First off, to my knowledge, there has been no official announcement of any kind, and yesterday, media was reporting that this thing was a done deal for $11 mill. So until the official word comes, I don't put any weight on any of this.
What's safe to say, is that as more time passes, West Virginia continue to put football programs, quite literally across the entire country, in deep .
For every hole in one schedule that gets filled, there will be a hole created in somebody elses schedule, and football games are the lifeblood of any athletic department from d-1A to NAIA, and opening weekend is just over 6 months away.
THe UConn football program, isn't in bad shape in all of this. Some of our conference brethren, that actually want to be with us, are.
I think it's becoming less and less likely that WVU will be in the big east in 2012. I also think that a decent chunk of the money that they will owe the big east, will come from the $2.5 mill that they still owe on the exit fee, and the $6mill or so that they are owed based on previous accomplishments. Then of course, the damages on top of that, which most certainly are going to add up to mimimum, what it will cost the big east programs to fill their schedules. If that cost is what it takes to get Boise to get tot eh Big East by paying their exit fee from the west, and the entrance fee to teh big east, (another approx $8-9 mill) then so be it. If it's what it takes for each program to pay individually to schedule their own holes made by WVU, plus a percentage of what it's taking the other programs to fill two slots (the other left by TCU), because of the delay in publishing schedules, then so be that too. I think $20 million would be the bare minimum to cover those expenses.
Then there's the issue of legal fees.....lawyers, how does that work?
I also am unaware of any entrance fee that the big 12 might have, if they have one or not.
But - it's safe to say that all of that, is money that the state university of West Virginia, is pissing down the drain. I can't imagine how throwing that much moeny down the drain is going to go over in that state, and I really, can't figure out where the money is going to come from either.
The big east would probably deduct the money owed, but if they're budgeting over there in Morgantown with their athletic department in any fashion that makes sense (a big IF).....they've been expecting those millions coming in from the Big East to make their athletic department budget work.