Is there a link to the study itself or a story about it? Regardless, I'm not disputing the study's purported conclusion that Rutgers was an academic fit for the Big Ten - it's a respected state flagship, so that makes perfect sense. In fact, I'm just pointing out that the other part of the study still stands at this point regarding the athletic department. The Big Ten isn't going to sign up any school that has one good season. Rutgers is going to need several years of success on the field before it can be considered. We have to apply the smell test here: who's more attractive for the long term (HUGE emphasis on the long term) - ND, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, etc.?

If there's one thing that needs to be understood, unlike pretty much every other conference except for the Ivy League, the Big Ten values its bond as a conference just as strongly as Notre Dame values its independence. The Big Ten isn't going to just add schools the way the ACC did a couple years ago or the Big East did in response on the basketball side. It's only going to take a no-brainer that's a sure thing both immediately and for the foreseeable future.

Rutgers certainly has a fantastic location, but it's going to need a whole lot more going forward. I'm not saying that won't happen eventually, yet it's way too early to jump to conclusions.

I understand the point that you're trying to make with the percentages, but it's quality as well as quantity that matters for multiple BCS berths. You're arguing that each Big East team has a higher percentage of making a BCS bowl versus the other large conferences since it has fewer members, but all you need to do is take a look at the history of the BCS to see that hasn't been what has happened in practice. Over the 8 years since the BCS has been in place, here's the breakdown of how many times each of the BCS conferences have received the maximum 2 berths to BCS bowls:

Big Ten - 5
Big 12 - 3
SEC - 3
Pac 10 - 2
ACC - 0
Big East - 0

Even when the Big East had Miami and VT, they weren't able to ever get a 2nd BCS berth. The ACC only had 9 teams before they added on Miami, VT, and BC.

If history proves anything, you need at least 10 teams and preferably more with a whole lot of depth if your conference wants a real chance to get 2 BCS berths.

So you think that the Big East has no chance of getting a second BCS berth this year? ;D ;D :o

Actually . . . if history has proven anything it is that in order to get a second BCS berth, you better have a team that's going to guaranty the most money to the bowl in question.

In the past BCS berths were hared to come by. In the two years that Notre Dame went, there was only a single spot available & in the other 5 years there were only 2 spots. Now that there are up to 4 spots available BUT a limit of two per conference , most conferences should have two per year. I can't think of a bowl that would pass on Notre Dame for ANY team in the ACC - no matter how good a season they had. . . . Well, okay, the Orange Bowl might take Miami over ND if the 'Canes are available. ;)

While I don't think a 14 team league WILL happen you have at teh whole revenue distribution package than just BCS bowl appearances. For the ACC the revenue distributed back from the ACC is as follows:

TV - 65 million
BCS bowl - 18 million
NON-BCS bowl money - 15 million
NCAA credits - 12 million
FB championship game - 6 million
ACC BB tournament- 5-6 million ??
2nd BCS team - 4.5 million

As you can see - in terms of MONEY the 2nd BCS team doesn't really contribute that much to the ACC's revenue picture. In terms of 'exposure' for a 2nd BCS team that is a different thing though.

ND would certainly enhance ANY conference's image but would it be enough to offset the problems associated with more teams?

Rutgers will not be joining the Big 10, and no other major needs another team. They belong in and will continue in the BE. The BE needs to add 1-4 schools when available.

Wow it been a while since I posted on this board.

Friarfan, very interesting things have occured for the Big East over the course of the season.

First of all the ACC has tanked and the Big East has become the hot ticket conference of the BCS. If BC could only read the future or possibly moniter this board?

Last year prior to Sugar bowl was difficult to indure the redicule of the Big East by the Arizona Republic (home town newspaper of one of the BCS bowls and this year national title game). This year the ACC had taken the Big East place as the butt of jokes for Sunday BCS updates.

Funny what a year makes in perception.

The Big East is now discussed in the same breath as the SEC and Pac 10.

No one in Phoenix any longer is dreading a Big East team coming to Arizona for a BCS or championghip BCS bowl game.

Ironically, the town was pulling for the Big East which may yet provide a team for the BCS title game.

Back to Rutgers.

If there is anything all of us have learned as well as many of the teams that left the east for what was originally thought to be greener pastures, its not always green. In fact its down right dirty.

