I indeed hope the BE survives and garners new members. That being said, Penn State is not a likely candidate for the ACC or a revised BE.
The schools that seem in play are Louisville, perhaps Cincinatti, maybe Army and Navy is some kind of capacity, and of course, Temple one way or the other. Notre Dame is a wild card, but doubt they will comit to anything in football before 2006. And if they do, the Big10 may still have an open spot.
If both the ACC and BE are smart, no further ventures into Florida will be made.

BCS PLAN B.

In a previous post I urges the Big East to go hard after ND or PSU and outlined the reasons that this should be attractive to those schools. Assuming the wisdom of all of that is not obvious to ND or PSU, here is another, more workable solution to keeping the BCS bid: merge with the Mountain West for football.

With $15 million from the BCS and even modest $ from a championship game (perhaps in Las Vegas), the deal should be able to net each school in the loop around $1 million per year, about the same as the remaining Big East schools are getting today, plus a chance to go to the big dance.

As I understand it, the BCS requires that a conference maintain an average ranking of 12 to be assured of keeping their spot in the BCS in the next contract. This could pose a problem. However, I believe sufficient political pressure could be brought to bear to keep the BE's existing bid into the next BCS contract under this approach.

Just a thought.

I shared this thought on the "ND" thread...

Could this be the most attractive financial option for ND; Join the BE now to shape its future to your advantage?

BE loses Miami and VT, will lose Temple. Thus, 6 fb members. Gavitt suggests 8 fb, 8 non-fb, but...

ND commits (no laughing, please). Add Louisville, Cincinatti (market and bb). They say yes even without the Irish for fb. Now approach PSU, telling them you're also after Navy and Army for fb only.

- 12 for fb, 16 for all-sport (add Dayton, Marquette, whatever)
- Championship game, often featuring ND and/or PSU.
- BC and Navy now conference opponenets, still 4 or 5 out-of-conference games for Southern Cal, MSU, etc.
- Stranglehold on northeast for all-sports, one heck of a conference!
- BE would let ND keep TV money from home fb, I don't know about Big 10.
- Make up still has lots of great academic and Catholic institutions
- Do this now before leaving for the Big 10 after the new BE has upped their penalties for leaving.

All the talk about the number of national championship slots each conference has gotten doesn't mean a thing to NotreDame - and won't help lure them. NotreDame can make their schedule as easy or as hard as they want - and if they go 11-1 or undefeated, they'll get a chance at the national championship game. I don't know how many times they need to re-state it, "they have no interest in changing their FB situation!" Forget NotreDame people, it ain't gonna happen.

If PennState were independent, they woud be the perfect addition for the BigEast - and would probably come. But would they leave the Big11 to join the BigEast? I don't see that being very probable either - but at least it's in the realm of possibilities. NotreDame joining is not.

The 6 remaining schools (BC, UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt, WestVirginia) are all good rivals for PennState and PennState would likely dominate that conference in FB.

Re-adding Temple for FB would give PennState 4-5 conference games in-state per year (Year 1: play Syracuse, Pitt, WestVirginia and Rutgers at home - plus Temple away. Year 2: play Temple, UConn and BC at home plus Pitt away).

Plus with only 7 conference games, they get 4-5 OOC games per year - of which at least 3 will be at home. When you throw in the fact that Rutgers, WestVirginia and Syracuse away games are easy weekend travel games for at least some large group of PennState fans - it basically becomes a bus league for PennState fans. Only UConn and BC are more than a few hours drive for some large group of their fans.

It makes perfect sense for PennState to join - but they didn't (when the BigEast formed) and haven't yet shown any interest. Of course, if Syracuse had been invited to the ACC instead of VaTech, it probably wouldn't have been as interesting to them - so time will tell.

Adding Louisville and Cincinnati may actually make the BigEast less interesting to PennState as these are neither traditional rivals nor easy bus trip opponents, so the BigEast would be wise to go slow on expansion. If they add these two and then go after PennState, I think PennState doesn't consider it.

