lash, i agree that ucf is all but in AS LONG as usf is ok with being in the same conference as them. they just built a new stadium, provide a geographical rival for usf, and would increase the big east florida presence. i would imagine usf would have some sort of unofficial veto power over ucf, ala wvu w/ marshall.

i think uconn would go for memphis over ecu for the same reason i believe syracuse would, basketball tradition. i agree wvu will be pushing for ecu, but if there are only two spots, then i don't know if they will get it.

you gotta think nova is one of the benefactors of this hybrid big east as they don't have to upgrade yet they still play big east basketball. if a spilt happens, i believe they would finally upgrade, albeit begrudgingly.

one interesting quesiton i have had about umass is why they were not invited this past big east expansion. they would have been a much better fit than the other non d1a candidates depaul and marquette. i guess the risk of them coming as a non d1a football school and then upgrading, thus shifting the delicate balance of power in the big east was just too great a risk.

ACCSeahawk, when the Big East selected Cincinnati, Louisville, it was before the BCS automatic bid was secured. Taking on UMass as an upgrade would have been very risky at the time as UConn was just making the transition to 1A. Additionally the Big East was counting Boston College to remain in the mix. The expansion required two more basketball schools to reach the crazy 8 X 8, the football schools had no other options at that time.

If you look back at the expansion which had continuous schools from Wisconsin to Massachusetts, the expansion really made sense at that time geographically. Once Boston College left for the ACC, South Florida became the most desirable to keep the pipeline into Florida requiting.

If the football school had split as they should have and were 8, they most likely would already have 9 schools. Just do not buy the argument that no school outside of another BCS conference brings any value. This is just a compromise argument because there are already too many basketball schools at 16.

I would think if the 8 football schools were on their own and could make decisions based totally on the needs of football in today's world, UMass may already have been invited. BCS is no longer a major concern with taking on teams with less tradition in 1A and UMass could bring back some of the benefits that Boston College was providing as member for the eastern geographical region.

lash, i thought the 16 team hybrid wasn't created until after bc left. if it was before, then i totally understand why umass wasn't taking in place of depaul or marquette. i thought louisville and cincy were brought in to replace miami and va tech and everyone thought it was over. then bc decided to leave too, thus the hybrid was born and the other 3 cusa members were added. if the hybrid was created after bc left, umass seems extremely more logical than depaul or marquette. i agree the big east could not have taken umass as a football school considering the state they were in w/ uconn just upgrading too.

ACCSeahawk, the 16 team or the original two 8 team conference under one umbrella was actually in planning stages after the ACC announced that Miami, Boston College, and Syracuse were joining the ACC in the first go round.

Prior to the Virginia state involvement in ACC expansion plans to include Va Tech, there were going to be two separate conferences that would operate under the same umbrella and use the name of the Big East. I believe the teams planned for the football side of the conference 8 X 8 were going to be Va Tech, WVU, UConn, Rutgers, Pitt, Louisville or Cincinnati, Temple, and either South Florida or Central Florida.

If the state of Virgina would have been assured at that time, the Big East would be able to retain the automatic BCS bid, they may not have forced the ACC to take Va Tech by holding the U of Virgina vote on expansion. UVa vote was required to allow ACC expansion as Duke and UNC were not voting for ACC expansion. Without UVa yes vote, the ACC expansion would not have occurred.

This football alignment may have turned out to be a very good one. With Va Tech and WVU in the same conference, East Carolina hay have eventually got the support for membership.

Looking back at how things uncovered, it may have some barring on which teams would be selected today if the Big East football were to split for an all sports conference format.

Temple and Central Florida were the two teams that were always included in some of the variations of proposals.

Memphis for some reason was never in any of the proposed alignments that actually had some legs. Memphis always wanted to be included and the Big East never showed any interest. This trend continued when Syracuse was included back in the mix and South Florida was selected to replace Boston College which left after Miami and Va Tech were included in a 11 team ACC.

This makes me believe that Memphis probably would not be included any proposed alignments today.

If you add Temple and Central Florida into the current 8 Big East football teams, the Big East would only need to find two more teams to reach 12.

UMass could be considered today as the BCS automatic bid is secure.

There would only need to be one other team selected for 12.

Less assume East Carolina is selected over Memphis since this school was never considered in the past and one would assume this would be true today.

Then my proposal is very close for 12 teams.

North:

UConn
Syracuse
Rutgers
Pitt
Temple (was in original Big East football plans after raid)
UMass ?

South:

WVU
Louisville
Cincinnati
South Florida
Central Florida (was in original Big East football plans after raid)
East Carolina ?

