NatsFan2004

Can the Spiders actually upgrade Robins Stadium to FCS standards, or is there a bigger facility off campus? At a glance, Robins Stadium seems to be somewhat difficult to expand to 20,000+ to qualify for FBS football. The stadium is boxed-in by a road on one side of the field and by a building/tennis courts on the other side. Not saying it couldn't be done, but it might be better to relinquish the stadium back to the soccer/lacrosse/track programs and build a new facility elsewhere if they are looking at joining the Big East for football.

As a UVA grad, I can tell you for a fact that we are not going to the SEC (regardless of what Tech does). There would be a full-scale revolt among faculty and donors to the University if we joined a conference with such a low academic reputation. What you might not know is that athletics at Virginia, while having a long and storied history, also has been a constant battle against a sizable community of individuals who don't want the University to participate in Division I athletics AT ALL. And believe it or not, many of these people are very powerful and have a lot of connections in academia, in the administration and at the state level. The fact that we are 1-FBS and have such relatively successful non-football and non-basketball sports in that environment is quite impressive.

I think BYUtv is a different animal because it's focused on the university as a whole, not just the athletics program. Also, it wasn't involved in the broadcast of BYU football until just this season (and even then, they're only doing 1 game live a year, with the rest on delay). Unlike Texas, BYU waited until AFTER they'd left the conference they were in to start using it to broadcast football games. I think that alone makes it a different situation.

True. On the other hand, I wouldn't consider those olympic sports. Things like soccer, volleyball, tennis, golf, etc. etc...These are and always will be irrelevant at UT. If these teams are competing against UT-Pan American, no one's going to care. Whatever Texas does, I think it's going to be based on football #1, men's basketball #2 and prestige #3. The other sports don't really matter.

Dan Beebe would have to be in charge for something that brazen to happen. Anyone else with a spine would kick Texas out completely. "You want your football independence? Fine. Have fun playing your olympic sports in the Great West conference with Texas-Pan American and Utah Valley State." True, but remember this is Texas. If it isn't played with a ball made from pig hide, it doesn't matter.

I suspect they'd shut down or repurpose the channel (a la BYU's TV "network") before they allowed it to come to that. But what is most likely to happen now, IMO, is that TLN continues to exist with Texas football and basketball still on it and either: a) Texas stays in the Big XII/Big East mashup with less political power in-conference or Texas goes independent for football to prove a point and maintains conference membership in the Big XII for everything else.

If the PAC is not expanding and OU is genuine about staying in the Big 12 with conditions to be met and the Big East is going to solder on minus Pitt/Syracuse + 2 new members...does this mean that conference armageddon has largely been averted?

Navy and Army?

I still have no idea what Rutgers provides the ACC other than a warm body in the 16th slot. If WVU (ranked 164th in the country) isn't good enough for the ACC, how is Rutgers (ranked 143rd in the country) any better, especially with lousy football and men's basketball programs? If Notre Dame is interested, they would seem to be the best option for the ACC at this point. I would even consider going to 15 schools by taking UConn and leaving the 16th slot open until something better comes along over taking Rutgers.

Word leaking now that WVU's applications to the ACC/SEC have been denied... http://twitter.com/#!/McMurphyCBS/status/116175835815350272 Also, the Big East will hold Syracuse and Pitt to the 27-month exit requirement: http://t.co/cqquolap

Anyone arguing that the move to the ACC isn't a net plus for Syracuse has their head firmly implanted in their nether regions. As far as rivals go, Duke + UNC + Maryland > Villanova + St. John's + Georgetown any day of the week.

Uh, Air Force is in a conference and they're a pretty competitive program. Air Force isn't an independent. I was referring to Navy and Army as the two other independent schools.

Where does BYU fall in all of this? Granted, they made the decision to go independent in football, but that was before things started melting down again. If Notre Dame goes to the B1G or ACC, they'd be the only independent out there other than the service academies (who don't really count since they choose not to seriously compete). They wanted to be the Notre Dame of the West...can that sort of deal be better than trying to join a power conference like the Pac-16 or the Big-12/Big East mashup?

