rams80

The WAC's been a multibid once in the last 4 years. I don't suspect trading Fresno State, Nevada, Boise State, and Hawaii for Seattle, Texas State, Texas-San Antonio, UT-Arlington, and Denver is going to improve that state of affairs anytime soon.

Also keep in mind Hawaii bailed out after Fresno, Boise, and Nevada bailed. I don't particularly blame them for wanting to leave at that point. And their athletic department IS sufficiently cash-strapped that cutting travel costs is important.

Hawaii is going to trade an upgrade in football for a downgrade in every other sport.

And an upgrade in travel savings. Say goodbye to trips to Ruston, Louisiana WOOF.

"No, we're not ever going to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament playing in the Big West... but at least we saved some money."

The selection committee doesn't exactly look kindly on the WAC and hasn't for some time if I recall Utah State's past bubble troubles. Hawaii basketball isn't that good anyway (4 NCAA bids lifetime-3 of the autobid variety), why chain yourself to a WAC that is shifting to the center of the US?

Big East is going to change their name right?

Should this continent-spanning realignment/expansion come to pass, the Big East should rebrand itself as either the Big America Conference, the Great America Conference, or the Great American Conference.

"The Conference that will Mount the Orange Bowl" is also sitting there.

Hawaii is going to trade an upgrade in football for a downgrade in every other sport.

And an upgrade in travel savings. Say goodbye to trips to Ruston, Louisiana WOOF.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Berkman-calls-Astros-in-the-AL-a-travesty-sug?urn=mlb-wp26621

Oh for s sake. That amusement park in Houston is far more an AL stadium than an NL stadium anyway.

Why can't we have a system like they have in Canada with Junion Hockey?

........

...You can't be serious can you? You are?

Congratulations. You trotted out one of the few athletic organizations in this region that does an even poorer job of catering to the well being of the people involved in it than NCAA Division I-A.

Tech is still recovering from getting its accreditation suspended and Oklahoma State's sugar daddy fund didn't weather 2008 all that well.

Kansas State's FEDERALLY FUNDED facility is a different story entirely.

I'm glad for Mizzou, but would've preferred them in the BigTen.

I agree about Kansas, KState, Iowa State and Baylor. They'll be left in the cold.

Texas Tech might be lucky enough to piggyback off the Longhorns and find a home. Meanwhile, Oklahoma/Oklahoma State are sort of a 2-for-1 special, apparently.

When this is all said and done, the Big12East mashup will probably fall apart or get relegated to non-BCS status.

I could see the Big Ten being interested in Kansas State if they are looking for a 16th team, assuming Maryland, Rutgers, and Notre Dame have all agreed and Texas or Oklahoma are off the table.

K-State isn't (and has never been) an AAU Member Institution - and their ranking of 143 by US News & World Report isn't exactly inspiring for a conference that actually takes academics into account.

K-State's getting a multi-billion dollar federal biowarfare research facility. The CIC would want in on that.

Good facilities aren't what separates great universities from good ones, it's exceptional tenured faculty and a track record of having alumni who go out into the world and make big things happen (read: having things published in stuffy research journals).

And without research money you don't get either. If you get the money, the starving PhDs will come.

I'm glad for Mizzou, but would've preferred them in the BigTen.

I agree about Kansas, KState, Iowa State and Baylor. They'll be left in the cold.

Texas Tech might be lucky enough to piggyback off the Longhorns and find a home. Meanwhile, Oklahoma/Oklahoma State are sort of a 2-for-1 special, apparently.

When this is all said and done, the Big12East mashup will probably fall apart or get relegated to non-BCS status.

I could see the Big Ten being interested in Kansas State if they are looking for a 16th team, assuming Maryland, Rutgers, and Notre Dame have all agreed and Texas or Oklahoma are off the table.

K-State isn't (and has never been) an AAU Member Institution - and their ranking of 143 by US News & World Report isn't exactly inspiring for a conference that actually takes academics into account.

K-State's getting a multi-billion dollar federal biowarfare research facility. The CIC would want in on that.