Adding Navy and Army (and re-adding Temple) on the other hand wouldn't hurt PennState interest since they are both (all) bus trip games for PennState fans in Philadelphia/east Pennsylvania.

Ok, a few things.

First, Scarletdude, you are correct that it isn't required to have 12 teams to survive in today's enviornment. However, I believe if you want to flourish, this is one of the best ways. Think about it, before any of this expansion crap started, when you thought about the most powerful conferences, it went something like this:
Big 12 (12 teams), SEC (12 teams), Big 10 (11), PAC 10 (10), with 9 team ACC and 8 team Big East bringing up the rear of the BCS conferences.

Provided both VT and Miami do accept, the ACC not only breaks the tie with the BE, it jumps ahead of the PAC 10, and rivals the Big 3.

Nert, you're crazy. PSU would dominate the Big East football scene? I can't disagree with you more, at least regarding the next few seasons. Penn St isn't expected to finish in the Top 25 this season, and by most professional accounts, projects to about a 5th place finish in the Big 11 this season.

Pitt projects as top 10 in most polls this season, and has won the PA recruiting war over PSU in 3 of the last 4 years.

As far as others in the conference, WVU finished 3 spots behind PSU in last year's final poll. I'll wait to pass judgement on BC vs PSU until the 2nd week of the season when they face each other in Nappy Valley.

As far as Army/Navy go, I'd only allow Navy into the conference if doing so enticed Notre Dame. That would leave the Big East with 5 or 6 teams that Notre Dame regularly schedules, so depending on how large the conference gets, ND could play a full conference schedule and have enough weekends available to continue to schedule USC, Purdue, Michigan, etc..

Army should never be invited under any circumstance, as they're terrible. Same with ECU, because of academics and they're in ACC/SEC territory. Why breed ECU as the next school to get raided from the Big East?

The invite to Louisville should be in the mail already, as far as I'm concerned. Nert makes the "not a bus trip away" argument, but most of the conference is, and hell, half the Big 11 is in a different time zone than PSU.

So if I were king, my new Big East would look like:

BC, Cuse, Rutgers, UConn, Navy, PSU, Pitt, WVU, Notre Dame, and Louisville.

If neither PSU nor ND can be had, I'd go with Louisville and Navy for now, to get us back to 8. None of the other options are all that enticing, save Cincy.

A lot of interesting post among those above, and I concur with some in significant part.
Penn State is not a school that is going to shift to a shaky situation. Being in the B10, is highly popular with its faculty and the identification with the Big10's academic consortium. Plus the so-called "olympic sports" plus women's sports are valued, and the Big 10 delivers with this. Big 10 baketball is solid. Plus, games at Ohio State, Michigan, and others, yield big paydays for traveling teams. If the matter was football alone, Penn State may indeed be a real factor in a new BE structure. But even for football, the BE may really only offer some renewed regional rivalries. It is true, there will be years whereby Pitt (including this year as projected), and others like WVU and Syracuse may field stronger football teams than PSU. But looking at the long term; fans, facilities, etc., most years Penn State will be in the upper level mix as to outcomes.
If the BE did expand, and say to 12, hypothetically there could be BC, Rutgers, UConn, WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, and several of the following, perhaps in different capacities: L'ville, Cincy, Temple, Navy, UCF, USF, ECU, updraded UMass, or others. If the BE has 11 or 12 football members, each year (even among those mentioned), chances are there may be someone rising to the top dozen level and would not be a BCS embarrassment. It may be, there will not be a year in and year out powerhouse, but surely one or two teams will end up with excellent records each year.
Really, the BE, to maintain even some compromised viability, will need numbers. Unless something profound happens, PSU and ND, should not be pursued with wasted energy. What is the option, and much of the only option, is in turn, raid C-USA. However, C-USA may need to be re-structured in itself, and in turn grap elsewhere.

Assuming Miami stays in the BE, which I think it should, and the NCAA allows 10 member conferences to hold championship games, will the BE pursue that option instead of the Gavitt plan? Or perhaps add two more for fb only?

