27 replies to this topic

[HartfordTycoon]

Villanova is a decent fit for football but it should not stop there. We should simply boot St. John's, Seton Hall, and DePaul and invite UCF, Memphis, and ECU with the addition of adding Villanova for fooball. IMO this is the best way forward and would maintain the Big East legacy in Basketball while significantly raising the bar for football. I think Villanova should be playing home games at the Linc and just share with Temple. Try to get that rivalry to heat up to get Philly more into College Football and it could all work pretty well.

Big East Football

Connecticut
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Rutgers
South Florida
Cincinnati
Louisville
Villanova
Memphis
East Carolina
Central Florida

Plus Notre Dame, Georgetown, Marquette and Providence as BBall only.

Looks pretty good to me. Much better than what we have now. Let's do it.

[The Voice of Reason]

HartfordTycoon, on 15 September 2010 - 10:48 AM, said:

Villanova is a decent fit for football but it should not stop there. We should simply boot St. John's, Seton Hall, and DePaul and invite UCF, Memphis, and ECU with the addition of adding Villanova for fooball. IMO this is the best way forward and would maintain the Big East legacy in Basketball while significantly raising the bar for football. I think Villanova should be playing home games at the Linc and just share with Temple. Try to get that rivalry to heat up to get Philly more into College Football and it could all work pretty well.

Big East Football

Connecticut
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Rutgers
South Florida
Cincinnati
Louisville
Villanova
Memphis
East Carolina
Central Florida

Plus Notre Dame, Georgetown, Marquette and Providence as BBall only.

Looks pretty good to me. Much better than what we have now. Let's do it.

Booting St Johns and Seton Hall out of the Big East is like..... Booting Hartford out of CT.

The big East is a historicly NYC oriented conference, and has only grown to include footbal scools and a larger footprint more recently.

If anything, I would boot Marquette to keep those two old stallwart basketball members

Heck, in 2005, the conference added most of the teams that are more than a short drive from NYC
Cincinnati, De Paul, Louisville, Marquette, USF.

ask yourself what Marquette and De Paul bring to the conference that historical members like St Johns and Seton Hall do not?
I do not believe is expanding footprint just to expand footprint.
especially at the expense of teams that helped define the conference.

De Paul should be encouraged to have a football program though, its got 16k students, and could surely support one

[HartfordTycoon]

The Voice of Reason, on 15 September 2010 - 04:10 PM, said:

Booting St Johns and Seton Hall out of the Big East is like..... Booting Hartford out of CT.

The big East is a historicly NYC oriented conference, and has only grown to include footbal scools and a larger footprint more recently.

If anything, I would boot Marquette to keep those two old stallwart basketball members

Heck, in 2005, the conference added most of the teams that are more than a short drive from NYC
Cincinnati, De Paul, Louisville, Marquette, USF.

ask yourself what Marquette and De Paul bring to the conference that historical members like St Johns and Seton Hall do not?
I do not believe is expanding footprint just to expand footprint.
especially at the expense of teams that helped define the conference.

De Paul should be encouraged to have a football program though, its got 16k students, and could surely support one

Marquette has been MUCH better in BBall recently but I also have an alternate proposal for those averse to tossing anyone overboard. St. John's and Seton Hall stay and we retain a BBall presence in NYC and DePaul gets the privilege of sticking around. They should still have Nova move up for FB and bring in UCF, Memphis, and ECU for all sports but then also add a large state school to the BBall only side like UMass, URI, or Delaware that could potentially move up to FBS in the future. That would create a 20 team super conference for BBall with two 10 team divisions covering some of the best media markets in the nation and a pretty respectable 12 member Football conference. There is no way that is not a BCS League. Nobody could even argue that it shouldn't be.

Big East Football

Connecticut
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Rutgers
South Florida
Cincinnati
Louisville
Villanova
Memphis
East Carolina
Central Florida

Plus

Notre Dame
Georgetown
Marquette
Providence
St John's
Seton Hall
DePaul
UMass/URI/Delaware

as BBall only. There is no way that is not a BCS League. Nobody could even argue that it shouldn't be.

BBall Divisions could be

East

Connecticut
Georgetown
Providence
St John's
Seton Hall
Syracuse
Rutgers
South Florida
Villanova
UMass/URI/Delaware

West

Cincinnati
Louisville
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Notre Dame
Marquette
DePaul
Memphis
Central Florida
East Carolina (Doesn't make sense geographically but oh well)

[The Voice of Reason]

we could go back and fourth really, so Ill just say, I do not think a 20 team conference is sustainable.

and since its kinda fun, heres a thought.

in NCAA land, you are either a D1A football conference or you are not.   Big east seems to be the only exception.

the reason this subject comes up is because being a hybrid is not sustainable.


in the North East, the basketball only conference is the A-10.   these schools are pure mid majors, and occasionally have a title contendor or at least a top 10 team (thinking UMass back in the early 90's)

The Big East, USED TO BE the basketball conference, and it is still the best basketball conference in the North East, but it now wants to be everything top everyone.
The conference can not give up its basketball roots, but it needs to grow its pointy ball programs.

