86mets wrote:
Fresno St. Alum wrote:
86mets wrote:
When you only play once a week and visit schools every other year, what does it matter about having travel partners? Marinatto's assertion of western travel partners is where hardheaded idiocy rules the day. For high-level football, read BCS, travel expenses are not an issue--not when you are making $XXm off of TV contracts alone. Can't handle traveling cross country, don't play with the big boys. If the concern is over students missing class time due to too many cross-country flights, then why did they join in the first place knowing there may never be another western team added? BS!
As far as Northeast fans and college ball, well I am one amongst many and before all this desperation, I really enjoyed the BE for all sports. I don't even have a problem w/ the addition of so many mediocre teams and football-onlies, I have a problem w/ the landslide of Pitt and Syracuse bolting for whatever reasons they like to justify. The BE conference shuffling is a joke, an absolute joke. A farce and mockery of college athletics that we have SDSU in both the BE and the BW. I have no problem w/ Fresno, come one come all, because at this point it doesn't matter. The BE may exist, but it's irrelevant. And as you guys have all forecasted on here, B-ball and its untenable structure is due to collapse. Sad really. Used to love the BE tournament in the 80s. Some great and exciting basketball and a highlight of the sports calendar. Hard to get excited about SMU vs. USF or Houston vs. Boise, just not the same.
Your rant doesn't change the fact that Marinetto wants another western fb only. Fresno and AFA aren't that far behind the new Big East. We play and have beat those big east teams, minus BSU who owns us. We beat Cincy and Rutgers the last few years. If all goes according to plan, AFA will be #14 in the West along w/ Navy in the west. Temple moves back to the East. Yes I also prefer that AFA, Fresno, BSU, SDSU all just stay in the MWC together, and wish that there was a rule that you can't be fb only. BE isn't "Big Boys" anymore, proof is in all the departures and having to add SDSU, BSU, Temple(who was removed as fb only a few years ago. It's the Big 5 conf. the little 1. 2 wish they were something, the 2 never gonna be anything, 1 DOA.
I forgot BE basketball back in the day was right up their w/ Pro sports in the BE. 16 team tourney kinda killed it in my mind.
Yea, a little bit of a rant as it's all starting to get frustrating from a fan perspective--something that is being much overlooked in this charade. Te BE is still the big boys so long as they have that BCS autobid...or else all these teams wouldn't be clamoring to gain entry. I agree the 16-team BE ruined the specialness and set in motion the chaos that exists today with the conference. This has in turn impacted the CUSA, the MWC, the Belt and the WAC. I just don't see how any of this is sustainable long term for the BE, alliance or WAC for the varying reasons we've outlined here on this board ad nauseum. The money is currently there as a whole, ie, TV deals, but if you whittle away at traditional and regional rivalries, the average fan will lose interest. Now guys like us will always watch our teams and sports in general, but I'm not sure if we constitiute a majority or a niche. The unsustainable part of college athletics is that it is increasingly looking like a bubble with more and more billions being pumped into it through the auspice of advertising dollars, while getting further and further away from its core mission of intercollegiate athletics. The genie is out of the bottle and the major conferences--SEC, Big 10, Pac 12, ACC, even Big 12, will be fine for the foreseeable future. The middle to lower terrain of FBS is heading into dangerous waters. Personally, I find Fresno vs SDSU or Rutgers vs. Temple more compelling specifically because of their regional nature. Marinatto is pissing in the wind, so let him invite Hawaii for anybody cares...his conference will never last anyway.
The developments over the past 1-2 years have drawn a clear line int he sand. What many of us felt about the Big East, that they were inferior to the top 5 conferences and more on par with the MWC, is something that has become even more apparent recently.
The future is about stability.
And you now have the Pac-10 becoming the Pac-12.
You have the Big Ten+1 becoming the Big Ten +2.
You have the SEC going from 12 to 14.
You have the ACC going from 12 to 14
You have the Big 12 losing 4 members and thus far replacing them with 2 members...with it expected that within 5 years, they will be back at 12.
What do they all have in common?
Not only are they the top conferences, but they are all-sports conferences.
The rest are scrambling to at least keep where they are in the pecking order.
The Big East, already a hybrid with 16 members and only 8 for football, will now have the same non-football members, adding replacement all-sports members, and is now adding at least 3 football-only members. They HAD to make these additions (Boise St) just to have a chance to remain above the rest.
Of course, for the Big East, it was addition (maintaining stature compared to MWC and CUSA) by subtracting schools FROM those conferences, hurting CUSA and MWC.
So CUSA and MWC are now looking to work together just to keep pace the best they can.
The line has been drawn:
It is the general top group of SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC and Big 12.
You then have the Big East, trying to find a place at the table by adding the only non-BCS school with any clout, Boise St. Problem is that they also added some real dogs in the process (compared to the BCS conferences) like Memphis, Temple, etc. The goal is clearly to make money for the big East TV contract with all these additions...and to keep in the general football discussion, since the quality is not in the same league as the Power 5.
What is frustrating to all us east coasters in life, is that the Big East HAD their chance. They had Miami in their prime yet passed on Penn St in their prime.
There is no doubt that when the Big East was formed for football, that with Miami, Penn St., WVU at the top, that there would have been enough cache to get some other football powers to at least HEAVILY consider joining, schools like Florida St. (at their prime), GA Tech (same story after a national title), and Clemson. Who is to think that if this conference had added these powers, that others like a Maryland wouldn't have joined as well.
In time, a split could have happened, resulting in one of the top all-sports conferences in the nation.
And then there is Notre Dame. THIS would have been enough to push them one way or the other (BE or B10 for all sports).
So as you'll see in this thread often, it comes back to what could have been:BIG EAST 14: All-sports conference
North: Boston College, UConn, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Penn St., Notre Dame, Rutgers
South: WVU, Maryland, VA Tech, Clemson, GA Tech, Miami, Florida St. And what does that mean?
Well...
The ACC would have been SIX schools short of where they are now:
UVA, UNC, Duke, WFU, NC State
So if you're those 5 schools, you're BEGGING the Big East for an invite. So maybe yes, the Big East opts to goto 16 with a UNC/NC State package. And maybe the ACC then has to look for members in what was then in 1995 CUSA. So schools like Louisville, ECU, UCF, USM and others would be the only real ACC options.
Then there is the SEC. There's no lock they'd have had enough pull to even get a Big East school to leave, so maybe they stay at 12, or consider a UNC/NCst/Duke/UVA pair to goto 14.
But we know what happened. The Big East has to reach out to San Diego and Boise for members, as well as basically absorbing CUSA.
So yeah, very frustrating as a football fan growing up in NJ and NY, going to university in MA. Because now, that region is split between all the conferences:
ACC: BC, Syracuse, Pitt
Big East: Uconn, Temple, Rutgers, Navy
Big Ten: Penn St.
Big 12: WVU
MAC: Buffalo, Umass
Indy: Army
That's all 12 FBS schools in the region, only a few hundred miles to separate them all, yet they are in 5 different conferences with a 6th if you count "Indy" as a conference.