It is probably safe to assume that Temple and Central Florida would both be high on an attempt to get to 10 football members.

The number 11 and 12 is a little more difficult to predict as the Big East has not looked at any teams beyond the 10 mentioned above in the past.

The only other two teams considered in the past were Army and Navy. The original dicussions for either Navy or Army was for full membership and not partial that has been more recent discussions.

I believe Army and Navy would join a conference together if full membership were provided and not the crazy 4 x 4 games or football only membership.

What do you think about the following alignment for 12 all sports members.

North:

Syracuse
UConn
Rutgers
Pitt
Temple
Army

South:

WVU
Cincinnati
Louisville
South Florida
Central Florida
Navy

In this format basketball could be one large 12 team division (i.e. Big 12 and ACC). Who would not want round robin basketball games with the service academies to beef up conference wins.

If the Big East were going to go to a partial hybrid model of 12 football schools and 4 bb schools, trust me, Georgetown and Villanova would be the first two schools they would not drop.

Personally, I think the partial hybrid is the only way the Big East survives into the future as an all-sports conference. But I just don't see any other super conference going that route.

Why is it likely essential for the survival of the Big East?

Well, if the league hopes to entice ND and/or Penn State to join (5% chance of happening), having the likes of Nova and Georgetown part of the league will help the cause.

If it simply expands with 2 of Central Florida, East Carolina, and Memphis, then hanging on to the likes of Nova and Georgetown keeps the 'northeastern' footprint associated with the league.

In the latter scenario, this also assumes ND remains indy for football and part of the league. So to add two in this scenario likely means two might need to go.

As already pointed out by Lash, the first two that would likely be encouraged to find another home are DePaul (perhaps to the MVC?, along with St. Louis) and Seton Hall (perhaps to the A10?, filling the slot left open by St. Louis going to the MVC).

Cheers,
Neil

lash, the uva vote was politics at its finest :) you gotta love it. va tech has ALWAYS wanted in the acc, thus the virginia governor seized the opportunity to gain some serious political capital. i don't believe any big east lineup would have been enough to free up uva's vote, as the acc has always been there goal, and i am glad they got in over syracuse, and would have been even happier if wvu would have been taken instead of bc. but anyways...

my understanding was that the 16 team model was as being planned as you said after the first round of expansion, and that bc was none to happy about it. with bc still in the conference, i can understand why umass was not asked, and when they left, the big east could not bring them in as a football school, due to their fragile state at that time.

i agree that we should look at past top candidates when discussing the future, however louisville and cincy might prove to be a big wild card. if they politic for memphis, the conference might listen especially considering memphis' basketball history and current stature, which the football big east can' t ignore as they will want to maintain their basketball stature as well.

your lineups could very well be the future, particularly you top lineup. i just don't see army and navy joining for all sports, i dont think they would be competitive. but maybe the conference upgrade will make them more like air force, so you never know. i firmly believe a new all sports big east needs umass.
Pitt
UConn
Rutgers
Syracuse
Temple
Umass

WVU
Louisville
Cincy
ECU or Memphis
UCF
USF

you would have to ensure wvu and pitt play each other every year, but that can be worked out.

cusa fallout, marshall returning to the mac, and cusa reforming around memphis as a southwestern conference, where memphis will thrive competitively and fit in geographically. if memphis goes than ecu grins and bears it for awhile, but with the visionary terry holland at the helm, begins thinking about a possible new conference with more geographically friendly schools.

omnicarrier,
The first observation of your previous post is how do your force out a team in hybrid that is no longer needed? If you look back in history, the ACC was formed in a break away from the old Southern Conference. The new Big East and the old Southern Conference have some of the very same issues. The only way to accomplish expansion of football in the future for the Big East is to break away. I just do not see any way to accomplish expansion of more schools that play 1A football.

The other question, why do you believe Notre Dame and Penn State are vital to the Big East football future? Neither school have helped to secure the current BCS automatic Big East bid. The Big East football schools have accomplished this on their own with out any help from Notre Dame or Penn State. Both schools would be a great addition if they were willing and available to join. The point that need to be made very clear is that both schools are not and will not be available in the future.

Retaining Georgetown and Villanova in hybrid break way just to maintain the potential of attracting Notre Dame and Penn State does not provide any value.

If the Big East football schools get serious and realize they need more football schools, the only option to accomplish this is in a break away conference.

The first test will probably come sooner than latter when Big Ten finally decides to expand to long overdue number 12.

At that time assuming the Big Ten is able to attract one of the 8 Big East schools, the 7 remaining Big East football schools would be foolish to just add a replacement when a minimum of two football schools would be needed to ensure 8 conference game schedule.

