Big East Officials Were Productive Today...Kind of

In the wake of conference expansion and teams shuffling all over the place, presidents and Athletic Directors from the remaining 14 Big East schools participated in a conference call this evening to discuss raising the conference's exit fees from $5 million to $10 million. The result of the vote was mostly positive, as the vote passed unanimously in favor of the motion. Even Louisville and West Virginia, who have been reported to be prime candidates for an invitation to the Big XII if the situation arises, cast their votes to rebuild the conference. The catch of all this, however, is that the exit fee's increase is contingent on both Navy and Air Force committing to join as football-only members. The football part of the league now awaits Missouri's action (which appears to be leaning toward applying to the SEC, officially), to see what the future of some of the other schools are, mainly Louisville. If Missouri does end up leaving, Louisville will likely be the first choice for an invitation to the Big XII, once again leaving the Big East shorthanded. But for now, the Big East Conference will at least live to see another day.

DOUBLE CONFERENCE CHAOS! WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR USF?

The Bulls' 70-17 bulldozing of A&M last night came at a time that some USF fans could have used some kind of good football news. Earlier that day it had become apparent that Syracuse and Pittsburgh had been silent all this time and just submitted applications to join the ACC. Weeks of speculation about the Big XII conference members in trouble had sort of distracted the media from the fact that the Big East was still an unstable mess. Mentions of West Virginia to the SEC being the next domino to fall started talks among Big East fans about what would happen to them if the conference rifted. At the beginning of the month, some may recall, I drew up what a collection of four 16-team superconferences could look like. I didn't want to be right, but it's looking more and more like a possibility, and USF is one of those teams in limbo that doesn't have a definite home. I imagine the conversation between Doug Woolard and Judy Genshaft looked something like this:

So where exactly does this leave us?

Thoughts on Big East Conference Shake up

Will the Big East survive this shake up?

By now we have all heard the news with Pitt and Syracuse making it official they are heading to the ACC as the conference announced they have accepted them. Now we are not certain when the two teams will head out and move into the ACC, it could happen next season, there is a 27 month waiting period, but this will be negotiated and the monetary buyout won't affect the move.

A&M's Departure is the Big East's Time to Shine

If you're just getting up from a two month-long coma, then you probably haven't heard that Texas A&M has been in close talks with the SEC for future membership. Well, it's now official, as TAMU has sent an official letter to the Big XII today announcing its intent to leave the conference by June 30, 2012.

Now that you're all caught up, it's time to talk about the near future: where does the Big East fall into all this? Ever since Nebraska and Colorado left the conference, the Big XII has been dangerously unstable, hanging around with just 10 teams. Texas's introduction of the Longhorn Network didn't help matters, as UT strengthened its monopolizing grip on the Midwest. Now, with the departure of A&M, the rest of the teams may be realizing their unhappiness with the conference. This is where the Big East comes riding in on its stallion and sweeps multiple basketball and football-rich schools off their feet. Teams ripe for the plucking include (though not geographically ideal, but that's not a consideration here anymore) Kansas, Kansas State, and Missouri. Any reasonable person can see that Texas and Oklahoma are beyond the reach of the conference at this point (Texas should go independent in my opinion), but the addition of any combination of these auxiliary teams would be an excellent step forward. You know, that letter from TAMU only said it would be applying to other conferences, so the SEC isn't locked in just yet. The Big East could at least extend an invitation.

If the Big East is serious about going to 12 football teams and increasing its football profile, it would have already been on the phone with officials from Kansas, K-State, and Missouri. Additionally, if John Marinatto is serious about keeping his job, he'll have the paperwork already filled out for those three schools.

Has USF Football Been Scheduling Down Too Much?

I woke up this morning thinking about the South Florida's upcoming 2011 season (I wish I woke up every morning that way). After running through home and away games, it occurred to me that the out-of-conference football games are rather weak. In the weeks following the biggest challenge of the season in Notre Dame, USF plays Ball State (4-8 last year), Florida A&M (an FCS team), and UTEP (a below-average team in C-USA). USF's only non-conference BCS opponent is Miami, who will be experiencing a transition year after the firing of coach Randy Shannon.

After thinking of my disdain for this year's schedule, I began thinking about OOC schedules of previous years. I'll link each schedule to the respective season. Last year, we opened with an FCS team in Stony Brook, went to Gainesville to play Florida, and prepared for conference play with games against two bad Sun Belt teams in FAU and Western Kentucky. In the year before, USF scheduled TWO FCS teams and a game AT Western Kentucky(!) in preparation for a trip to Tallahassee. Not to mention the large sum of money USF has to pay these fluff teams to come in for a thrashing. FAMU is getting $400,000 to come in next season, while UTEP is getting $650,000. In addition to losing that kind of cash, there is no income since no fans want to go see USF put up 70 points on a team mostly of big high schoolers. What I see going on here is the schedule makers putting one marquee OOC game per season on the list, and then fluffing the rest of the schedule with cupcake teams.