You're right, I"ve thought about this. Posturing the way I"ve described would simply make it easy for a judge to allow WVU to play big 12 football in 2012, and would be a mistake. WVU will be on all the big east bball and olympic schedules for 2012. Football is the issue. I doubt WVU football is left out in the cold, but I can see a very real possibility that they will have an astronomical bill to pay just to play in 2012, regardless of conference affiliation.
HEre's why I think this:
2012 football schedules need to be published. In short order. The insanity of all this that WVU has put themselves in position around football, is that West Virginia can very well show up on both the Big 12 and Big East 2012 football schedules when they are published......I can't even imagine what would happen in that case, and I don't think that even the big 12 is dumb enough to do that right now, but the big east has every right to put out that schedulee......
SO - the more realistic thing right now is that both conferences need need to be planning to put football schedules that do NOT have West Virginia on the schedule in 2012,and need to be doing it right now! I think that the longer this drags out, this scenario is very much possible.
and that means contracted pay outs to 1-time home opponents from teams in each conference. ( cost : approx $450-500k is the going rate per game for a 1-AA opponent based on our Texas Southern scheduling issues last year) So if everybody goes that route - 16 games (7 BE, 9 B12) = approx. $7.2 -$8million). BUT --if schools are going to schedule 1-A opponents 1-time, the cost per game is going to go way up, and remember that only one 1-AA game a year counts towrad post season bowl eligibility, so a lot of teams will look at the possibility of scheduling one time 1-A oppoents. .
So, I think that has to happen, the longer this drags out, and in that case, once the courts decide where WVU is going to be, they'll play the games in that conference, but they'll be stuck with the bills from both conferences, and some teams out there will get a big pay day from WVU for simply scheduling a game, while other programs will actually play the games.
BOth conferences need to planning for that, b/c the Big EAstw/o WVU would only have 7 teams, and can't really afford to lose the extra game for each team, and the big 12 teams could likely afford to simply leave an open date, but they won't - because they can't leave the slots open because they won't have enough inventory to meet their broadcasting requirements with 9 conference teams, each with one empty date and stand to lose a TON of money in that case. They can argue with their media rights, that an empty date is the fault of the courts, but it's a terribly weak argument, much stronger if they've at least got a game to broadcast than a completely open date.
Sure would be interesting to know if the big east has petitioned the NCAA yet on issuing a forbearance on teh 8 team minimum for a 1-A/BCS qualification for 2012 based on circumstances and if anybody's been contacted from each conference about 1-time games.
