jkrdevil

So did the stadium series uniform release get delayed because of certain players in the marketing promos?

No there are at 14 for football, 15 for the other sports. Notre Dame is in the conference for all but football (and hockey of course)

That will be the move that will put the final nail in the BE's coffin. Boise did the right thing by staying and the move put the MWC into the position where the BE used to stand in. Exactly. I think Boise State was very smart staying put. And you are right, the Big East is dead... If so where are the other 10 teams that are either scheduled or in the conference already going to go? Conference USA has already backfilled so for the schools planning on joining it probably isn't in their interest to go back vs sticking it out with the others. Yes, the big East isn't what it was, but neither is CUSA. The new Big East is still better than the new CUSA. The best options for the those schools is to stick together as an 10 team all sports conference. They do probably need to work to keep the Texas schools because they could get MWC invites, but if they keep them the conference should be as good as the MWC and compete for the Gang of 5 slot. Finally, in said scenario that conference might not be the Big East because they could sell the name off to the catholic schools, but it will likely remain as a conference.

Here are two types of conferences, those with a network and those without. Each have different aims in expansion. For the network conferences the aim is to expand into new markets witha lot of tv sets. Those without it is to fortify the conference in hopes you can increase rights fees to keep up. Those with are Big Ten, SEC (in the works), and Pac-12. Those without are the ACC, Big 12 and the "Gang of Five" Now I think after the ACC added ND as a partial the Big Ten saw them taking steps to becoming a network conference, that may have prevented them from expanding east as their plan and their was a sense of urgency to add UMD and Rutgers. I don't think there is that urgency anywhere else now so I don't think anything will happen soon. I think the SEC will expand once the network is up running and operating in the black. As for the Big12, they aren't a network conference so they have to worry about splitting the pie. Though adding FSU and Clemson (and maybe others) and getting back a championship game may be too lucrative if they see themselves getting outpaced by the Big Ten and SEC. Again though that could be a couple of years down the road. Yes, but it won't happen. ND could have joined the Big East in 2003 and Miami, VT and BC would still be there. They could have joined full time a year or so ago and Pitt and Cuse wouldn't have left. They could have joined the ACC in full allowing the conference to also add Rutgers so the conference could have started a network and MD likely would not have left. They aren't joining full time.

Which as a Maryland fan would be dumb to bring them back right away. They need to look at this like an investment. They need to sink the extra Big Ten money into the revenue sports and get them to the point where they are producing enough revenue. The you can think about brining back and adding sports.

I think that might be part of this. Also interesting that the Big Ten has a tie to the new orange bowl, but they and the SEC set it up where in years the Sugar and Rose host semifinals those conference champs (or replacements) won't go to the Orange instead. Had they done that then the Orange might have been set up of ACC v SEC one year, ACC v Big Ten next year, and then orange hosting semi. That would have put it on par money wise most likely with the Rose and Sugar Bowls. Instead worth $25 million less. The politics of realignment and the manuevering is fascinating.

If Rutgers leaves the Big East will be left with one original member of the football side if the conference, Temple....who was previously kicked out,

Espn reporting Maryland in negotiations with Big 10. If they move Rutgers would join them. If that happens I would hope Big 10 switch to an east west division luneup so both get out in the same division as Penn St. ACC expansion basically ended home and home for the Terps with Duke and UVA. That and the added money of the Big 10 might let them move.

