I agree with a comment by Freescooter somewhere below. I lost where it was so I want to start a new thread. And I'd like to address more emphatically Waylon's arguments for the keeping with the basketball schools. Yes, we lose money by splitting off in the short term. That's a given. We'll make it back long term. But staying with the onlies will only lead to a slow, painful, bloodletting death. Why? First, let's face it. The basketball side does not feel our pain. The BE basketball side is without doubt the "elite" side of the Big East conference. They think so, I tend to think so, everyone else thinks so, it's probably true. Georgetown is elite. Villanova, PC, SJU, are pretty good schools. Seton Hall? Dunno. BC was real good. ND, don't even go there. Do these programs consider us their "peers?" These programs are not real gung ho about joining up with UCF or ECU. Or USF, or Louisville, Cincinnati, WVA, or guess who else, if you care to listen to them. Uconn. They didn't like the addition of Uconn, they don't like it now, they don't think Uconn is worthy of them, which explains why they view Uconn with such inexplicable (to us) disdain. Disdain and disgust is the way you'd have to characterize it. I went to Fairfield, a fine little place, but nothing to write home about. Even they looked down on Uconn, something I never understood. But listen to the sounds of these places - you feel it too. The aspirations of the onlies is far removed from what we on the football side need. Fact is, all the damage they could have done has just about been done. There's not much more they can do. They drove out UM. UM had its tag-a-longs. They drove out Syracuse. Pitt. There's not a heck of a lot more they can do to damage this football conference, but what they can, they will do. They don't care what we need. Maybe they can only do just a tiny bit more damage, but the way we're bleeding right now, we can't take any more stab wounds.
What do we need? We need ND to go away. We need ND to just go away. Go away with the onlies. Let ND stand in the muck in the rain. We can't give them a safe haven any more. Let them be independent. Like your kids with the mouths. Sometimes they need to feel what independence is really like. On our end, we need to have the flexibility to add programs the onlies won't deal with because such associations damage their self perception. It makes them feel less superior to be associated with certain universities. Many here feel the same way, but at least here we understand that survival is at stake. The onlies could never understand that. Their survival has nothing to do with all of this. What do they care? If they reluctantly, scoffingly, agree to let us add a UCF, or an ECU, we'll have to add a Butler, or a St. Joe's or St. Peters, to keep them happy. They want a say in our future, but they don't have a stake in our future. They will agree if we agree to accept Villanova in football. The onlies, and perhaps some here, think that's a grand idea. An idea that causes schools like Pitt and Syracuse, and others before them, to run for the fire escapes!
To make this football side work, we need to do some dirty, ugly things, that the onlies aren't going to tolerate gladly. Unless we want to have a 24 team basketball league. The ugly things we need to do are things we need to do. We need to associate with programs that will help us build a football conference. A BCS conference. There aren't many options left out there. It will be ugly. We need to associate with programs in different states - multiple constituencies - so that the BCS conferences will not have the guts to kick us out after what they did to us. Not have the guts to look in the mirror in the morning. Syracuse and Pitt will not have the guts to want to kick us out. North Carolina politicians will bargain for ECU. Florida politicians will go to bat for UCF. I just wish we could get California involved. Ohio. Texas. West Virgina. New Jersey. We just lost New York.
We need time. Time will wear down the barriers, it always does. Syracuse and Pitt were once storied programs. Look at them now. Their departure, and their replacement with UCF, maybe ECU, certainly a Boise State, only strengthens our BCS formulas. These losses are losses in sentiment only. It would have been better if Syracuse had left the first time, and VT remained. Then Pitt could go now, and be replaced with UCF, or TCU. Net gain. But we can't make these moves with the onlies around our neck.
What do we need? We need ND to go away. We need ND to just go away. Go away with the onlies. Let ND stand in the muck in the rain. We can't give them a safe haven any more. Let them be independent. Like your kids with the mouths. Sometimes they need to feel what independence is really like. On our end, we need to have the flexibility to add programs the onlies won't deal with because such associations damage their self perception. It makes them feel less superior to be associated with certain universities. Many here feel the same way, but at least here we understand that survival is at stake. The onlies could never understand that. Their survival has nothing to do with all of this. What do they care? If they reluctantly, scoffingly, agree to let us add a UCF, or an ECU, we'll have to add a Butler, or a St. Joe's or St. Peters, to keep them happy. They want a say in our future, but they don't have a stake in our future. They will agree if we agree to accept Villanova in football. The onlies, and perhaps some here, think that's a grand idea. An idea that causes schools like Pitt and Syracuse, and others before them, to run for the fire escapes!
To make this football side work, we need to do some dirty, ugly things, that the onlies aren't going to tolerate gladly. Unless we want to have a 24 team basketball league. The ugly things we need to do are things we need to do. We need to associate with programs that will help us build a football conference. A BCS conference. There aren't many options left out there. It will be ugly. We need to associate with programs in different states - multiple constituencies - so that the BCS conferences will not have the guts to kick us out after what they did to us. Not have the guts to look in the mirror in the morning. Syracuse and Pitt will not have the guts to want to kick us out. North Carolina politicians will bargain for ECU. Florida politicians will go to bat for UCF. I just wish we could get California involved. Ohio. Texas. West Virgina. New Jersey. We just lost New York.
We need time. Time will wear down the barriers, it always does. Syracuse and Pitt were once storied programs. Look at them now. Their departure, and their replacement with UCF, maybe ECU, certainly a Boise State, only strengthens our BCS formulas. These losses are losses in sentiment only. It would have been better if Syracuse had left the first time, and VT remained. Then Pitt could go now, and be replaced with UCF, or TCU. Net gain. But we can't make these moves with the onlies around our neck.
