The Big East had meetings today in Dallas. San Diego State was involved in the meetings, but all the speculation is that they are not going to join the Big East and will remain in the Mountain West. We know that Cincinnati and Connecticut want no part of the new Big East. They both tried to go to the ACC after all.
That's where things start to get tricky. From A Jersey Guy:
According to sources at Connecticut, UConn officials were pursuing a plan which would keep the Huskies with the Catholic 7–Marquette, DePaul, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova and Providence, as well as Cincinnati.
That is something we have not heard before. Xavier, Butler and St Louis are also rumored to join the 7.
But what would Cincinnati and Connecticut do for football? Oh, that's a doozy.
And while nothing officially has been offered, a plan in which the Huskies and Cincinnati would join the Mountain West was being considered as part of an overall expansion plan for the MWC which would expand from 10 teams to 12, 14 or 16 teams, if the schools currently committed to the Big East such as Houston, SMU, Memphis, Central Florida and South Florida find themselves in a crumbling football conference and switch to the MWC.
So instead of two teams joining the Big East, two teams would join the Mountain West. As you could have read if you chose to, the option for the Texas schools and/or the Florida schools to join the MWC is wide open. UC could still have some east coast conference games. You would hope so, because going to Wyoming and UNLV and San Diego State and the small island nation of Hawaii is a lot of traveling. Even on the flip side, I can't imagine Nippert being full of people when New Mexico, Air Force and Colorado State come into town.
My initial reaction to all of this is
Keep in mind 3 things.
1) Conference realignment rumors are mostly bullshit. They are spread by people trying to get in or out of leagues. Sometimes they are spread by people trying to get page views. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not real. For what it's worth, I don't buy this rumor at all. I don't see how it's feasable to anyone involved. What it does say is that UConn really, really, really, really, really, really wants to get the hell out of the bastard child of the Big East. Cincinnati does as well. They will resort to playing conference games in Fresno, California to prove it.
2) Cincinnati and UConn would absolutely leave both of these leagues for the ACC.
3) Don't take this shit too seriously. UC will leave, they won't leave. They'll stay, they'll go. We root for Cincinnati. We cheered them on in the Metro, the Great Midwest, Conference USA, the Big East and we'll cheer them on wherever else they go. Cincinnati sports are one of the best things. As long as they don't go away, all the bullshit around them doesn't matter.
Go Bearcats.
Gif via
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
