If all of that happens, by 2014 or 2015 Big East football will include current members Louisville (KY), Rutgers (NJ), Connecticut, and South Florida, with newbies Central Florida, SMU and Houston (TX), Navy (MD), Air Force (CO), Boise State (ID), and San Diego State (CA). Although Louisville and Rutgers and Connecticut have all been trying to leave and they could still do that.
If I were the dictator of college sports, I would mandate that the Big East drop football and become a basketball-specialized conference. Let UConn, Louisville, and Rutgers leave.
Notre Dame
Georgetown
DePaul
St. John’s
Marquette
Providence
Villanova
I’m sure they could scrounge up a few more teams; that would still be quite a good basketball conference.
If you don’t think that the tail is wagging the dog, think of the travel implications for Boise State and San Diego State. These guys are suppose to be taking classes (we all know that is a farce) but you would think they could keep up appearances.
Consider the time zone changes.
It’s “The Wizard of Oz” when the curtain gets pulled back. Yet, we continue to buy into it.
Thing is: it’s not really a farce for quite a few of these athletes. It’s like the stupid commercial says “Almost every one of us is going pro in something other than sports”. I think it’s pretty clear that the conference commissioners don’t really give a shit about the academic side of things, but the football players who are actually trying to get a college education are going to struggle with all the travel time.
The coaches have got to be shaking their heads too. There’s a huge physical and psychological difference between a 2-hour bus ride and a cross-country flight.
This is got to be a sign of the end of the current system, right? I mean, this is totally unsustainable. This is not going to last for more than a few years before it all spins apart.
Yeah the NFL isn’t ideal. But given the limitations they were working under with realignment, I think they are reasonably good. And vastly better than the pre-realignment divisions.
Dallas is perhaps the worst. But was kept in the East for historical reasons. St Louis should be in the West. There really isn’t a 4th NFC team that is closer to the west coast. You could maybe put Minnesota or Dallas in the West instead. But that is pretty much a lateral move. Neither of them is really much closer. And yes Indy should be in the AFC North, move Miami to the South and Baltimore to the East and you would have much tighter divisions.
I think maybe some schools are trying an end-run around the BCS by trying to get every school into a BCS conference. That, combined with the planned merger of Conference USA and Mountain West…it looks like a lot of teams are trying to get on a lifeboat, any lifeboat, before the ship sinks.
This won’t kill the conference. They’re getting Nevada, Hawai’i, and Fresno State, the three strongest football programs in the WAC. Essentially, the MWC is now what the WAC ten years ago. (They’ll be the best non-BCS confrence and may occasionally get a sniff of a BCS bowl.) San Diego state is apparently now where Virginia Tech was ten years ago (on the East Coast).
I was thinking about this the other day. Every weird alignment is for rivalry reasons.
Dallas v. Washington (and everyone else)
Miami v. New England
St. Louis v. San Francisco
Kansas City v. Oakland (and every one else)
Baltimore v. Pittsburgh and Cincy
Apparently, Fresno State has realigned its priorities and is shafting the shit out of the football program. Pat Hill just got fired, and I was hearing on the radio this morning that the program has undergone absolutely crushing budget cuts recently, including mandatory coaching staff furloughs, etc.
Sounds like Fresno State, always on the cusp of breaking out, is about to become absolutely irrelevant.
I don’t think it’s an “end around the BCS” so much as it is “we want a share of the BCS money that the automatic qualifier conferences get” (plus, they do well in the men’s basketball tournament, and half of the TV contract money is based on how well your conference has done in the previous six years).
Minnesota belongs in the North, and if it wasn’t for keeping the Dallas-Washington rivalry, Dallas would belong in the South. That makes St. Louis the westernmost NFC team besides SF, Seattle, and Arizona, doesn’t it?
Probably the same implication that USC being in the Pac-12 has on its annual game with Notre Dame.
Hmmm…actually, Navy being in the Big East might be a problem, since it has three rivalries (Army, Air Force, Notre Dame). I can see getting rid of Notre Dame if necessary, but still, that limits its out-of-conference opportunities.