Rams:

Get a grip. Try, at least for one day, not to be an ass, please.

And, you obviously know nothing about which Mexican school approached the NCAA.

The tradition of collegiate athletics in non-US countries does not lend itself towards competition at the NCAA Division I level. Athletics is typically a "club" organization, which therefore does not award mass full tuition scholarships to athletes and have a much lessened fan presence. With all that in mind, Division I for Canadian and Mexican schools is at present a non-starter. Additionally, with Mexico, the ongoing drug war in much of the country would likely give many athletic directors and university presidents much pause. Monterey and Mexico City aren't exactly safe at the moment.

Just because Mizzou wont compete today, doesn't mean they wont compete tomorrow. If you would have told someone in the 80's that Florida would be a force, they would laugh.

I dunno, prior to Pinkel, Mizzou had elevated dick tripping and talent squandering to an art form over its entire existence. I suspect their most likely SEC outcome is to be another South Carolina in the east division.

Well, I don't think NYU would have to compete for athletes all that hard. There happens to be a huge and deep reservior of talent here in the City alone. Does NYU have high academic standards? Sure. They say its graduate business program is top 10. I graduated from it. I disagree. Top 20 maybe. Not top 10.

Problem is a sutiable stadium. NYU hoped to build one on the Brooklyn side of the East River at one point. If a soccer stadium came to be for say an MLS expansion team (think Cosmos, think outside of CitiField), that's one possibility.

I also did some digging. The 1941 NYU football schedule:

9/22 scrimmage Temple

9/27 W 25-7 PMC (OF) 6,000

10/4 W 6-0 at Lafayette 7,000

10/11 L 7-49 Texas A&M (YS) 18,000

10/18 L 0-31 Syracuse (YS) 10,000

10/25 L 0-13 at Holy Cross 10,000

10/31 L 0-42 Penn State (Polo Grounds) (n) 10,691

11/8 L 0-26 Missouri (YS) 6,700

11/15 L 0-45 Tulane (YS) 8,100

11/29 L 9-30 Fordham (YS) 31,000

They stunk but look - Tex A & M, 'Cuse, Penn State......

Who is to say they can't or won't do it again?

Major college athletics (and professional athletics) have changed so much from 1941 that, well, it's kind of apples and fusion reactors.

So why don't you tell me about Jo Pa and the Big East?

NYU killed all sports because of betting scandals. NYU-CCNY was a big deal at the Garden. NYU played a national football schedule. NYU has a huge alumni base. NYU is one of the richest schools in the country. If they wanted to start a football program with an eye on joining a conference such as the Big East, or g-d forbid, the ACC, they could do it.

Because it would be easier to just pile up and burn the millions of dollars NYU would inevitably piss away to bootstrap its entire goddamn athletic department to I-A level, with accompanying hundreds of expensive athletic scholarships and massive facilities upgrades, all to field a team in a city that really doesn't have that much of an interest in collegiate sports, all things considered. If the athletic director seriously proposed trying to take NYU to Division I-A level, I'm certain he would be fired on the spot.

The ACC is an utter joke to me. They bought their stability by raiding conferences because they could grow organically (that means adding schools from lower conferences like East Carolina).

PROTIP: Nobody wants East Carolina. They didn't even get a Big East invite.

I'm sure if Florida State wanted to create a conference it could, given their name. I wouldn't be so sure a 14-team or 16-team ACC lasts.

You don't quite understand how things work in NCAA athletics and how things are run.

If any Mexican school makes it into the NCAA, others are sure to follow. That opens a huge media market for the likes of ESPN and Fox.

Seriously, you don't. And your knowledge of current events could likely fit on a thimble.

The ACC has stability.

No it doesn't.

If it had stability, why would they go and raise the exit fee to $20m? Obviously the folks in ACC-ville are paranoid of the B1G raiding Maryland (though I have no idea why they'd go after a basketball school with an Athletic Department that's flat broke) and the SEC raiding Clemson and/or Florida State.

