Big East Football Moving to 10 Teams

The Big East put out a press release earlier today that said this:

“PHILADELPHIA — The BIG EAST Conference submitted the results of its extensive self-analysis and evaluation of the college athletics environment today at its annual Conference Board of Directors meeting. Based on those results, the BIG EAST presidents agreed that the interests of each of the conference’s 16 member institutions would be served by increasing the number of Bowl Subdivision football-playing members to 10. They unanimously approved the process to evaluate the terms and conditions for potential expansion candidates.

“Today, our Board of Directors affirmed a set of key strategic initiatives, including expansion, designed to enhance membership stability and maximize our value,” stated Commissioner John Marinatto.

Marinatto said the conference will refrain from commenting further on the expansion process.”

The first thing I do if I’m the Big East is go after TCU. I don’t know who I go after next, probably Villanova since the Big East has been after them getting to D-1 for a while. Plus, there were the rumors that the Big East was offering them an invite a month or so ago. If the Big East takes Villanova, that’s good. The question becomes, what do they do with the second team? I’ll tell you what I would do with TCU, UCF, ECU, Memphis, Idaho, Middle Tennessee St, Troy, Marshall, Miami, whoever. I say to them, join the Big East as a football only member. Once we see that you are committed to the Big East, we will make you a full time member. That’s called having your cake and eating it too. There isn’t a way in hell I take that deal if I’m TCU. I try to make the Mountain West or whatever conference they are going to be in work. It’s clear that as long as they load up the football team, and get a couple of big name opponents a year, they can make the BCS. They are going to have to get at least 2, maybe 3 with Utah out of the MWC, but keep in mind that Boise is joining, as well as Fresno and Nevada. If you are TCU, do you really want to leave a conference adding a marquee team like Boise? Sure, in 3 years the Broncos could suck, but I don’t know if that’s a risk you can take. That does mean that your road to the BCS could be harder, but in many ways it will be easier. Maybe in 10 years the MWC takes the Big East bid. If the Big East is a shit pile this season like it this season, the luster of being in the Big East won’t be a good enough reason to leave.

So if TCU won’t be bullied in the imaginary scenario I made up, I think that almost anyone else would. That anyone else would probably be ECU or UCF. Did you hear that giant fart sound? That was everyone’s reaction to Central Florida and Villanova joining the Big East. UCF would jump at the chance to join the Big East for football. If they wanted to be a part of the basketball part, you could tell them to fuck off and try to add ECU, or Idaho, or Indiana State, or Troy and so on. One of them would take that deal.

I don’t think you go all the way down to Memphis though, because why would you want Memphis for football? You only want Memphis for basketball. Which means that you couldn’t really take Villanova for football and have a 17 team league for hoops. Well, you could have a 17 team league for hoops, but that’s just stupid. You either have to go 18, or stay at 16. I’m more content to stay at 16. If you went to 18, then by all means the Big East should make TCU the best offer in the world for them to join. Taking shitty TCU basketball would be worth it to take good Memphis basketball.

With all of this having been written, it could all be for naught if the Big 10 gets bored this summer and decides to expand some more. They have 12, but what if they want 16? What if they want 14? What if they want the whole country? That means we would all be a part of the Big 10 and we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this crazy expansion nonsense. The end.