Penn State was lucky to get to a BCS bowl last year and face another ACC BCS sub par team. Penn State is back to the "left east for Big Ten status and on the bottom again". It not just rebuilding or in a stronger conference. Teams should not fall from BCS bowl to possibly no bowl or very minor bowl at least they don't in the Pac 10 and Big Ten. The Big Ten is a three horse (Wisconsin should have played Ohio State) race very similiar to the Big East this year so no excuse for Penn State tanking or falling behind a Wisconsin team with a new coach.

Miami. What can we say except you get what your deserve. I have been a Miami fan for ever and was probably the only person on earth that beleived Miami to the ACC was about as dangerous as global warming is to south beach. Miami has a fair weather fan base and requits are attacted to a Miami with national title contention only. Miami has not just droped out of national title contention its droped off the map. Croker was not the problem and wanted to remain in the Big East. The President of Miami should be run out of any job that can make decisions on college sports especially conference alignment. Miami replaced Penn State as the top dog status football school in the east and then left that position to the next willing team to step up. Miami and Penn State have both falling on hard times in just one year. An old Penn State playing east teams would not have went from top team to middle of the pack let alone bottom dweller. Maimi has a huge path back to national respect. The Orange Bowl is old and falling apart and the ACC with divisions is very difficult to build a national title contender reptuation that Miami and its fans want to have each year or must have to survive.

Rutgers needs the Big East and not the other way around. Rutgers has as chance to possibly become an old Penn State or old Miami.

Rutgers would simply be replaced with Central Florida or Memphis or both and the Big East will continue to build back to the old Big East oops the Big East is actually better than the old Big East.

The Big East has the most potential of all the 6 BCS conferences for basketball.

The Big East has football TV ratings that make ESPN jump for joy. TV ratings are what makes the college football world go round. Big East has triumped the ACC and the Big 12 in TV ratings this year and is closing in on the other BCS conferences as well.

With the new TV contracts and ratings to boot, the Big East is probably as strong as the conference has ever been or maybe stronger.

Why would any team want to become Miami, Penn State, or worse yet step childeren such as BC and Va Tech.

"Rutgers leaving the Big East would be far more damaging for Rutgers than it would be for the Big East".

I agree the Big East should become 17 members for all sports and 9 members for football.

Keeping the football and basketball schools together more than give the Big East an eastern flair. The 17th member could come from just about any where in the country.

If I were MT which should be very proud of his accompljshements could take the follow approach to adding a 9th member for football. The commish stated that there must be value or somthing that makes the conference stronger to consider expansion.

1. Nothing would get back at BC more than adding UMass. Revenge has its value in more ways than one. Proivde UMass a timestamp date to build an on campus stadium of 50 thousand and get it in writing. We all know how people from Massachussets say one thing and do another.

2. If not UMass. Central Fl has got to move to the top of the list. A new on campus stadium (see number 1 above) and new arena has to make UCF the best choice. Could you stand it if Central Fl and South Florida became a bigger game over FSU/Maimi. This season it would have been a bigger game if both games were played in the latter part of in the year. Orlando is nice for the basketball teams to play in Jan and Feb. How about a UCF/USF game of the century to replace the has been game.

3. Memphis brings value with basketball. How good would the Big East have been last year if Memphis were the 17th member. Yes there is value in basketball and the Big East has proven it with the new TV basketball contracts.

4. East Carolina. Nothing would get back at the ACC more than building a Big East BCS winner in the heart of the ACC (See number 1 on value of revenge). The WVU/ECU game was very entertaining this year on TV.

6. TCU. Paybacks to MWC for all the do not deserve BCS automtic bid comments and get a Texas market and requiting benefit at the same time.

All five of the above bring value. Its just a matter of which value your prefer. If I were MT, revenge would have to have some influence in my decision.

Congrats to the Big East on a great year and for overtaking the ACC and Big 12 in the BCS race as the possibly the 2nd or 3rd best BCS football conference behind the SEC.

Now if we can just get and SEC/Big East football challenge going similiar to basketball.

These things always go in cycles.

For as many Big East boosters that have popped up in other forums of late, and for all the attempts of ESPN to wink/nudge Rutgers as New York City's team last week, there are the detractors debating how bad a possible title game might have been for Louisville (not to mention Rutgers), or how the best win OOC has been against Maryland or (on the road) Navy, the OOC record in general, et cetera.

