Which conference would make the most sense?
Let’s hope the end of the BCS and the establishment of the playoff system allows some sanity to return. WVU in the Big 12 is the worst *present *case, but at one point San Diego State and Boise State were in the Big East.
Why should it make geographic sense? WVU isn’t a small budget school, and a 6 hour flight to Austin isn’t a big deal. Since the major conference shuffling, it now makes sense for conferences to geographically diversify - at least within reason.
It’s in the conference for *every *sport, not just football. Does the women’s volleyball team gets plane rides for every road trip, or do they get to ride the bus to Oklahoma and back? If the former, what does that do to the athletic department budget - is it paid for by being in a BCS conference, something that doesn’t matter anymore, or do they have to cut teams entirely to make up for it?
Somewhere that has decent water and they aren’t raped by big business.
Do you have a constructive answer?
Can I complain here about the Big 12 having 10 teams and the Big 10 having 12 teams? (Well, till Maryland joins them, when they’ll be 13 teams)
Rick-that annoys me almost as much as the messed up geography.
No, Rutgers is joining as well to make it 14.
Seems to me that the ACC makes the most sense geographically for WVU. Plus they have an open slot vacated by Maryland.
Dumb! I voted AAC without looking carefully. I meant ACC.
No they don’t. Louisville was brought in to fill that slot. Combined with the addition of ND, the ACC will have 16 teams in all sports but football.
It’s not really an issue of what conference would be best for WV, but is WV the best for a particular conference. WV just doesn’t move the needle enough in terms of TV viewers for the ACC to get over their academic snootiness. The SEC is not going pick up WV and trigger realignment when there are much better prizes out there in terms of TV money (VT, UNC, NCSt etc.). The AAC would love to take WV back but WV is not going to take a $20 million payout cut ($26 mil Big 12 - $5 mil AAC) to move to a “more geographically reasonable” conference that still has them flying to Texas and now Florida on a regular basis.
I see only two ways WV moves to a more geographically reasonable conferences. (1) Pac 12 and SEC picks the Big 12 apart and WV is forced to find a new home. This does not end well for WV. (2) Big 10 and SEC pick apart the ACC which allows the Big 12 to take the southern ACC schools left over (e.g. FSU, Clemson, Miami, Louisville, GT?).
Agreed.
I voted other. The Big XII makes the most geographic sense, because its the only conference that wanted them besides the old Big East.
Just curious, but how big do you think the Big 10 is eventually going to be? Are you thinking all major conferences will be 16 teams? If so, they have 2 slots to fill. WVU would fit nicely in that conference geographically
I know it is wishful thinking and it will never happen, but I’d love to see Pitt and WVU move into the Big 10 to give it the 16 teams.
I think Pitt is much more Big 10 than ACC. And having Pitt, PSU, WVU all in the same conference would be great. But I doubt Pitt would leave the ACC now. For the longest time JoePA blocked any reunion between Pitt and Penn State (at least that was the unofficial word), and now that Pitt has moved into the ACC, i doubt it will happen in my lifetime, if ever. That was my favorite rivalry 30+ years ago. I miss the annual November game that meant something. I just can’t get worked up over Clemson, Wake Forest and the like.
It’s hard to tell how much bigger if at all the Big 10 wants to be. Their recent moves have surprised a lot of people, so who knows what they will do next. If they do expand it will be for schools that fit three criteria.
First and foremost it will have to expand coverage of the Big 10 network. It’s all about money and the best way to get it is by forcing cable companies to give them a cut of a new market. Secondly, they are going to want schools closer to recruiting hotbeds. Despite all the money it makes, the Big 10 is struggling in acquiring the talent needed to win championships and the main driver of that is that the mid west is shrinking relative to the south and does not produce as many talented football players. Lastly, any new school is going to have to fit the academic mold that the Big 10 is obsessed with. Big 10 membership also includes CIC membership, so any school is going to have to be a strong research institution with academic prestige.
West Virginia meets none of those criteria. West Virginia has a great football tradition, loyal fans, and is geographically close to the Big 10 schools but none of that means anything compared to the three reasons listed above. If the Big 10 makes a move it will probably be someplace like UVA, UNC, Syracuse, or maybe even Duke. Pitt may have been an option when they were looking for their 12th member, but now that they reached that number, it doesn’t do anything for them since they already have a team in PA.
Also, I think the Big 10 taking WVU would pretty much destroy the elaborate jenga tower that is the Big 12. I can’t see the Big 10 ever wanting to this as it does nothing for them but helps their main rivals, Pac 12 and the SEC. If they go after any conference it will be the ACC. The ACC has what they want in the location they want.
I love the Big 10, and even when i was a kid and Pitt and Penn State and the rest of the eastern powers were independents, I always thought Pitt would be a good fit. I know their campus doesn’t exactly fit the model, but everything else does.
But I think the Big 10 skipped Pitt because of their small TV market. Conference expansions are being driven by what kind of footprint the school can bring, that’s why Rutgers and Maryland got in.
Maryland was an ACC school for a long time, but they have the DC TV market, which is huge. Rutgers is allegedly part of the NYC footprint, but based on what i’ve seen and hear by people who are familiar with the Rutgers fanbase, that remains to be seen. NYC is not considered a college football hotbed, so the impact they will have is not exactly guaranteed.
But Pitt can’t really offer that kind of audience. But they had a great regional rivalry with Ohio State, since they recruit in many of the same areas, and they are within driving distance. Plus, I like Big 10 tradition. I would have loved to have seen Pitt get into the Big 10 with the latest round of expansion, and have Penn State back on the schedule every year, as well as Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and maybe Purdue as yearly opponents. But it wasn’t meant to be.
I just can’t get excited about the ACC, especially if a couple more of the schools in the ACC will be cherry-picked by other conferences.
But I don’t see UVa as a school the Big 10 would want. Great academically, but Charlottesville isn’t exactly a booming metropolis and they don’t have a national following. Syracuse and Pitt should have gone, and I was very surprised Syracuse didn’t get an invite, but maybe there were politics in play there that I don’t know about.
Oh well. At least that bastardized Big East is dead.
The one school that really should be in the Big 10 is Notre Dame, and i wish they would just join a conference and be done with it. They haven’t been very relevant in what, 30 years now? That school is a perfect fit for the big 10. I really don’t understand how they can continue to get a TV contract from NBC for their football team, but I can’t really blame ND for staying independent. As long as the money is there and it’s all for them. Why should they want to share?
While I agree that UVA is not good pick from an excitement and football perspective, I think the Big 10’ last two moves (Maryland and Rutgers (Rutgers!)) has proven that they don’t really care about either of those two things. If they mattered, the conference would still have 12 members. The Big 10 just wants a piece of the Virginia cable money for their network and be closer to where the recruits are.
Well, the Big 10 has done a tremendous job of shitting on any hopes of Notre Dame joining up throughout the years, so I wouldn’t hold your breath. ND has joined the ACC for all intents and purposes. They may not be full-fledged members with the football team, but they’ve committed to five games a season, which is all the schedule can handle until something forces them to go all in down the line. The Big 10 would be a better fit - as it at least has some of their historical rivalries that wouldn’t be forced off the schedule.
However, the argument about money no longer holds. Northwestern gets a far bigger cut from the Big Ten Network than ND gets from NBC.
My ‘other’ is the increasingly poorly named Big 10. I don’t see the AAC hanging around as a major conference in the years to come.