rams80

The Big Lead on why Rutgers is basically a bad choice by either the Big Ten or ACC.

Well... good. Rutgers doesn't belong in the Big Ten anyway and fits in much better with the ACC both culturally (now that they also have Pitt, Syracuse and BC) and academically.

Now that the Big Ten is at 12 teams, it makes no sense for them to expand for anyone not named Notre Dame, and even if that happens, there's no guarantee that they'll add another team. They did play with a lopsided number of members for the better part of two decades, after all.

No, they'd jump to 14. Ask the MAC and SEC. 13 is a real pain in the arse to make work in the two-division setup.

You can't force geographical rivalries by disbanding history-long rivalries.

Sure you can. That's why it's called realignment and not same-alignment.

He's got a rhyme and reason to his realignment, and I think it's fine.

There are 3 regional rivalries that should be inviolate. Cards-Cubs is one of them. Any alignment that splits it up is by definition not good.

And the bowl games at least validated the pollsters....OSU would have lost had Stanford's kicker not gotten a case of the shanks (and still needed overtime to win), and Alabama killed LSU.

Bowl Games don't validate or prove anything. "Will to win" is too much of a variable to make them accurate tests.

Is it a difficult concept to grasp that the two best teams in a given season could both play in the same conference?

Well then I guess the issue of which of those teams is better will be settled or the field during the regular season then. Next issue please.

Guess what guys!

If Boise State had competent kicking, we would have all loved the BCS. Now we're getting a 4 team playoff and college football is ruined forever!

I agree because it ruins the regular season to the point that it won't matter anymore. For example, a BCS No.4 who hasn't won their conference could win the Nat'l championship. That is the explanation why I think the playoff system is for college basketball not for football.

PROTIP: Don't crib your arguments from sources more than a year old. Alabama just shot that particular argument in the head.

I keep praying the Blackhawks can pass Nashville. It would be beautiful if the Coyotes came to an end against an obstructively trapping team that nobody gives a about.

Has anyone heard anything recent about what the WAC is doing (or not doing) to save it's football conference? Any word on who will (or might be) be the next commish?

A repurposed Furby.

Texas already told the SEC to piss off. They have actual academic pretensions.

Guess what guys!

If Boise State had competent kicking, we would have all loved the BCS. Now we're getting a 4 team playoff and college football is ruined forever!

And so, after months of humiliation, losing 3 of its football schools, facing national ridicule for adding a bunch of Texas schools fulltime despite likely basketball incompetence, Memphis despite massive football incompetence, a Florida school despite likely everything incompetence, a pair of football only programs who strain directional definitions past the breaking point, a service academy so far down the road they might as well not be joining, oh and the AQ for which this farce came about is sooooo gone and Louisville is glancing at the exit sign....

The Big East tells Villanova to piss up a rope and actually adds a team that makes sense to add, Temple.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/coyotes/articles/2012/02/16/20120216phoenix-coyotes-ownership-third-party-bickley.html

The Coyotes could have a new owner within a week.

It's going to be Gary Bettman with a mohawk.

So which Conference is more deserving of the title "The Conference that will Mount the Orange Bowl"? New Big East or Mountain Merger USA?

Apparently WVU is about to be able to leave the Big East next season. That means the Big East will have 7 teams next year and, should everyone stay put for at least another year without the ACC getting their duo...

.....we're getting Syracuse-Rutgers twice next season

Here's the compromise I think I have in mind for Syracuse and Pitt...they pay the newly raised exit fee, and in return the Big East will let them leave for 2013-14.

I think that sounds reasonable...

Or they give them the same money West Virginia gave, leave now, and tell the Big Conference USA to just play a double round robin for a year.

Imagine a basketball conference with Memphis, Kansas, Louisville, and Uconn.

The Big Unlikely?

If the Big East lands Kansas, they become the basketball verson of the SEC with teams like Memphis, Louisville, and Uconn alongside Kansas.

Not happening. The Big XII may be on fire and listing, but the Big East has already blown up and sank. Football has enough sway at Kansas that they aren't going to join a Conference that just said "to hell with actually playing decent football."

Kansas is a better basketball program than Syracuse and Pitt and bring unhearlded tradition to the Big East.

I thought the Big East had raised crashing out in the early rounds of the NCAAs against midmajors to an art form. Kansas has nothing to teach them there. Otherwise Kansas' traditions consist of advocating the swift death of Missouri and Kansas State, neither of which is available in the Big East.

It's not likely to happen, but Kansas needs to have new rivals in the Big East if they move there. If they do move, they should be rivals of Memphis because of geographical proximty.

By similar logic, Kansas is also going to be advocating the swift destruction of SMU.

I also see them as rivals to Uconn and Louisville as these two programs won multiple national titles and have excellent coaches.

Ummmm.... It's looking likely that Jim Calhoun's going to retire for medical reasons and Louisville hasn't won the whole thing since the 1980s. Also Pitino is kind of getting up in years too.

My worry though is the football program with Charlie Weis. Like Memphis, Kansas doesn't have a talented football program and they could get slaughtered by teams like Rutgers.