The football side is so much weaker than it was back in 2005, and sure some programs have stepped up like Uconn, but Uconn is not and may never be "the Gators"  

even though big East  added a few decent teams to make up for their losses, they still lost quite a bit of heft in the football side.

If the Big East is able to grow to 12 teams it would be by again adding weaker football programs to the conference.   now you can hope that those programs would step up

There are at this point only a few conferences that are at risk of a big east poaching.  
mid-american and conference USA and sun belt  are the only ones with geographic relevence

Conference USA is the only one with OK football schools.

at this point its kinda a bad spot, and I do not see it getting too much better very easily.

The East coast has 3 major conferences.   ACC, SEC, Big East.  at this time it sems the coast is a few programs shy of having 3 strong football conferences.

best case scenerio, would be C-USA imploding, and then have the Big East and the A-10 gobble up the east members and swap some existing members.

I see those 3 conferences creating 2 very good balanced conferences, but only 1 would be a footbal conference.

the West part of C-USA would end up divided into Mountain West and friends.

but loyalty is a funny thing and the monies involved are really the motivator.

I think if I were personally dreaming up a new atheletic conference, i would care that the football team was good, but the most important thing for me would be the AD Cup.  I would want programs that were good at every sport.   To me Stamford is the best sports school in the country.  it does not hurt that its also ranked the 4th best acedemic school in the World!

[MadVlad]

Well, unfortunately, the genius' in Providence have positioned the Big East to not be in control of their own destiny.  They should have initially handled the concerns of the football schools and added teams to get to a 12 school football conference (and even potentially raided another BCS conference), which would have looked like:

Miami
Virginia Tech
Boston College
Connecticut
West Virginia
Rutgers
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
Louisville
South Florida
Memphis/Florida State/Clemson/Maryland/Villanova/Notre Dame

After the raid, here is what should have happened:

Connecticut
Louisville
Rutgers
West Virginia
Cincinnati
South Florida
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Memphis
East Carolina
Central Florida
Villanova/Notre Dame/Temple

One way or the other, Notre Dame should be given an ultimatum, 'Nova and Georgetown should have been given financial incentive to upgrade, and the Big East should have been very aggressive to get to 12 teams.  It's a travesty that the Big East added teams like DePaul and Marquette when football schools are what was needed...

[The Voice of Reason]

MadVlad, on 16 September 2010 - 11:12 AM, said:

One way or the other, Notre Dame should be given an ultimatum, 'Nova and Georgetown should have been given financial incentive to upgrade, and the Big East should have been very aggressive to get to 12 teams.  It's a travesty that the Big East added teams like DePaul and Marquette when football schools are what was needed...

agreed!

VT and Miami >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Marquette and DePaul

thats a crap load of greater than symbols if you didnt figure it out

[HartfordTycoon]

I agree that they should have been proactive and tried to prevent the Football schools from leaving by adding teams prior to the ACC raid but I am not convinced that having a hybrid conference is a bad thing. There are some schools that add a tremendous amount on the BBall side that I just would not want to loose under any circumstances like Villanova and Georgetown and having BBall only schools keeps us in media markets that we would not be in otherwise like Milwaukee, Providence, Philly, DC, heck even NYC if St John's and Seton Hall can ever become relevant again. I guess you can count Chicago because of DePaul but that is the one school in the Big East that I truly despise being in our conference. I don't know why people think the hybrid model is so bad. If the Big East can get up to at least 10 but optimally 12 schools for Football I think having extra BBall only schools is clearly a plus. They don't share any of the Football money and expand the footprint of the conference. That is one thing I do like about Marrinatto. He said you can have as many BBall schools as you want. It doesn't matter and I fully agree with that. The key is getting the FB side stabilized without sacrificing what is truly the best product in college basketball. I think that my model of going to 20 teams with two 10 team divisions is where we will ultimately see the Big East and probably with the 12 Football schools I laid out. Notre Dame is going to stay independent and I don't mind having them as a Basketball partner as they are an up and coming basketball power that has a huge national fanbase already built in due to the football history.

I was pretty scared for the survival of the Big East at one time but I'm starting to think there is a clear path to keeping it together pretty effortlessly. I wouldn't be surprised if they announce they are adding additional schools at the same time they announce that Villanova is moving up for football. Frankly I really hope that something along those lines is what is going to happen. Remember the other issue is the stalemate having 8 FB and 8 non FB members. If Villanova comes over and it becomes 9 vs 7 then the balance of power shifts to the FB side and the BBall schools just have to suck it up if the FB schools decide to invite more members.

As for the power conferences moving from 12 to 16 FB members I'll believe it when I see it. I think 12 is the magic number for Football.

[HartfordTycoon]

In light of recent developments regarding TCU joining the Big East this is what I now envision to be the future of the conference.

Big East Football

Houston
TCU
Connecticut
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Rutgers
South Florida
Cincinnati
Louisville
Villanova
Central Florida

Plus

Notre Dame
Georgetown
Marquette
Providence
St John's
Seton Hall
DePaul
UMass/URI/Delaware

as BBall only.