rams80

Is Memphis continuing to do so since Calipari and his willingness to look the other way with recruiting violations bailed? DePaul has done a ty job of landing recruits since their 1970s and 80s heyday because they lost WGN and meanwhile the rise of ESPN et al means its easier to be on TV. Also both Chicago and New York are more focused on Pro sports and in the case of the latter, the Big Ten Conference in general. I suspect that while the citizens of Memphis may not have loyalty towards any specific school, it damn well would be a big time SEC city in general.

That's assuming there isn't another program in the immediate vicinity. Why travel six hours to Knoxville when you can travel sixteen minutes to Memphis? Because of the prestige? Your own personal safety? Because there's an opportunity to watch junior at home and on the road? There's plenty of reasons to go to Tennessee, or one of 5 other SEC schools if you are in Memphis.

Ummm....doesn't the SEC already HAVE two teams in Tennessee? To go with the two in Mississippi and the one in Arkansas? I think the SEC pretty much has Memphis covered. Especially now that Calipari is gone. UT is located in Knoxville - a good six-hour drive from Memphis (and in a different time zone). Vandy is located in Nashville, which is three hours away. Fayetteville (Arkansas) is five hours away, at least. Oxford (Ole Miss) is a good seven hours from Memphis, and Starkville (Miss State) is about a three-hour trip. None of those locations "cover" Memphis by any means, and trying to tell recruits that they'd be "close to home" or that their parents would be able to watch them play would be ludicrous. When it comes to college hoops, Memphis exists by itself. They have been yearning for an opportunity to join a conference like the Big East to renew their rivalries with teams like Louisville and Cincinnati. But their football program has been what has been holding them back. Their stadium is by far the worst in D-1 FBS, and the product they put on the field isn't much better. And the fact that they fired the only coach to take them to a bowl since 1971 after one bad season only adds to the perception that they have a Napoleon complex when it comes to football. There is a general assumption when it comes to big time college sports that even a little travel is going to be involved for Mom and Dad when you play at this level. Once you get past the Appalachians, this much travel isn't ridiculous. EDIT: You got the wrong Oxford. Ole Miss is 90 minutes from Memphis. Additionally Tuscaloosa is 4 hours away. And since half of Conference USA's membership (for now) is in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, it's at best a wash travel-wise. *Mass Ritualized Suicide on NDNation*

Sure cause WVU is so horrible in both football and basketball. Yeah, I think somebody crushed the numbers and they said that (at least in football) from a historical perspective, West Virginia DOES represent an upgrade over Missouri. Same for TCU and A&M.

Ummm....doesn't the SEC already HAVE two teams in Tennessee? To go with the two in Mississippi and the one in Arkansas? I think the SEC pretty much has Memphis covered. Especially now that Calipari is gone.

Especially now that their Fairy God Senators are pushing up daisies.

Technically it is in the sense of Big 12 Country. But what I fail to understand is that how much more isolated (in the sense of middle of nowhere) is Morgantown compared to College Station (TX), Lawrence and Manhattan (KS), and even his own Stillwater, OK? College Station is in a reasonably well-populated part of Texas that is fairly accessible to Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio Stillwater's fairly close to Oklahoma City Lawrence is just east of Topeka and pretty close to Kansas City Manhattan's furthest out, but it's not completely isolated.

But I thought Mitch McConnell was opposed to government interference in the free market.

Villanova not ponying up their own cash to build a football venue with adequate seating for FBS is part of the reason the Big East is in this situation to begin with. They have no right to complain. I was about to say, Villanova only wants to go to Division I-A if the rest of the Big East football schools foot the bill for it. Which isn't likely to happen. To both: For what? If Villanova can play at PPL Park with expanded capacity which would be slightly lower in capacity than Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium, yet could have a higher gate since there is a smaller student body. This is not like UMass moving up, going to the MAC, and playing home games 80 miles from campus at Gillette. The MAC does not need the Boston market for $$$, but for football, the Big East needs Philly for survival in terms of which ever cable network wants to buy up the expiring TV rights. If I remember Pitt and Syracuse's list of grievances correctly, the Big East was going to up revenue sharing and kick that money towards Villanova to pay for expanding the stadium, upgrading the equipment and practice facilities, and generally support the program until it became self-sustaining. When they could instead just add Temple and call it good, you might see why objections arose.

Villanova not ponying up their own cash to build a football venue with adequate seating for FBS is part of the reason the Big East is in this situation to begin with. They have no right to complain. I was about to say, Villanova only wants to go to Division I-A if the rest of the Big East football schools foot the bill for it. Which isn't likely to happen.

The Big Leftovers Conference The Conference of Forgotten Schools The Conference That Will Mount the Orange Bowl

And the money to renovate Hamilton's Arena and pay off Buffalo and Toronto is coming from where precisely?

Except for the whole "Everything is now owned by a purported Nigerian Prince" problem.

