****This an excerpt from a post on www.utefans.net (university of utah). the posters name was colo ute and I did get permission to post excerpts that I think are relevant to the discussion. obviously since this poster is Utah fan his post talks about Utah ***

Now, I thought Virginia Tech would be included in the ACC expansion rather than BC, but when I look at it, it really makes more sense this way. As a no-brainer, which media market would you prefer - Boston or Blacksburg?

On a bit more subtle note, Virginia Tech is really a "one trick pony" and hasn't had the cleanest of reputations over the past decade. They're a great football program, and Beamer is fantastic coach, but, from a total athletic standpoint, and, more to the point, academically, do they really fit in with Duke, Virginia, et. al. BC and Syracuse are both top notch academic institutions, and Donna Shalala is turning Miami into one of the best academic institutions in the country.

- So, what does the ACC expansion have to do with Utah? Well, nothing.....yet. Other dominoes have to fall first, and the program in the key position right now is.....(drum roll please)......Notre Dame.

If everything goes down as expected with these 3 programs and the ACC, Notre Dame is going to start being pulled in several directions. First, Tranghese, sensing his sweet BcS gig being in serious jeopardy, will give the Domers an ultimatum to either bring their football program into the fold, or take their other athletic programs and go elsewhere.

The Domers joining the Big East as a full member is exactly what we DON'T want to happen. The addition of Notre Dame to the Big East in football, along with probably Louisville and maybe Marshall, is enough to keep it as a viable BcS conference. If that occurs, most likely, the other conference would pretty much stand pat, and I wouldn't bet on another round of conference expansion to occur anytime in the foreseeable future.

- That said, I'm not sure joining the Big East is in the Domers' best interest either. I am sure that the Domers are smart enough to recognize Tranghese's ultimatum as a bluff, and treat it accordingly. If the Big East kicked Notre Dame's other sports out, they could just grab Georgetown, St Johns, and every other basketball only member of the Big East and go form their own league. Notre Dame might have just enough stroke to pull that off.

They just need to do a bit of math. In the Big East, they can get to a BCS bowl probably 4 or more times every 10 years simply because the conference champ gets and automatic bid, and they'd be in the mix for that spot with Virginia Tech every year - with someone else winning the title a couple of times each decade. More importantly, they'd get a 1/10 split of the BCS - and 4 other bowls - every single year.

The thing Notre Dame has to consider is that they still only get the 1/10 split in years where they're the participant in the Bowl. Therefore, in any given decade, they get one full BcS game revenue as a member of the Big East - regardless of how many times they play in BcS bowls. Wereas, if they remain independent in football, if they play in 2 BcS games in a decade - an achievable goal for them - they double their take since they don't have to share. Financially, I don't think it makes sense for them to join a conference unless....

- ...they have trouble renegotiating their own TV contract. Notre Dame is still one of the most respected names in all of college football, but, to be honest, I'm not sure they're the draw they used to be. However, if they were in the Big 10 - a conference with an already lucrative TV contract, but don't think for one minute that ABC/ESPN wouldn't up the ante considerably if they could get a piece of the Domers and a Big 10 Conference Championship game - it's possible that they could make it financially worth their while.

(for those who would argue that the Big East TV contract would also be upped with Notre Dame, consider that the Big East just lost the New York, Boston, and Miami markets, and replaced them with Louisville and West Virginia. Notre Dame isn't going to make up that big a difference.)

So, anyway, in the Big 10 with 12 teams now, they'll have to split the BcS pie 12 ways every year, but in the Big 10 with 12 teams, there's a much greater probability of having 2 BcS teams in a given year than the Big East. So, instead of having 1 full share of a BcS payout every decade, they'd get 1.2-1.4 share every decade.

That's still less than the possible 2-3 payout in a decade they may be able to get on their own, but the Big 10 with 11 teams could have some leverage if they threaten to stop scheduling them every year - the Domers play at least 4 Big 10 teams a year - or if the revised BcS decides makes it more difficult for them to qualify for a BcS game.