A break away conference would probably want to keep as much of the eastern flavor as possible and UMass and Temple would be probably get the invite to reach 9 schools.

This time around the BCS automatic bid is not longer an issue or concern. WVU and Louisville have taken care of this requirement for the immediate future.

The topic we should probably be debating; in a break away do you expand to 12 team or go with 9 teams and expand latter to 12.

As for the topic of this thread, what if the hybrid is working for the Big East. Check back with me latter after the Big Ten makes a decision on number 12.

Agreed, it is much easier to breakaway than try and get a few to leave voluntarily. But the original post that started this thread - which is what I was responding to - began with the assumption that partial hybrids might prove to be successful. In this scenario, the assumption is that programs like Georgetown, Villanova, etc. see the value of a partial hybrid over a separate bb conference only, like the A10. Thus, in that scenario, a super-majority would be needed to persuade some to leave or else they simply dissolve the league.




First, at no point in my post did I make the claim that ND and Penn State are vital to Big East football future. However, I did make it clear that they are clearly the preferred teams should the Big East decide to expand.

I also take exception to your final sentence in the above paragraph. While the likelihood of them coming to the Big East is not great, your statement unequivocally says they will never be available for expansion in the future.

ND's independence in football could very well come to an end by the 2020 decade and when the Big East approached Penn State about coming "home" during the last expansion, their reply was indeed "No, thank you" but they asked that the league be careful as to which teams they did offer an invite to. Why would they care which teams the Big East let in if they never saw any possibility whatsoever of some kind of future membership in the league? It isn't as though they are 100% satisfied with Big Ten membership. ;)




Again, assuming what the original poster posited that partial hybrids might be the wave of the future (which I disagreed with, but agreed that the Big East would likely benefit from this situation), Nova and G'Town provide value regardless of whether or not PSU and ND decide to join or not.

The Big East (or whatever it calls itself should there be a split) sells itself as being a conference representing "eastern" markets, particularly "northeastern" ones. If there is indeed a split, the league is only going to go to 9 or 10 teams during the first decade or so of the all-sports league. The one or two teams to be invited will likely come from UCF, ECU, and Memphis. The league will continue to monitor teams like UMass, Temple, and perhaps even Navy, but they won't rely on them at the start.

With Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn, and Pitt the only Top 50 northeastern markets they can stake a claim to are NYC, Hartford, and Pitt. At least with the Wildcats and the Hoyas, they can stake a claim to Philly and DC. And remember, these are claims, not outright ownership of these markets. With Temple and Navy they could get the same thing, but they obviously don't feel strongly enough about either, otherwise they would have been offered full membership over Cincinnati.




You are stating the obvious here. The question this thread is considering is that if there is a break-up, should it be all-sports only? or should a partial hybrid be considered?

For the other 5 super-conferences, I believe the answer is all-sports only. For other leagues, a partial hybrid might be the better answer.

Of course this assumes in the Big East's case that the bb schools would be willing to break ranks with their brethren - which very well might not be the case. However, in this thread we assume for the moment that they would be willing to do so.




I disagree. They already chose Louisville and Cincinnati over those northeastern markets. The only time market came into play was when they chose USF over UCF when BC announced they would be ACC #12.

And that was because there simply was no great difference between the two in terms of athletics. The Big East football schools problems are manyfold. It is not simply the scheduling of an 8th league game. It includes their non-BCS Bowl line-ups as well as the perception that their fans do not travel well. Temple and UMass would only heighten those other areas of weakness and not help considerably in terms of markets.

The realistic choices, assuming ND and PSU continue to say "No", remain UCF, ECU, and Memphis.




Yes, under the coaching of Petrino and RichRod. Both of whom are gone now. The league remains subject to the new criteria until such time as they have a BCS Bowl tie-in. The criteria has been met for 2008 and 2009 and the league is off to a great start for auto-bid status in 2010 and 2011 since the next 4-year review period for BCS auto-bids will take into account the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 seasons.

However, the league will never be 100% secure in its auto-bid without having an anchor BCS Bowl. There are too many factors that could threaten it - Big 10 expansion, the success of conference networks such as the BTN, the anti-Big East bias that exists in both the good ole boys college football community and the media, etc.




I think the answer to that realistically is 10 football schools, just in case the Big Ten does target a Big East school for expansion. The only reason to go to 12 is for a conference championship game. And let's face it - if the ACC can't make a success of it with theirs, why should the Big East even bother? It's not as though the "realistic" candidates are all that compelling anyway.




That could be quite a while! ;)

Cheers,
Neil