I don't think that classifies as desperate or pathetic. They are just trying to make sure they don't lose anymore schools the way they lost BYU/TCU/Utah. I could see your point if this rule was put into place very recently (like once Air Force and Boise thought about jumping to the Big East) but since this has been in effect since June the desperate and pathetic terms don't really apply. They are just doing what every organization should do, protecting their investments. Remember folks! The Mountain West is desperate and pathetic by upping its buyout if teams wish to bail in a year or so. The Big East is protecting its interests by insisting Syracuse and Pitt stay in the Conference through 2014! /ESPN Narrative

Bingo. Which is why Texas and Oklahoma will never go to the SEC. If there is LEGITIMATE power move for 16 team super conferences, I think it would be a safe bet that Texas and Oklahoma would be going to the PAC - assuming neither goes in dependent. Actually, I think Texas will go Big Ten or Independent. PAC has basically said they don't want them, the SEC doesn't either, and they were only included in ACC talks because of Notre Dame, who I could see them going to the B1G as a pair with. Texas has kind of become the hot girl that everyone all of sudden realized is a total b****, and now pretty much no one wants to have anything to do with her... except the somewhat known, yet kind of desperate, girl who just wants the cool points. Also known as the Big Ten. Well there was a rumor floating around last month about Notre Dame and Texas presenting themselves as a package deal to the Big Ten. Shortly thereafter were the major rumors about Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State joining the PAC. To be honest, I still think Texas would prefer the PAC over the Big Ten. I think Texas and Notre Dame want to be the final team to join a major super conference. Its the pride and arrogance they have. I don't see the Big Ten allowing Texas to reserve/preserve The Longhorn Network if they join the Big Ten. There is no way the Big Ten would allow it. This whole realignment has been predicated off of money and TV revenue... so I don't see the Big Ten bending now just to bring in Texas. Sure, Texas would be a huge cash crop, but Texas is worth more to the Big Ten WITHOUT The Longhorn Network than with it. I'm not sure how often we're going to have to shoot down the aforementioned "rumor" because the source kept getting crap wrong last year, but yeah...source has been proven to make up repeatedly, therefore no validity to the rumor.

"Billion Dollar Federal Biological Warfare Research Center?" "Football team that was passably good before they decided they needed a Prince to lead them?"

Anything to avoid those pesky ACC Championship Game 2.0 shots I guess.

I still think the SEC has Oklahoma in the back of their minds. Just saying. Sure they do, however there's a lot of hoops to jump to make that happen. First, they'd have to bring OSU in too. OU and OSU are absolutely a package deal. Second, they'd almost surely have to contend with some level of legal wrangling with the Big XII. Remember, Chuck Neinas said that the Big XII would be fine without Missouri, but didn't say they'd be fine without any of the other schools. While Texas may be the "anchor" of the conference (feel free to infer multiple interpretations of that term), it's pretty clear that OU is part of the conference's bedrock. Third, the conference would still need to find one more school to round up the SEC roster to an even number. In all likelihood this would still be Missouri as they'd probably compete within a pod with the other Big XII refugees. Fourth, the SEC would have to be content with committing to what would likely be a "permanent" (relative term) 16 team configuration with no more options to capture more schools if and when the next tectonic conference shift comes. I'm not sure the SEC wants to be the first to 16 in this round of expansionpalooza. 5th, Oklahoma has been trying to up its academic research reputation over the last few years and feels the Pac-whatever will give them better access to research dollars than the SEC.

You'd never want for the finest hand crafted kitschy faux-Southern crap that was made in China.

The Big 10 receives 70% of profit from States that contain a school within the conference. The Big 10 receives 30% of profit from States that do NOT contain a school within the conference. Done. Again, is that 40% loss on profit that crippling?

Speaking of Tulane, I see where Bob Toledo stepped away from the head football coaching position today. If all of a sudden Mike Leach pops up as their new coach then my harebrained notion of a longshot Green Wave-to-the-Big-XII scenario I discussed a few pages back doesn't seem so far-fetched. Again, a guy like Leach could pull in a lot of local guys not on LSU's shopping list and could gut the recruiting base for the 3 other non-BCS schools in Louisiana. Suddenly, Tulane has a *fairly decent* program, perhaps on par with Kansas and (assumed invitee) Louisville. Plus, Leach knows how to recruit Texas and wouldn't it be lovely for him to steal a prospect or two from Tech? This is the kind of crap that festers in the unoccupied corners of my mind. /ESPN orders the Big XII to not invite Tulane.

And yet one of the most storied programs in college basketball history (Kansas) could very well have been scrambling for a home after last year's realignment chatter. It's simple: Why isn't anyone interested in Kansas? Because basketball is an afterthought in realignment talks. Why isn't anyone in Rice or Tulane? Because academics are irrelevant in realignment talks. mod edit DING! Thank you for bringing the light. Now, everyone, back to the FOOTBALL realignment discussion. Oh they're relevant. Except we speak in terms of mad research dollars not grades.

In what time frame are we using to evaluate this? Yeah they've had a couple of good football teams recently and decent basketball from time to time, but football has been overachieving based on historical par and basketball really doesn't have that many basketball titles to show for their efforts. And of course, the mid 2000s were a disaster on the court thanks to one Quin Snyder. Uhwah? Nebraska doesn't consider them a rival. Covered by Nebraska and Illinois respectively. Mizzou'd be nice to have but its not a crippling loss.

The Big East football schools don't like being lowballed on TV contracts. That's why.

Good for the MWC and CUSA. This is a great move to help stop the poaching of the lower level conferences. The blending of mediocre is never good. There will be a group within these 22 who will think that they are superior than the others and will try to "trim the fat". The agreement boils down to the two leagues saying they will play a mid-major Super Bowl for a BCS bid. I'm not seeing the blending here. RE: Air Force to Big East. But I don't want Air Force to join the Missouri Valley in all other sports.