Notre Dame joining the Big 10 with more than 10 teams is exactly what we (utah fans) DO want to happen.

- Actually, the Big 10 with 11 teams expanding is what we want, but I don't see it making sense to them unless they can get Notre Dame. They could get a Pitt or a Missouri and expand even without the Domers, but I'm not sure they would.

Anyway, the reason we want the Big Midwestern conference with an ever changing number of teams to expand is because the 12 team conferences will then put pressure on the PAC to expand. They're not going to want to keep splitting the pie up equally for each conference. They aren't going to be overly enamored with splitting their 1/6 of the pie 12 ways when the PAC is splitting it 10. They're going to demand that in every bowl that they play a PAC opponent, they're going to want 12 shares of the take where the PAC will only get 10 - or a 55/45 split.

Basically, that costs the PAC $750K per bowl appearance, and that's not going to sit well. But what are they going to do when they're voting against 4 and maybe 5 other 12 team conferences. The only way to keep their equal piece of the whole BcS pie is to expand - and the conference championship game revenues won't suck either.

- So, the formal logic is for the PAC to expand to bring in the best possible football programs available. Puh-lease. If it gets to this point, football history is about as irrelevant as Cougie's little research project. This is now about money. Not TV money like most speculate - because lest we forget, the PAC doesn't have an ESPN contract. They're a Fox conference, and I don't see Fox upping their deal for any media outlet that the PAC doesn't already own - and yes, I still consider that the PAC has San Diego as more folks there care about USC and UCLA than they do SDSU. It's also not about additional bowl revenues as the PAC is contracted for 6 bowl games and that's not going to change with expansion. This is simply about the money associated with expansion, a conference championship game, and getting to keep their fair share of the BcS pie.

Frankly, the PAC could care less if the expansion teams are able to compete right away. They need two teams, and frankly, two warm bodies will do it. What they really need are teams who will politically and academically apease their boosters. So, I guess what I'm saying is that the PAC doesn't need someone to excite their fan base as much as they need teams who won't piss off anyone important.

- This is what I think BYU really has going against it. Athletically, they'd probably be a slam dunk. But how are PAC Big Donors going to react to bringing in a school that won't play on Sundays, expels active homosexuals, and fires professors for teaching subjects that aren't within a specific doctorine? I think it's the last one that'll be the big bugaboo.

- So, anyway if all of these things happen, I agree that Utah should be a lock. I can't see any other candidate in the West who would fit in with the academic and polical demands of the PAC better than Utah.

- As for the divisions, just one thing to keep in mind. Oregon and Washington schools aren't going to be too keen on not getting recruiting exposure in California every year. As such, they're not going to like a division where there are no California teams, so a northern/southern division won't work. I like the idea of splitting up traditional rivals, but I don't know how folks will react to that. Of course, all of this is putting the cart about 3 timezones ahead of the horse."

The latest with BE is that it will split into 2 parts.
The current 8 football schools and the 5 non-1A football schools.Both sides would like ND.However,the football schools would like to go to 12 schools.The first choice is ND.The question is what will ND do.They can go with bb schools and play without a BCS connection.Go with football schools(get special play 6 conference games instead of 8,have their own tv package and get the Miami bowl package)Or go to the B-10.Which they pick should be obvious,but I am sure it will not be.

Big East will not lose New York (city) media market by losing Syracuse. Pull out your atlas. . . New York is a big state. Syracuse is 250 miles from New York City. Rutgers, which remains in the BE, is only 35 miles from the city.

Rutgers marquee sports are terrible and have been for some time but, thanks to geography, Rutgers offers a conference access to New York, like Northwestern offers Chicago to the Big Ten. Rutgers is the closest IA football school to New York by far, followed by Army (60 miles), Temple (90 miles away in Philadelphia - - an enormous media market in its own right) and Connecticut (140 miles). While none of these schools will come close to supporting a BCS conference in their current states, they immediately offer access to something most conferences would love to have ... nearly 100 million regional viewers to any conference to which they belong. Visiting fans love coming to the Big Apple (trust me I've seen all of them in Rutgers Stadium) and many of their alums live in or around New York. All of that makes for developing some great rivalries with these schools if any of them ever get good.

