Well, now that Boise St is out of the Big East, my previous post is obsolete. Time to go back to the drawing board. Now lets go back to making this a little bit more regional. It’s not going to be as sexy but something has to be done. Now, maybe the remaining teams will want to fight for that Big East name. I’m sure San Diego St will go back to the Mountain West Conference now as well, so let’s forget about moving more west.
By 2015 when Navy enters the Big East:
North Division
Cincinnati
UConn
Navy
Army
Temple
UMass
Memphis
South Division
USF
UCF
Houston
SMU
East Carolina
Tulsa
Tulane
That’s rough. Even I, the eternal optimist, am starting to lose faith a little. Mike Aresco, I wish you luck, I hope you do something amazing to keep this together.
As a UConn fan these last ten years of NCAA conference realignment has been a roller coaster ride. I, for one, am glad that UConn has not been invited to the ACC. I think the Big Ten would have been a much better fit. UConn brings more to the table than Rutgers with the exception that New Jersey produces much more Division 1 football players. There is no sense in crying over what has already been done. I hope that UConn stays in the New Big East, which will probably be renamed after the Catholic 7 get the Big East Brand.
Football: Play all teams in your division with two crossover games, giving each team nine conference games and three non-conference games. All teams should be encouraged to play as many games against the Big Five conferences to show that they can compete. It all would culminate with a conference championship game at the home of the highest ranking conference team. This league would most assuredly would get a bid to that sixth championship bowl game every year. This year the following teams made bowl games, SMU, San Diego St, Boise St, BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, Navy, and ECU. Cincinnati and Boise already won games against teams from the Big Five.
Men’s and Women’s Basketball: These are the only other sports that I think that conference crossover games should exist. Play every team in your division twice with four crossover games from the other division leaving 18 conference games. Another scenario would be to have all 16 teams in one division and play each team once with three home and home series with each teams most heated rivals, also resulting in 18 conference games. I, personally, prefer the first scenario. This season would also culminate with an an all-inclusive basketball tournament crowning the champion with an automatic NCAA tournament bid. In Men’s basketball, Cincinnati, San Diego St, and UNLV are all ranked. I think Connecticut, Memphis, and Temple’s reputation and history speaks for itself.
All other Olympic sports: Strictly play the teams in your division twice during the season which will result in 14 conference games. At the conclusion of the season play a tournament featuring teams from the East and the West. Or just model it after the basketball schedule. The travel wouldn’t be that bad.
I hope it comes down to something like this where every team in the league is a full member. I think that this conference is going to have a lot of media appeal and the potential for a good TV deal equally distributed to all. Below are the two division broken down with this year’s football records as of 12/28/2012. Fill out the poll below to pick the best new name for the Big East football schools.
Kurt Vail 