Compared to the Big East though it's the rock of Gibraltar. Yes there is a chance certain schools might bolt if specific conferences came calling, but all of the ACC's membership isn't actively looking for an escape. You can't say that about the Big East.

You folks are forgetting a few things.

Firstly, you want to turn the ACC on its head and into C-USA (if I'm the Big East, that's what I would do) - go after Virginia and Maryland.

And they would either refuse to pick up the phone or laugh in your face and hang up. There is no incentive on Earth that would drive those two schools to look at leaving FOR the Big East. The ACC is unimaginably better for those two schools.

Secondly this is just about moving pegs around. If you want to talk real expansion, how many schools gave up football since say the mid 70's? University of Tampa (Freddie Solomon's school - the former Dolphins receiver)

Tampa dropped football in the 1974 because it was a money-losing venture for the school. And South Florida didn't even have a football team back then, nor did the Buccaneers exist yet. It would be utter INSANITY for Tampa to try to resurrect a football team that has a best case scenario of "third banana" in the Tampa Bay football scene.

Wichita State, etc. that given the right set of circumstances, would love to get back in the game?

The Shockers dropped football due to a combination of crappy attendance, lost money, NCAA violations, and generally sucking on the field. I suspect the school is more than content to avoid taking on that hassle ever again.

At one time NYU had a prominent program (and yes there is talk about starting a football program). There is no shortage of schools that, if given the money and proper economic circumstances, would consider starting a program or making a jump. Georgetown, St. Johns, etc. Could you imagine a Big East with NYU and St. Johns both playing at Citifield?

No, but that's because I don't regularly drop acid.

Even if the ACC goes to 16 and the Big East is killed off, there is no guarantee the ACC will stay the ACC. Remember, it was Brigham Young who led the WAC breakaway schools to start the Mountain West. And, guess what? They left. Who is to say that Clemson, Florida State and a few others don't leave to form their own conference? (a point of reference would be how companies became huge conglomerates through mergers in the 80s and how "thin" is the new "in").

The ACC football schools have a pretty good thing going for them, and absent SEC or Big Ten invites, are not going to bail. The NCAA has made it very hard for schools to form completely new Conferences, so the chance of a complete breakaway is minimal at best.

Here's a tidbit for you. In August, it was announced that an unidentified Mexican school (which happens to be one of the Universities in Monterrey) had sought out the NCAA to start on the road to becoming an NCAA member.

Now wouldn't the WAC love that?

The WAC isn't a Division II Conference (yet.)

Fixed. That's renegotiation D-Day for the Big East.

There are no clearly published, transparent guidelines from the BCS for losing AQ status. It'll either be that the Big East keeps their AQ status with minimal fuss, or there will be a huge mess complete with threats of legal action.

No, there aren't any guidelines. However there is nothing in the contract that says they need to have six conferences and as the Big East does not have a contractual bowl tie-in, it would be relatively easy to drop them.

I think it's a moot point anyway, because the BCS has already come out and said they need six AQ conferences to function, and if all those schools join, the Big East is clearly still at very least the sixth-best conference in America.

The BCS needs TV money to function far more than it needs a set number of Conferences to function. If ESPN comes out and says, "we aren't paying you to give a slot to the best team in this random grouping of teams (none of which have sizable fanbases)", the BCS will fold.

Both the WAC and the Big West have offered to take on BSU's other sports.

......

Good Lord, I don't think its possible to calculate the WAC's desperation at the moment for members.

Boise and Air Force are getting football-only invites. Problem solved.

You still have to find a place to stick everything else, since the Mountain West is going to kick them out.

/Air Force is rumored to be looking at the Missouri Valley Conference to park the rest of its athletics

//That is going to SUCK

I could really see Boise State and Air Force declining.

I don't. Having AQ status until 2015 2013 is better than not even sniffing AQ status in that ridiculous merger. Might as well take the Big East money now and move up to a better conference the second one comes calling.

Fixed. That's renegotiation D-Day for the Big East. And there's not a whole lot of Big East money lying around thanks to a variety of factors.

Wait, do you not think that Buffalo can pull a UConn and outgrow the MAC?