Losing Syracuse, while it would hurt the conference terribly would do nothing to the media exposure. I cannot say the same for losing Miami and BC.

Neither Connecticut nor Rutgers is going to IA. Both have just plumped millions upon millions upping their facilities to be state-of-the-art IA football stadiums, practice, and training facilities.

If Miami, Syracuse and BC stay and ND were given an ultimatum, I think they might consider joining, if the conference doesn't persue further expansion. A spot in a 9 team Big East would mean 8 conference games per year and that would leave three open games for their traditional rivalries. They might be open to allowing Penn State and Navy to join as they are two of their traditional rivals, if they could play them every year and possibly miss playing two other teams in the conference. That would allow them to keep playing some of their other traditional rivals and schedule an occasional non-traditional out-of-conference game. Penn State would likey be interested in joining a new conference which included both Miami and Notre Dame. Navy would add tradition and access to the DC/Maryland media market, so I wouldn't mind seeing them join although with RU, Temple, and Connecticut already in the conference, you can't afford too many more doormats until some of the existing ones improve.

UConn was 6-6 last year.They seem to be heading in the right direction.While Rutgers is heading in the wrong direction under the direction of in-experienced HC,who keeps old buddies in coaching positions rather than improving the staff.Rutgers needs an experienced winning 1A HC.Maybe the new president of Rutgers will fire this jerk SOON.

tigersharktwo, Why so down on (Rutgers) Coach Schiano? He inherited a team which has barely won in 20 years and took a lead over Miami into the 4th quarter and placed a number of the preious (losing) coach's players into the NFL. I'm a bit optimistic for improvement. Once you've been bad for so long, it takes a long time to recover. Just ask Northwestern. They've been there and done that.

UConn didn't have the losing tradition to contend with. Made it a little easier for them. Plus, they are not playing a Big East schedule yet. Definitely a better team than Rutgers but certainly not a 6-6 Big East team. They got thumped by Temple.

Schiano has hired and kept inferior coaching staff including those whose only experience was as a grad assistant or in 1AA non-scholarship coach.When he replaced the OC he kept these two.They produced the worst offense in 1A.These inferior coaches are still here.Being optimistic over inferior staff is just plain dumb.

The only scenario in which Notre Dame would join a football conference would be to join the Big East after a Miami departure to the ACC, to hold the current Big East together.

Assume Miami, Va.Tech and one other go to the ACC. ND might be willing to play in a conference with Pitt, BC, Syracuse and Rutgers if the terms were favorable. For instance, they may not play a full conference schedule for years, but still share the Big East BCS spot. They may want Navy added as a football only member, or for their game with Navy to count as a conference game. They would also want special treatment on their TV deal, keep a high percentage of bowl revenues, etc. The Big Ten will never give them what they would want to join a conference.

If the Big East blows apart, look for ND to land with the basketball-only Catholic schools. One scenario:

Big East east: Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown
Big East west: Notre Dame, Marquette, DePaul, St.Louis, Dayton

I do agree that an ACC expansion to 12 could trigger the rest of the dominoes. However, the school that would go to the Big Ten would most likely be one of the following: 1) Pitt - apparently not high on the ACC's wish list, 2) Syracuse - they may see the Big Ten as a better fit than the ACC, 3) Iowa St. - fits the existing Big Ten geography, could be easily replaced in Big XII by Colorado St. or TCU.

Once the Big Ten goes to 12, the PAC Ten would not be far behind. Agree that Utah and BYU would be the natural choices. Easy fit into the PAC 12 North. Great facilities, good athletic traditions, etc.

I understand under the proposed big east alliance there will be a definite separation between the bb annd football schools.However,I understand the five BE bb schools in the east want to take bus rides rather than plane trips to get to games.This would indicate a problem for ND.The schools that they are most interested in New England schools UMASS,URI and Philly schools St.Joes and LaSalle and DC school GW.