing college athletic programs on the planet. It is well run and brilliantly accounted. The media loves them, especially ESPN. U of L alumni groups locally and across the nation are well organized and “travel well.”
U of L fans have some very sunny days/years ahead. Please don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Penn State Pres: No News This Week
Penn State president Graham Spanier said Tuesday he doesn’t expect Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany to inform other conference commissioners of Big Ten expansion plans during this week’s BCS meetings in Arizona. ”There is absolutely nothing to report from our meeting,” he said. “There is no news.”
Source: Sporting News
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