Oh God, Rutgers lost their coaching staff and still shapes up to be the other power of this Conference. Burn it down.

At least, the Big East is easier than the Big XII and they also have some BCS success with a win at the 2008 Orange Bowl.

Good for Kansas. However that's pretty much the only good Bowl tie in the Big East has and the AQ is going away, so, umm...ouch.

Overall, this could a great pickup with Memphis as it improves their basketball standing and eventually improve the football tradition.

Memphis might possibly be the most derelict program in I-A. There's going to be no help for football for awhile.

Can I ask what the vitrol towards Bleacher Report is? It's always bashed here every time it's linked or even brought up. If they're constantly wrong, then ok, that's one thing and answers my question. But I'm not getting my breaking news from them. I actually find a lot of BR articles to be, in the very least, entertaining.

The bulk of their content providers appear to be junior high to high school age kids. Dumb ones to be specific. And of course, the interminable slide shows with minimal analysis that predominate kind of suck. Compared to BR, Wikipedia is as scholarly as the Library of Congress and the Oxford, Yale, Michigan, and Harvard University Libraries rolled into one.

Additionally, BR's core raison d'etre is to try to attract as many google hits as possible to it to drive up ad revenue. I oppose this on multiple levels and feel that it is best to work to thwart this.

Memphis Joining the Big East for all sports in 2013. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1057255-big-east-conference-realignment-memphis-reportedly-set-to-join-big-east-in-2013 This could be interesting especially, they're joing in football. Overall, this is a great pickup for the Big East because they improve the Big East in basketball and revive their rivalry with Louisville, which was intense in basketball.

Please don't link to bleacher report. In fact, stop reading bleacher report.

Legit news source here.

What would happen to the smaller bowls if 6-6 teams couldn't make them?

Likely cease to exist. Which wouldn't be a catastrophe.

Ummm....yeah, West Virginia ain't going to be around by 2015. So I'm just going to head off that line of insane delusion right now.

And yeah, the thing's going to fly apart the second the BCS AQs vanish forever, as is expected in the next round of contract talks.

I'd think they're adding Longwood more because they are convinced the Lancers might actually be competitive in some sports (finally). I've had the impression that the Division I transition was rather...rocky...for them.

Not a merger, but a scheduling agreement between the Big Ten and Pac-12.

From the NY Times:

Starting in 2017, each team from the Pac-12 and the Big Ten will play a team from the other league in football each season, and the conferences will also begin to play each other extensively in other sports starting as soon as next season.

he football possibilities of the agreement are tantalizing in an era in which early-season nonconference schedules often feature traditional powers playing inferior opponents. The Pac-12-Big Ten games will be created to match up programs of similar strength, meaning that marquee games like Ohio State versus Southern California, Wisconsin versus Stanford and Michigan versus Oregon could soon be seen early in the season. Delany said the games would most likely be played in the second, third and fourth weeks of the season. Scott said they could be incorporated into events like season kickoff games.

One significant adjustment the Big Ten will make is that it will not be going to a nine-game league schedule, as it had planned to do in 2017.

I, for one, look forward to dedicating my life to the utter destruction of Colorado again.

/Sucks about losing the 9 game Conference slate, though.

You put the Cowboys on the West Coast. That's why this wouldn't happen.

If I'm the basketball schools in the Big East, I'm either trying to force the football conference to call itself something besides the Big East to maintain what little dignity the conference has left, or starting a movement with the other hoops schools to break away and form our own conference even if it means moving the tournament away from MSG for a few years (I say a few years because how long would MSG want to host a tournament that featured South Florida and SMU rather than Georgetown, Villanova and St. John's?)

That would be a good idea except the basketball schools tend to eat the money of the football schools to survive. Remember-the basketball schools run the Big East. Or "The Conference That Will Mount The Orange Bowl"

It isn't the fact that Mizzou left, it's the fact that a year ago they pledged their loyalty to a 10-team Big XII.

Could you really blame Kansas for being bitter towards Mizzou if the Big XII folded and KU had to join the Mountain West for football and the Missouri Valley for all non-football sports following the Tigers' departuer?

"Murderer's Row" (with the possible exception of Baylor) had standing invites from the Big East in the event of the utter collapse of the Big XII. Kansas' AQ status would be secure regardless of what happened.

It's more Texas refuses to play A&M because they don't want to give A&M an opportunity to validate their season.

Just to stir the pot. I was thinking about the Penn State scandal and how it could potentially impact the Big Ten. If the NCAA revokes Penn State's right to have a BCS Football program, could the Big Ten look at Pitt for membership? I understand Pitt is ACC-bound, however, I would think that Pitt would rather be a part of the Big Ten as opposed to the ACC... for all the reasons that have been beaten to death throughout other expansion talks (football, basketball, tradition, money, academics).

You're more likely to see the AQ schools tell the NCAA to piss up a rope and break away. Which I think would be a likely endgame to any attempt to administer the death penalty to Penn State over this.