Are the new Big East & the Big XII simply opposite sides of the same coin. It's interesting to look at championship history over the past 30 years.

The new Big East is a collection of schools that really haven't factored into the national championship picture in college football. Only Pitt (1976) has won a national championship in this period. The Big XII, on the other hand, is a major player in football championships. In this same period, Big XII schools have won or shared 6 national championships - Oklahoma ('85 & '00), Colorado ('90), & Nebraska ('94, '95, & '97).

In contrast, only Kansas (1988) has come out of the Big XII group to win a national basketball championship in this period, while 7 Big East schools have won basketball championships in this same period - Louisville ('80 & '86), Georgetown ('84), Villanova ('85), UConn ('99 & '04), & Syracuse ('03).

Is it then no wonder, then, that the Big East builds its future around basketball while the Big XII built its expansion around a conference championship game in football?

Don't forget Louisville did real well under Howard S.The same can be said about WVU in the early 1990's.

Even with a strong Louisville, this is a basketball-first conference in the same way that the Big XII is a football-first conference. Louisville is a good replacement for Virginia Tech, it is no Miami & without Miami, the Big East can no longer be seen as a conference likely to produce a national football champion. If it does, it is likely to be a rarity.

In the same way, a national basketball champion is a rarity from the current membership of the Big XII. Before the Kansas victory in '88, the last time this group produced a NC was Kansas in '52. It seems like they're good for one about once every 25 - 30 years. Same for the current membership of Big East Football. Oops, we're coming up on the 30th anniversary of Pitt's NC. Maybe it's time.

Friarfan, so can we say the same thing about the new ACC You can not count Miami's championship as Big East member for the new ACC.

Sorry but this theory does not fly. Let one of the new Big East teams go undefeated and most likley they will via for the national championship. Of course you could have the three way thing simliar to Auburn this past season.

The BCS likes to have both teams undefeated and the in most years you would only have two BCS teams with that status.

Sorry wishful thinking from a Big East non football school.

The Big East is not what it use to be and when Miami joined the conference was never going to be a basketball only conference again. The football schools will split before this type of perception is forced onto those schools.

Lash, I'm going to have to change my handle so I'm not labeled as "from a non-football school." My daughter went to Providence - not me. I went to Manhattan & UConn (grad). I also paid tuission for kids at BC & Fordham. I have plenty of ties to football schools. But I am a basketball first guy, so I'll take the good natured ribbing.

Actually, I started this post because it's very obvious how certain sports floursh to a greater extent in different parts of the country. Hockey is never mentioned here, for example, but in some places it's the big sport on campus. Syracuse loves lacrosse. Etc. It's just so noticeable that football champions rarely come out of the Northeast - Syracuse, Pitt, & 2 from Penn Stae over the past 50 years. OTOH, they come out of the Great Plains/Texas all the time. The states of the old Confederacy also produce football champions like crazy, but except for North Carolina, the only state to produce a NC in the past 50 years is Arkansas - unless you want to also include UTEP.

It just seems that there is a greater priority on certain sports in some parts of the country than others, so some regions have greater success in one sport or another. The Big Ten seems to be the most balanced - 7 bb NCs, 8 fb NCs (3 shared) in the past 50 years. The Pac Ten also stresses success in both sports - 13 bb NCs, 6 fb NCs (3 shared) - although they have benefitted from a dominant bb program at UCLA & a dominant fb program at USC while the Big Ten has had spread its success around to a greater extent in both sports.

I expect the BE to eventually split, so I'm not pushing for it to a bb-first conference. I'm just noticing that history is not on their side to be a big time fb conference. Just as history is not on the side of the Big XII to be a big time bb conference - at least in terms of producing NCs.

Wow Friarfan that puts you right in the middle of ACC/Big East and Big East football/basketball only school issues. Bet some of the family conversations get interesting. Maybe you should be running the conference with inside information.

We do mis lable you as a BE basketball only school fan. Thanks for the clarification.

I do agree with your comments and if you go one step further, its a very few schools in the biggest conferences that win most of the titles in football.

It probably has a lot to do with the level of talent today out of high school and the location to allow for all year training and development. Althought the Big 10 does fairly well with Ohio State and Michigan and Nebraska use to be able to requit on a national level. This is probably one of the big reasons South Florida became BC replacement in the new Big East.

I do see an easier path for a new Big East football team to rise to the top over a middle of the pack team from one of the new super football conferences. There has to be a Virginia Tech in the butch. I personally think BC is screwed or was screwed for the payouts in ACC. Then again BC never won an outright Big East football championship which is surprising in some ways.

