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.

Well It's Official, Syracuse and Pitt to the ACC

(From ESPN) As we all heard yesterday, Syracuse University and Univeirsty of Pittsburgh, the flagships of the Big East Conference had applied for membership into the Atlantic Coastal Conference. The ACC Council of Presidents voted on both member's candidacy last night and have announced this morning the unanimous decision to accept both Syracuse and Pitt's application into the ACC expanding its current membership to 14 schools. The time frame for transitions has yet to be announced, but more information will be released by the ACC when they hold a media conference today at 9:30 AM EST.

The 2011 Conference Realignment Project

With the clamor of football season opening up today and the uncertainty that came over us when Texas A&M announced its departure for the now 13-team SEC (probably), many of us have grown restless over what the future holds for many of our teams. A group of four 16-team megaconferences seems more to be an inevitability than a possibility now. So what does that mean for USF, and for many other schools?

Luckily, I've taken the liberty of projecting what a compilation of a bunch of megaconferences would look like, and I'm going to share them with you, starting with what would be the four BCS conferences after the jump.