IMO, from down south, I doubt the BE would consider UMass if BC is now back in the fold. Great from a regional fan perspective, but money and power are still factors here.

There are several things that need to be done in order to save the BE, and I don't think any of the other posters on here know just how much really needs to be done in order to really save the BE as a conference.
Here is what I propose, looking from a realistic point of view:

1. Boot Tranghese as commissioner. It is clearly apparent he is NOT the man to lead the BE anymore.
2. Give ND an ultimatum about membership (although the BE does not look like it is in much of a position to give ultimatums right now): either completely bring your football team in the conference or get out of the conference altogether. The BE should have done this a long time ago, IMO, and the ND question is the root of the BE's problems, along with the basketball only schools. Resolve that, and a solution becomes apparent. Being a realist, I see ND finally accepting the inevitable, and joining the Big Ten.
3. Make it clear to the basketball only schools that they will NOT be running the conference anymore. This is something else that should have been done decades ago!!! >:( The bball only schools can choose to stay and help build the new BE, or they can go ahead and bolt to the A10, where they would probably be a better fit anyway. If Syracuse doesn't like this, tell 'em to go to the ACC. The BE can replace Syracuse, if they do not waffle on these issues. The basketball-only schools will still have some power, but they will have to be much more cooperative with the football schools than they have been in the past. The BE needs to think like a unified, all-sports conference. It has never done this before. The Sunbelt does this, and it has bball-only schools too. However, the Sunbelt bball-only schools are wise enough to see that if the conference does not have more all-sports members, the league will die and they will be left without a home, so it is in their best interest to help the all-sports schools. Same needs to happen with the BE.
4. Get some kind of a definitive ruling on the guidelines for any BE expansion candidate schools. What do academics need to be like, how many partial qualifiers are acceptable, how many non qualifiers are acceptable, if any? These are just a few questions on this topic.
5. Invite Navy for all-sports membership as well as Army. Tell them that they will get all-sports membership if the BE gets at least a share of the profits from the Navy-Army game. That should at least get the academies thinking about BE membership.
6. Get up a list of schools and start seeing if they will make good fits for the conference. Here would be my short list: Louisville, Tulane (they have Miami-like potential IMO. Not many people remember that Miami was seriously looking at dropping the football team at one time before Schnellenburger came along), Cincinnati,
Memphis, Southern Miss, Toledo, Bowling Green, Marshall, UCF, USF, and Western Michigan.
7. Try to get the BE to build up its existing football teams. The ACC has being doing this with NC State & Maryland. The BE could do this with West Virginia, Pittsburgh (more like keeping Pittsburgh where it is currently), and UConn. Rutgers could be another option down the line.
8. Get a new tv contract for the conference. ABC/ESPN really doesn't care about the BE that much. Time to see if someone else is interested in BE games.

BTW, the BE needs to dump this idea that PSU will be their knight in shining armor, unless PSU actually does approach the BE about membership, which I find to be highly unlikely. Plan like you're not going to get ND or PSU, and then if either comes along, change plans accordingly.

If you think this momentary upswing for Pitt means that PennState would not be the dominant team in the BigEast (if they joined the BigEast and Miami joins VaTech in the ACC) then you need to lighten up on the home brew.

The reason PennState's records have not been Top25 year in and year out is that they play a very tough schedule. No matter who you play, once you get 3-4 losses, you drop pretty far down - and the BigEast is no Big11 on a week to week basis. Playing a steady diet of UConn, WestVirginia, Temple, Syracuse, BC, Pitt and Rutgers; PennState's record would usually be 6-1 or 7-0 in conference and they would again flirt with Top10-Top15 status.

Presently only Pitt could match them for talent (this year)and with a PennState return to the east, Pitt's recruiting would suffer a great deal. Syracuse and WestVirginia would be like Pitt - occasionally challenging PennState for the title. But year in and year out - PennState would be one of the 2 (and on a rare year - 3) teams in the race. The other team(s) vying for the title would fluctuate from Pitt to Syracuse to WestVirginia to BC. This doens't mean PennState would win it every year - but they would be in the top 2 almost every year.