I tend to agree that a split is inevitble. I would think the new Big East would not necessarily need to win any future football titles and just win some BCS games to remain part of the lucrative BCS.

You made a good point on some other post. The new Big East football schools are much better looking on paper than the old Big East football schools were in basketball.

So if the Big East can win around 50 per cent of future BCS games and continue to play good basketball, the 8 schools or possibly and 9th and/or 10th group of schools should do OK in the future. The new Big East just has to realize the conference will never be the SEC in both SOS or revenue when it comes to football. Then again I think the ACC has too high of hopes of catching the SEC as well. Just ones opinion.

There is no reason the new Big East football all sports league could not perform like the old ACC. Playing great basketball and good football should work and pay the bills.

I know many want a simple approach to college football with every conference having 12 teams and championship games with each reaching the next level of bowl games.

I just dont really see the east and west coast finding the right type of teams and/or justifications for this taking place to expand to 12 teams in the Big East or Pac 10.

The most interesting question if and when the split occurs is the direction Notre Dame will take.

If I recall and correct me if I am wrong, Notre Dame was considering going with the football schools and playing some type of arrangement or partial football schedule if the split would have occured immediately after ACC annouced expansion plans.

By the way, since your are UConn grad, why do you have issues with the possiblity of Louisville and Cincinnati possibly pushing for Memphis to take the conference into that direction along the Ohio and Miss Valleys. I would think UConn fans would be comfortable with Memphis replacing St John's and Villanova type programs. BC is already gone. Any thoughs or care to comment on this. The old old Big East has long sense be gone anyway.

I think there is something very intriguing about taking Houston and Memphis as a pair. I rememer the old days of Houston/UCLA basketball games that were really great during Houston basketball hey days. It could help UConn grab some of those southern requits, well if they cant take a bit of the cold northeast Regards.

Lash, I should clarify. Manhattan grad, UConn for grad school.

I was originally opposed to Memphis for the BE. At that time BC was in, USF was out. That trade - USF for BC - shifted the geographic center of BE Football dramatically. It is now essentially an Ohio Valley conference with a Northeast tail. It is no longer a stretch for most of this new conference to look to Memphis as realistic place to travel. I actually was quite taken with your idea of adding Memphis & Houston. I think it makes a lot of sense for the Football BE as currently configured. Once you've gone to Florida, why not get a foothold in the other big HS football state for recruiting purposes. You convinced me.

The other reason for my original opposition to Memphis goes way back to win the remnants of BE Football were only BC, UConn, Rutgers, SU, Pitt, & WVU & they were considering who to add. L'ville & Cincy were just candidates like all the rest - including Temple. It seemed to me that the character & culture of the conference were Northeastern & that this region presented an economic opportunity as yet unexploited by big time college football in any significant way. i thought that the Northeastern identity was worth preserving & the economic niche worth exploiting. I still feel that to be true & would love to see the conference reach out to UMass & anyone else like Delaware that may be viable. However, this may be too visionary for the realities of big time college sports. Memphis & Houston are probably a good place to begin & then see what else may develop, be it in the East or otherwise.

One of the things that all of this discussion over the past couple of years is the importance of tradition. Some folks here write about competition from pro sports as am impediment to the development of big time college football in the Northeast. The way that pro sports have expanded into every corner of the country, this can no longer be truthfully said. Pro sports are everywhere, in every region. But what is true is that pro sports have a grip on the Norhteast & the industrial Midwest unlike any place else in the country. People live & die with the Red Sox in Boston. Families have been handing down Giants tickets for generations in New York. Cubs' fans are as fanatical as those in Boston & Bears' fans rival those of the Giants, Eagles, or Steelers. In this same way, college football has a traditional grip on sports fans in the deep South & the Great Plains that pro sports can't unseat. It's imbedded in the culture. Fans live & die with these college teams in a way that they don't up North & back East with but a few exceptions.

That was my original point in this post. People demand championship football in places like Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, & Nebraska. And it's reflected in the record; 2/3 of the NCs won east of the Rockies in the past 50 years have come from this region of the South & the Plains. It's nice to do well in basketball in those places, but outside of North Carolina & Kentucky, it's not that big a deal if you don't win bb championships. When you move north of the Mason-Dixon line, things change. As nice as it is to do well in football, people are passionate about college basketball & the record there reflects that as well. All of this may change, but I don't think that the reconfigured BE has helped much to promote college football in the region. Penn State will still care. BC is more of a football & hockey school than a basketball school, but the failure to bring all these pieces together in one conference has also meant a failure to create a regional identity for Eastern football. Right now it is there in basketball, but not in football.