The ACC is not expanding unless ND decides later on to join for football then it will most likely be Rutgers IMO. 15 teams with a full conference tournament can work easily in basketball (you play 4 teams twice everyone else once). There is no need to go to 16 for Basketball and the Olympics sports. 15 teams with a short schedule does not work for football you need a 16 to make it work (4 rotaing pods making up the divisions). I do think down the road ND will have to join fully. Then the ACC will move for team 16. Forecasting my guess would be Rutgers. Football program is as food as UConn, it is a better TV market with a larger population (stronger precense in both NYC and Philly), and better recruiting area for both football and basketball. At this point the ACC does not need anohter basketball program (and who knows what UConn basketball will be like post Calhoun and the coming sanctions). It will almost strictly a media market decision as a move to 16 full time members (with ND being one) would be about creating an ACC Network IMO. But that is at least 8 years down the road when the first college football playoff tv contract expires (I could see ND giving up independece if a conference champ gets an autobid to a playoff opening up a possible easier path than need to win 11 or 12 games)

Well the ACC has already expanded to 14, just waiting on to find out when Pitt and Cuse can come over. My guess whatever the WVU-Big East settlement is will guide for those two.

Missouri officially joins the SEC.

I'm pretty sure Arkansas would be Missouri's designated rival under the alignment proposal most touted. I would assume it would be TAM. Arkansas-Missouri would leave South Carolina-TAM as annual rivals. That doesn't fit. To be fair currently Arkansas-SC isn't a fit either, but they have been playing each other a while now. TAM and Mizzou would fit as they are coming from the same conference and thus have some history of playing each other the last 14 years.

So Maryland is going to jump from the ACC, a conference it has been in for 50+ years to a conference that is even worse than the ACC for football and with the loss of Pitt and Syracuse is probably a worse basketball conference long-term. That means the tv money is going to be significantly less in the Big East, meaning they can't make Maryland an offer they can't refuse. That doesn't make sense. That conference is the definition of mid-major, which is a major reason the Big East teams are looking to get out now to begin with. If you are going to propose a solution for the Big East you have to understand why schools are looking to leave in the first place.

You need someone to want to take you first. Rutgers being utterly inept historically at sports and the general lack of interest as a result in NJ has them looking in from the outside. Their only hope is that Notre Dame decides to leave and Rutgers rides their coat tails. Pitino is a New Yorker and he doesn't want to be in a conference without ties to the area as that is where he recruits to stronger. That said he has no say for Louisville. They see the ship sinking and with all the money they have dropped into their revenue programs in recently they will get on a Big XII lifeboat if they get a invite.

Going from some Twitter reports, BYU is back in the running as favorite. They'll have to decide on 10 or 12 for next season. When they decide to go 12, it's expected that all those schools would be invited and probably would join. With TCU, they could only take 3 to get to 12. I would think Cincinnati is the last choice, but isn't BYU enjoying independence? However, this is somewhat respectable: East: WVU, Cincy, Louisville, Iowa St., Kansas, K-State West: TX Tech, Texas, Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma, Ok-State If this happens, doesn't Rutgers and UCONN go running to the ACC begging for a spot and then we say night night to Big East Football? Give the Mountain USA champion a BCS spot and maybe then this madness can stop. Then Big East basketball could merge with or take the good teams from the Atlantic 10 and have a beast of a basketball conference. And Notre Dame has a place to park its non-football sports. UConn and Rutgers are already running to the ACC. I don't think the ACC takes one of them unless they can get Notre Dame for all sports including football. And then i think it will be Rutgers that gets in despite the noise UConn is trying to make because of politics. As for Notre Dame if the Big East football blows up it has a problem on their hand. Scheduling and access to the East Coast. As part of their partial membership ND plays 4 Big East teams a year, no BE and those go away and need to be filled. Further with them going to 14 teams the ACC can play hardball with Notre Dame and say they are going to go to 9 conference games and need to drop a non-conference game and threaten to pull out of their scheduled games with ND. That is a couple more games ND then needs to fill. Further it basically takes away their access to the East Coast for the most part, which if you look at their roster they are dependent on. A significant chunk of their roster comes from the east coast. Also remember that NBC isn't paying ND just for ND games. They are paying them for the teams ND brings in to play. That is the reason why ND doesn't play that many games against non-AQ conference teams outside the service academies. So even a weaken Big East will hurt ND's pocket book when it comes to their NBC deal.