The suggestion of Army and Navy (as FB only members) does 3 things:
1) keeps the fans happy as travel for most of the league's schools is easy
2) allows other sports to remain at 10 teams (FB at the optimal 12 for championship game money) which allows round robin home and away conference schedules
3) helps home attendence for shakier eastern teams like Temple and fledgling UConn
4) helps the TV contract and bowl contracts (who would not want Army or Navy to come to their bowl if they ever get good again?)

I wouldn't add Army or Navy FB unless it could bring in PennState (and while that's usually the rationale to attract NotreDame, I don't believe there is any way NotreDame joins the BigEast for FB). I don't know if PennState cares about playing them one way or the other - but the fans would love the number of games they could easily get to - and the easy wins wouldn't hurt either.

Again, I don't think PennState would leave the Big11, but if they did leave to join the BigEast (resuming their old east schedule of Syracuse, BC, Pitt, Temple, WestVirginia etc) they would dominate the league. And other than NotreDame coming aboard (which is as likely as ocean front property in Nebraska), there is no other "eastern" that could save the BigEast's BCS status if Miami bails for the ACC.

The BE needs to have a split, yes divorce, with BE basketball. Bring back Temple into the fold for all sports. The new conference shall be: Pitt, WVU, Rutgers, UConn, BC, Temple, Army, Navy, Cincinatti, and Louisville. That is 10, and even all-sports, though the military academies may struggle for awhile in basketball. This makes a close, regional conference. Forget, the BCS worry, this is the best the BE can do. It also leave two spots if there is a desire to further expand later---perhaps an upgraded UMass, Marshall, Toledo, etc. or bigger fish.

This assumes Miami goes to the ACC. Good! Forget anything about Penn State and Notre Dame, it is not in the cards, at least for the immediate future.

This half-in, half-out stuff; special deals and love fest with ND and Miami; and the conflict of interests with BB schools; and being resistent to positive changes, has cost the conference. Keeping Syracuse and BC was a blessing, let's see if the BE leadership can make something decent of it.

Nert, you sound like so many arrogant, pompous Michigan fans I know. Michigan never has liked Penn State being in the Big Ten, and would love to see them go, IMO. Michigan wants to own the Big Ten period. If Michigan doesn't own the Big Ten, there's a problem. ::)
I never have agreed with that logic & I never will!!

The BE does not need TEMPLE.They tried that for years.They need Louisville NOW.They need CFLA NOW.Bring them back to 8 schools.If 10 schools allows for a divisional playoff then they can go to Cincinnati and SFLA.If 12 is required they can to Army and Navy or Memphis and ECU.

Could the Big East Alliance work as two conferences that share a large basketball tournament only?

How about instead of a football alliance between the ACC and BE there was a basketball aliance between the new all-sport conference and the BE? Think about it, early mega-conference proposals touted the idea of a 16 member line up wherein baskeball tournaments could have two divisional rounds at other locations leading up to a final four/ elite eight set-up. Such was once suggested for an ACC that added BC, Cuse, UConn and more.

Northeast Conference
Syracuse, BC, UConn, Pitt, WVU, Rutgers, Louisville, Cincinnatti, Temple, one of Marshall/Bowling Green/Dayton

BE Conference
Georgetown
St. John's
Seton Hall
Providence
Villanova
Army
Navy
UMass

New conference hosts Army and Navy for football only to have 12 members and a conference championship. BE agrees to retain ties with the new conference for the purposes of basketball. Both conferences retain fairly strong regional identity.

Just an idea.

1 - I never said anything about Michigan - in a post or otherwise.
2 - I like PennState just fine, but I'm not a Big11 fan.

I have no idea what would make you freak about my post with this type of reaction? It doesn't even appear to relate to my post.