Lash, you make an excellent point about a rise to prominence of BE teams if one goes undefeated. How's this for a scenario THIS year?

Power teams in the stronger conferences knock each other off. With a weaker schedule to face, Louisville goes undefeated. Louisville & USC meet in the BCS NC game.

Such a scenario may raise some eyebrows. If it's repeatd, we may see the power conferences making noise about a true play-off system that is more inclusive than just matching up #1 & #2 but leaves out the best teams.

Those poor guys in the acc would certainly die if Louisville ends up number 1.

Sounds delicious. ;D

Why so, TS2? The ACC is set to break the bank and send more teams to bowls, which is what they wanted all along. Besides, you know Louisville isn't going to end up #1 or make the Rose Bowl. Not with that weak schedule.

Yes let the acc stan up against the SEC.If the best acc went heads up against SEC teams year and year out the results of a full SEC would prove the SEC superior.

Do not disagree with the jest of the above statement.
If Florida State had joined the SEC instead of the ACC when they did, they would not have near the string of almost unbroken conference championships to flaunt.

Now, with the three additions from the BE, the ACC has gotten tougher. At the top three or four, they are quite strong. But I am not convinced they are SEC equivalent for year end and year out, from top to bottom.

While the SEC has a few teams that do not shine consistently, they do have a healthy contigent that field powerful teams nearly each year.

The 12 team set-up with the ACC is new. Time will tell how this develops and if the league eventually finds more balance from top to bottom.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see top to bottom head to head challenges between conferences in fb to start the season? i. e. Miami vs LSU, Vandy vs Duke, etc.

Louisville's OOC games are with (at) Kentucky (SEC), Oregon State (PAC10), Florida Atlantic (SB), and North Carolina (ACC). Concur Westwolf, in that they do not have any big super powers from last year scheduled. However, we have seen named schools with even softer OCC schedules reach major bowls. Louisville's OOC schedule is stronger than quite a few others. Of course so many try to schedule weak OOCs' to maximize home games and enhance their number of wins to land top bowls.

I know this is stereotyping, so Westwolf, please dont take offense to my comments. I just have this picture of a butch of ACC officials setting around a table in some smoked filled back room on tobacco road plotting how the conference could get inroads into one BCS conference back yard and catch the SEC as well in the process. I dont care what anyone thinks the ACC was up to no good when it came down to expansion. Unlike the SEC taking Arkansas and South Carolina in very public manner, the ACC did it through back door process and Miami was the worse of all. Miami was telling the Big East one thing and at the same time telling the ACC another story. "It has to be college sports in its finest hour". I use to be Hurricane fan and may continue, however, its difficult to support this team with the type of officials running U of M. I hear Miami is having trouble selling season tickets. Maybe just maybe UConn, WVU, and Pitt were no worse off than NC State, Maryland, etc from a south Forida college fan perspective.

I have stated this before on other threads, it would be funny for the Big East to win a BCS college football championship at the expense of the ACC losing the opportunity due to expanding to 12 team requiring a champioship game. It may not happen and there are nice folks in the ACC as well who do not deserve bad things to happen to them. It does not change my picture of the ACC in a very "very" smoked up back room thinking they could get a jump on the SEC at the expense of killing Big East football in the process.

Friarfan, I agree on UMass as a future Big East football school. It really depends on the school having the leadership to get the necessary funding to upgrade the stadium to BCS standards. UMass was one of the orginial Eastern 8 schools. UMass was probably looked at more from a major school perspective than UConn prior to UConn surgence in the exposure of the Big East basketball. UConn probably is and should be thankful for Big East exposure that helped move the school up a few notches in perception of eastern power teams and also was major benefit into helping to create major football for the Huskies as well.

Five years is not a long time for the guarantee of Big East remaining in its current form and UMass needs to act fast or be left forever in a mid major conference. Same is true for Villanova. Don't think for one minute the Villanova fans do not realize this. Big question, can both of these schools find the funding to move up and be part of a future predominately eastern all sports league. Otherwise, the Big East will gradually shift more to the Ohio and Misssissippi Valleys or deep south and have less need for eastern teams. College football would be greatly enriched in the east if both UMass and Villanova were to someday become the 9th and 10th all sports members of the new Big East.

Due to time contraints, I give UMass/Villanova about a 50/50 chance of making the big time cut, otherwise, its the Memphis/Houston/Central Florida's of the world that will be looked at if a split takes place to bring the conference to what I think is the projected number of desired teams at 10. The Big East would probably take the maximum amout of teams and someday expand to 12 if the championship game became the norm for BCS type conferences. It just seems more safe financially to expand to 10 then 12 for football.