I think it depends on the specific contract language. If it is literally specified that the Big East's TV deal (not just football, but men's basketball as well) is tied to a particular number of teams for each, then you're right. But if it pertains to just a specific number of games, I think it could be more ambiguous than you're assuming. We'd have to know what's in the contract to be able to tell.

That'd make the MAC take quite a hit - Ball State, Bowling Green, Kent State, Miami(Oh.), Northern Illinois, Ohio and Toledo would be affected, as well as FIU, Idaho and Nevada-Reno. I'm not sure what that would accomplish other than making mid-tier colleges pay for stadium expansions they can't fill.

Where is this information coming from? I don't see what the SEC does with their TV deal necessarily impacting the terms of the Big East's TV deal.

Fair enough. I would agree that Syracuse and Pitt won't join until 2014; if for no other reason than those two schools' tie-ins to the Big East's current basketball TV deal. There's no incentive for the Big East to let them go early, IMO.

The men's site will be at least 5 teams moving forward, with the addition of Syracuse. It'll be at least 7 on the women's side, as BC and VT sponsor only women's lacrosse.

Pretty reasonable. Basically a replay of 2003 where CUSA gets raided to fill out. The question here is since you have Rutgers in this what happens to UConn? On second thought, I swapped out Rutgers for TCU - IMO, they'd move to a conference with Baylor and Houston if it was an AQ. In this scenario, Rutgers stays with the rest of the Big East basketball schools whereever they end up (same conference or a new one) and goes football-only in another conference, probably the MAC. In any case, I think UConn is ACC-bound. No sense in staying in a conference that's as unstable as the Big East when you can easily fit into a conference that will still give you a AQ opportunity in football and has as great or greater basketball prestige as the Big East.

What role do Conference USA schools play in all of this? Consider what would happen if, say, UCF, East Carolina, Houston and Southern Miss joined up with the remnants of the Big 12 (Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor and Iowa State) and the Big East (Louisville, Cincinnati, TCU, South Florida). You might have something like this: Eastern Division Central Florida Cincinnati East Carolina Louisville South Florida Southern Miss Western Division Baylor Houston Iowa State Kansas Kansas State TCU Not ideal, but IMO better than the mishmash the C*USA or Big East currently are. Also, it'd give both sides a chance to have a championship game (in Chicago, perhaps?) which is currently not possible in either the Big 12 or Big East.

Are you referring to the school endowment or the worth of the donor base or contributions to the Athletic Fund? In any case, how rich is stinking rich?

Yes, but... This scenario assumes that only football matters. But if I'm Providence/Seton Hall/Villanova/Georgetown etc., why would I care about being mashed together with a bunch of plains state schools to save a football conference that I don't participate in? Wouldn't the sensible thing to do be to split off and form our own basketball conference where the member schools have more control over what's happening in their own conference (including prestige level and revenue split)?

But if the Big East were a 7-team conference, they'd lose their BCS bid. That alone would destroy the conference by lowering its stature, and potentially sending its other football schools running to conferences that would give them a chance at a BCS bowl. Even if Villanova were to opt into 1-FBS ball, would such a small school without stature in the football world be enough to keep schools like Connecticut, West Virginia and Louisville from bolting? In that scenario, bringing Villanova into the fold would be for naught. It seems like this alone would potentially force the Big East to refocus as a basketball only conference, lest they try to save both football and basketball and tear apart the conference completely by making no one happy.

You're saying that the University of Texas was the direct reason for the dissolution of the SWC and potential dissolution of the Big 12?

At this point, what options do the SEC have other than West Virginia? It seems like Virginia Tech, Clemson and Florida State are not options due to the increased buyout money the ACC wants to let a school leave, plus general lack of interest from those schools. Maybe Mizzou? Of course, this assumes that the SEC won't fold on their position about the Longhorn Network to get Texas in the mix. Do they really think that a conference without Texas but with the precedent of disallowing school-specific TV networks is worth more than having Texas and working out the TV revenue piece so everyone wins?