1 UConn never had a MAC stage

2 UConn is a land grant school in a state that isn't actively dying and has no pro presence, Buffalo is a SUNY branch school that is located in a dying rust belt city...that is devoted to its pro teams.

3 Buffalo is the poster school in Murray Sperber's screeds about what is wrong in college athletics for a reason, and its because even midmajor football isn't bringing the boon that was promised.

I do. Shouldn't Villanova's next step in football be to go to the MAC?

Their next step should probably be "build a stadium, any stadium."

Since it seems that Swofford and his ACC cohorts couldn't go to the bathroom without raiding someone, Maryland weakens the ACC, strengthens the Big East. Shoot, go after Virginia as well. So you say Maryland has been in the ACC for 50+ years?

You don't seem to understand the fundamental issues about why teams want to leave the Big East for other major conferences and conversely do not want to leave other major conferences for the Big East. It's more than tradition and inertia keeping them in place.

The only way to stop the ACC from raiding is to raid them.

It's not that simple. The ACC promises its member schools stability, more money (possibly a lot more money) a modestly boosted research profile, and, oh yeah, DePaul and Seton Hall don't get to vote on matters exclusively impacting football.

See to me the Big East is about the East. No doubt the Big East blew it by not inviting Penn State when it was forming. Seton Hall...Providence...Georgetown...St. Johns. That's the East. Football-wise, I was looking forward to BC-UConn every year. Miami and Va Tech? They were just visitors. West Va? Not so sure.

Oh. You're one of THOSE guys.

That's why I proposed what I did. Get back to your (mostly) Eastern roots. You don't think Maryland-Navy could develop into a nasty rivalry? I do.

Problem: Maryland does not have football fans. And Navy's a Patriot League school for a reason.

Buffalo-Army at the Bills Stadium?

1. Army had a VERY bad experience doing that whole "Conference" thing back in the 90s.

2. They're on the opposite ends of the state dingbat.

Temple-Rutgers? College football used to be about rivalries and the big-intersectional games. Let's form new rivalries based on geography.

*Villanova vetoes membership*

/See why the football schools might have wanted to leave?

Yes, I understand this leaves us with A&M and South Carolina playing annually, but hey, the Big Ten has Nebraska and Penn State as designated rivals by default, so travel isn't always a consideration.

Score another one for "tradition".

... oh wait.

It's more like if you're splitting up the 4 biggest powers in the Big Ten, and are placing Ohio State and Michigan in opposite divisions, the other two are going to be paired up as well for inter-divisional rivalries. At least there is some mutual historical grievance between Nebraska and Penn State to work with.

Of course Missouri could still be pissed off about Broyles...WTF?!

And I was under that same impression. I heard that's what they wanted to do, especially since they're making Texas A&M and Missouri inter-conference rivals.

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.

Except they were in opposite divisions. Which means they played each other twice out of every four years, which boils down to nine times total since the formation of the Big XII. Prior to that, there was only a two-game series played back in the 1950s between the two. There's about as much historical basis for an A&M-Mizzou permanent rivalry as there is for an Arkansas-South Carolina rivalry. Conversely, Arkansas and Missouri share a border and do have something of a history off the field, if not on it. Additionally, speaking as the guy on the ground here, the locals would love to have a battle for the Ozarks, if you will. Yes, I understand this leaves us with A&M and South Carolina playing annually, but hey, the Big Ten has Nebraska and Penn State as designated rivals by default, so travel isn't always a consideration.

First things first. Any school jumping conferences should be bowl ineligible for the coming year. Secondly, much like expansion teams, they cannot share in that conference's tv loot for the year.

NCAA says that, major Conferences say "piss off laddie" and form their own College Athletics Premiere League. NCAA dies like the gutted fish it becomes.

The NCAA really doesn't have a lot of regulatory power here.

And I was under that same impression. I heard that's what they wanted to do, especially since they're making Texas A&M and Missouri inter-conference rivals.

I'm pretty sure Arkansas would be Missouri's designated rival under the alignment proposal most touted.