<p>So the Big East Conference Presidents Council ousted the conference commissioner? These guys are driving downhill with neither steering control nor brakes.</p>
<p>The universities in the northeast need to wake up and smell the coffee, even though they are at least 10 years too late. The alumni and fans of UConnecticut, Rutgers and Temple are not rabid football fanatics like those in the Southeastern Conferene. In the general public, football at northeastern schools is nowhere near "big time." That's not a criticism, it's just the way it is. Out of the entire collection of Division 1 schools in northeast, only Penn State has a stadium that seats 50,000 or more. Harvard Stadium, the Yale Bowl and Franklin Field (UPenn) in Philadelphia don't count, for obvious reasons.</p>
<p>The northeastern universities should regroup. College athletics are great, but the Big East should stop trying to imitate the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference. Inviting universities from Idaho, California and Texas to join the Big East is pointless and I beleive actuallly turns off supporters of the league.</p>
<p>I’m missing some of the old rivalries. They made a big deal about the last backyard brawl, but I read somewhere that Penn State and Pitt are again on tap for 2016…</p>
<p>Once upon a time conferences were comprised of schools in the region. I still like the original Big Ten, it is stretching the regional boundaries to include schools in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. I suppose they are close to the boundary states of the conference but to me they are too far away to matter. College sports have evolved (not matured) far beyond my old fashioned sensibilities. Too much money at stake so it is now big business instead of neighboring rivalries.</p>
<p>In recent years, Pitt-WV has been the backyard brawl. I don’t remember what, if anything, the old Pitt-PSU games were called.</p>
<p>I find the distortions of the new alignments to be curious, but obviously people are acting in their own self interests, and they must see something in these alliances. Or maybe they are simply out of desperation. Time will tell.</p>
<p>That is a conference by-law. In order for a school to join the B1G, they must either be in the same state as a current member or border a state with a current member. That’s (just) one reason they didn’t add UTexas last year…</p>
<p>“Out of the entire collection of Division 1 schools in northeast, only Penn State has a stadium that seats 50,000 or more. Harvard Stadium, the Yale Bowl and Franklin Field (UPenn) in Philadelphia don’t count, for obvious reasons.”</p>
<p>I think Syracuse would disagree with this statement. I don’t know how many seats there are in the Dome, but it is certainly not a rinky-dink stadium, nor is football not a big deal there (and it always has been a big deal on that campus and with alums.)</p>
<p>“The original statement is right about Syracuse: The Carrier Dome’s seating capacity for football is under 50,000. (It is 49,262 to be exact.) Syracuse University Athletics - History of the Carrier Dome”</p>
<p>I didn’t say it was 50K, just that it wouldn’t be considered rinky dink( by any ones definition.) I also disagree with the OP’s statement that nowhere in the NE is football near “big time.” Syracuse is and has always been a big time football program.</p>
<p>In addition, the Big East was never a football conference. It was a basketball conference only. SU football was an independent, along with schools such as Notre Dame.</p>
<p>My point was that, with the exception of Penn State, no college football program in the northeast today is financially and programmatically comparable to contemporary “big time” football as perceived by the general public and as demonstrated at places like UFlorida, UAlabama, Notre Dame etc. Those schools regularly sell-out 70,000-seat stadiums, which allow them to spend tens of millions of dollars on the athletic department. Does Syracuse have a TV franchise like the Big Ten Network or the UTexas Longhorn Network? Nope.</p>
<p>As for the origins of the Big East, you’re right. The Big East began as a basketball conference, but it’s old news that Penn State’s move to the Big Ten, the SEC’s expansion to 12 teams, and the financial impact of Title IX changed the foundation of major college sports. Remember, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Boston College threatened to leave the Big East years before the ACC raid because of the Big East’s inattention to football. That’s why UMiami was invited. More defections like the ACC raid were avoided when Big East officials made the decision to expanded to 16 basketball schools. Well, it’s clear that that messy arrangement was doomed to be temporary solution only.</p>
<p>They ought to embrace the obvious; the basketball-only schools should form their own league, like the Horizon League in the Midwest and the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga, USan Diego, Santa Clara etc.). Whether we like it or not, football is the locomotive that hauls the caboose with the gold. The Big East should remake itself as a football conference that makes geographic sense.</p>
<p>What kills me about the teams moving from the BE to the ACC is that the ACC is only slightly more relevant as a football conference. </p>
<p>FYI - Rutgers and Louisville both have >50K seats and are larger than Syracuse. </p>
<p>I could care less about football. Until D1 football has an 8-16 team playoff, like EVERY OTHER COLLEGE FOOTBALL DIVISION, the national champion is only the champion of the Big 6 conferences. Last year’s champion didn’t even win it’s division. I would have less problems with last year’s results if Alabama had beaten Ok St or Stanford to get to the Championship game.</p>
<p>I also have problems with the basketball tournament. I would MUCH rather see a mid-major team that won the regular season title get in rather than a mid pack major conference school. I would have rather seen them than Cincinnati, West Virginia or South Florida and I have rooted for BE basketball since the mid 80’s</p>