People have noticed (and commented) that for all the basketball "fans of underdogs," there seem to be an equivalent number of fans of "you're not 'big boy football, go away.'"

Interesting year. It'd be more interesting if Rutgers goes to Morgantown and beats West Virginia, but there's a lot of people betting otherwise.

Hi, Pounder -

"We root for laundry." - Gerry Seinfeld

Those who are knocking Big East OOC schedules are cherry picking their examples.

Sure, Ohio State beat Texas, but lots of people still wanted Texas until they lost to Kansas State - a team that Louisville destroyed on the road - despite the fact that Texas' besst OOC win was Rice.

They point to the Michigan win over Notre Dame. Let's wait to see how highly ranked Notre Dame is after they lose to USC. Speaking of Notre Dame, their biggest win was a squeaker of Georgia Tech - no better than the West Virginia win over Maryland at this point in the season.

BTW, was Louisville supposed to know that Miami would go in the tank when they scheduled them? Other than Rutgers, what other undefeated conference champion would be denied a shot at the NC just because this Cinderella had scheduled a weak OOC schedule when they were not anticipating such a quick turn around. If this were the Big East of 2 years ago, the argument would be valid but not when they have to gothrough 2 top ten teams to get there. A weak BE certainly never stopped Miami or Virginia Tech from getting NC opportunities.

Would anyone be talking about denying Wisconsin a shot if they had won the Big Ten this year? Wisconsin's best OOC win was Bowling Green - barely ranked in the top 100! :o People would point instead to the fact that they had to go through Ohio State & Michigan in conference. In this year's weak Big Ten, that would be all and that's no different than going through West Virginia & Louisville. Oh, but wait just a minute! In the bloated Big Eleven, Wisconsin didn't even have to play Ohio State!! ::)

Let's take a look at the best OOC victories for some other NC contenders:

Florida - Southern Miss
Arkansas - Utah State :o
LSU - Arizona
Cal - Tennessee

These self-serving arguments promoted by bottom feeders & lizards like Lee Corso have no validity. The SEC won't schedule the Big East. Louisville was literally turned down by every SEC member. Penn State won't schedule the Big East. The Big Ten wants 2-for-1's. Lets' face it, it's the rare program like USC that actually schedules tough OOC competition. They're all trying to protect their records. The Big East's OOC schedules are no worse than the vast majority of teams from other conferences & are in many cases better.

Cheers,
FF

Nice to hear from you, Lash :)

You should be gloating! You were the one who predicted a couple of years ago that it would be an undefeated Big East champ who would be going to the NC game quicker than anyone might think. I think that you were predicting Louisville at the time. almost came true this year.

I really like the UMass idea. They are ranked #3 in the I-AA polls & #1 in I-AA in the computers. They are ranked #42 by Sagarin's BCS ranking of the combined I-A & I-AA standings. That's higher than any Big East team except the big three. They are on the road to their second I-AA national championship in the past ten years. And they've done it with 2 different coaches. That says that there's something right with the program, not just a great coach passing through on his way up.

I agree that the Big East should set some kind of entrance qualification criteria for them. Commitment to a new stadium would be a good place to start. They could palsy in Schaefer Stadium, home to the Patriots, if they had to wait for it to be completed.

TCU would be an interesting choice. Dallas market where there are people from all over the country who are not necessarily committed to UT, which is hours away in Austin anyway. There's a strong rivalry between the Giants & Cowboys and Wall Street connections with Texas oil. There was JFK & LBJ. The Bushes of Connecticut became the Bushes of Texas. A lot of connections between Texas & the East - sort of like Miami & the Northeast.

I'm dubious about the directional schools being able to bring the Big East the respect they're lacking from the old guard. Florida may be a big enough state to support one more BCS program, but East Carolina? Five BCS schools in a state of 8.3 million? (Is it fair to count Duke?) With Butch Davis headed to North Carolina, all of the attention will go to Chapel Hill in coming years. I don't East Carolina at all. No state wide appeal, too small a state, too much in-state competition.

The Big East may not have big stadiums to pack, but if anyone doubts the conference's aility to deliver big TV ratings, they just have to check the ratings for WVU-Louisville & UL-Rutgers. Through the roof! :o

Cheers,
FF