Lash if you read my comment, you'll see that I agree that a 15 team All sport CUSA/BE is NOT probable. My comment was simply an expansion of GunnerFan's take of a proposed merger involving a trade of college teams for the BCS berth. Note that the comment also states that were something like this to occur then "weeding" out teams like Houton/UAB and Tulane would have to occur for the conference to max out at 12 teams.

Lash,
if I'm a BE BB school, I'm sitting pretty. I don't play FB and so have different priorities.
1.I have a 6:5 edge regarding all Big East decisions including expansion. Why expand and add FB teams hence shifting that power.
2.Why add both FB and BB schools---eventually the FB schools will break away anyway and form their own all sports conference. This Hybrid model just does not work--look at the BE and CUSA right now.
3.I Keep the Big East Name--worth more to me as a BBall school from the NE USA. "Sell or trade the BCS berth knowing that the football schools would try and pry it from me anyway.
4. As long as I meet the minimum # of schools required to keep my automatic NCAA Bid why even consider expanding unless I can add a strong BBall only team to share in the revenues.
5.Would assume that the minimum # of schools that the FB teams would want would be 9--hence there has to be at least 10 BB only schools to keep power in the conference. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. As a BB school why share my NCAA revenue with poor BB schools such as VT,Marshall, UCF, Rutgers of late, ECU and even USF.
As a FB school why share my BCS pie with at least 10 non FB schools and the rest of the football playing members.

The result will be for VT/Pitt/L'Ville and Cincy to band together and come up with another option.

UConn and Pitt (at least in the short term) will be on board, because both are commited to football.

GreenandGold, I agree that hybrid conferences do not work. I think the remianing bb and fb schools will work constructive together to resolve the issue. After all they did not create the mess college sports are in today with the BCS.

The football schools and basketball schools have very good relationships and will most likely work together to create two seperate conferences under the Big East. Someday they could go seperate ways, however, they both need to unite and work together to create the new conferences. This will allow time to stablize and use the Big East name to launch the new conferences. Once they both are stable, it will not matter what name either choice to use for the future.

If it were up to me this would be my new alignment and it does include Cincinnati.

Football conference: UConn, Rutgers, Temple, Pitt, WVU, Marshall, Cincinnati, Louisville, Virginia Tech, East Carolina, Central Florida, South Florida

Basketball conference: Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, UMass, Xavier, Marquette, Buffalo

Each team would provide some value to the confernce. Some teams may not have large markets. Some teams may be good in one sport and not another.

Over all the 12 team football conference will not be kept out of the BCS. Actually, I don't think the BCS is going to survive with the current conferance arrangements. With legal actions on the way and US Congress involved, the NCAA is going to have to take back control of college football and every thing will get back to normal in a few years. The big boy conferences will continue to get the extra bids in football (i.e same as basketball).

In the long run, all this expansion may actually improve things for every division 1 football playing schools. At least maybe every school will have a chance to make the playoff with out some bias group voting to keep them out.

Just to clarify my earlier points, which GreenandGold did a fair job of defending, thank you;

I was never supposing that from a market value stand-point the BE fball schools would whole heartedly leap to CUSA. Merely, the BCS spot currently available to the BE would be in jeapordy of vanishing without a rightful heir. And as G&G reminded us, the BE bball schools will hold the current rights to the conference name and affiliation, and they ain't giving it up unless Notre Dame sides with the football schools.

My idea was to see if there could be a seemless, time effective way for the BE schools involved to keep their BCS lives online. Since most of the proposals suggested numerous mergers between BE and CUSA schools for both fball and bball leagues, this idea of a trade made some sense. As for the idea of 15 member conferences, I expected both leagues to shun anything higher than 12, and that the likes of Saint Louis and Charlotte would not be art of renewed BE, while some of the Texas schools may slide to the WAC or MWC. Again, the whole point was to keep the BCS berth with the former-BE fball schools.

Now, an interesting twist from todays newspapers - UMass, who I always assumed would replace BC in the BE for basketball purposes, is actually theorizing moving up to 1-A football! (See KingCal's recent postings regarding expansion news items.) Assuming they could sort out the logistics of the expansion prior to all this mess sorting out, it seems some people in Amherst feel they could not only move into the higher level like UConn, but that they would instead be better aligned with the BE fball schools than the bball schools. Just the potential of returning to the Boston market, through a scholl larger than BC, mind you, would make them a valuable addition to this puzzle, even if they take five more years to be eligible for 1-A play.

Now that the 5 BE football schools are taking legal action against Miami, ACC, and company, would Conf USA take the same approach if the BE tries to cherry pick Conf USA teams?

The BE Conference has stated that its not the conference that is taking the legal action and could expand latter as a conference without looking hypocritical. Hmmm!

Maybe the original post on this thread makes more sense today and just merger remaining 5 BE and Conf USA teams and demand to keep the BCS bid to drop legal action. Also allow MWC a BCS bid!

BE Division: UConn, Rutgers, Temple, Pitt, WVU, Va Tech, Cincinnati, Louisville

Conf USA Division: East Carolina, South Florida, UAB, Southern Miss, Memphis, Tulane, Houston, TCU

It Tulane has to drop football, maybe pick up Central Fla.

2nd option for merger of Conf USA/BE using LSUtootnanny SEC idea of 16, the 5 BE teams merge
with Conf USA and create four football divisions creating its own made for TV BCS.

Div A: Pitt, Temple, UConn, Rutgers

Div B: WVU, Va Tech, Louisville, Cincinnati

Div C: South FL, UAB, East Carolina, Memphis

Div D: Tulane, Southern Miss, TCU, Houston


example of playoff:

Div A plays Div B in Pittsburgh

Div C plays Div D in New Orleans

Winners advance to Tampa

The often overlooked point is that great recruiting grounds exist outside Texas, Florida, and California. The northeast, in places such as upstate New York, New Jersey, and throughout Pennsylvania, are fertile territory. Penn State, Pitt, WVU, and others have found outstanding athletes in this territory as their base for many, many years. Getting prime Florida recruits has been a plus when it happens, but is not always a must for those in the northeast.
Even with a BE breakup, programs at Pitt, WVU, and so forth can continue to be viable. Stuggles at Rutgers and Temple were not due not having good recruiting prospects in their backyard. Their problem, among other issues, is getting them to commit.