Mike Aresco

[frankthetank]

I guess we differ on the definition of getting raided. Those teams never played one game in the Big East. They waited until it was official that the Big East lost its AQ bid and said no thanks. They were willing to come to a BCS league, not a non AQ conference. The reasons as to why decided to not come are pretty simple. Have nothing to do with Aresco.

To me, it deals with Aresco because the Big East didn't adjust when they lost the AQ bid. If the Big East had invited the MWC teams that I had listed above for a full legit western division, I absolutely believe they would have come. People need to remember how little confidence the MWC had in its own leadership at the time. The Big East had the opportunity to kill the MWC (thereby strengthening the Big East's position) even after losing AQ status and didn't do it because they (and specifically Aresco) dawdled. That was something completely under his control (as opposed to the Big Ten, ACC or Big 12 raiding the Big East, which was certainly not under his control at all).

 

[CL82]

My knock on Aresco was all the time he spent puffing up Louisville to the media after they had announced their intention to leave. What's up with that? During the same period he was virtually silent as to UConn. Sure when we win two more NCAA championships he has love for us, but otherwise he's been noticeably silent as the Huskies.

 

[UConnJim]

The job of a great commissioner is to push those big ideas through quickly, though. As we have seen in conference realignment, these things often happen extremely fast. The Big Ten's courtship of Maryland was only about 4 weeks. Larry Scott almost pulled off the Pac-16 plan within 3 months with much bigger players and a lot more money involved. The ACC has basically struck overnight in all of its raids of the Big East. As much as the Big East in turmoil back then, remember that the MWC was in an incredibly weak position, too. Their only choices in realignment were basically annexing the remnants of the WAC. There is no logical reason for the MWC to have outflanked the Big East (whether AQ or non-AQ) at that time.

You are not being fair to Aresco. When the PAC went to 12, Larry Scoot had been commissioner for a year. And, they offered a great home to Colorado and Utah. Maybe he could have gotten the PAC to 16, but Texas wasn't ready for that. I would think that the B1G had had informal discussions with Maryland (and Rutgers) for years before they formally offered. It wasn't just 4 weeks. And, it was obvious what the B1G was offering! The conference you proposed would have meant grabbing teams from the Big East, CUSA, MWC, and an independent. Nobody could have pulled that off in such a short time period.

Besides, what was the new conference offering? Not much. No BCS bid. No big TV contract. Potential huge legal issues. Big increase in travel budgets. End of the day, the timing wasn't right for your vision of a new nationwide conference. It could happen in the future, but the first step was forming the AAC.

 

[The Funster]

Aresco has been less than inspiring but the reality is that he only had a knife to bring to a gunfight.

 

[pj]

My only major objection was the decision to go to 12 teams. Quality of both football and basketball was diluted and exit fee money and our NCAA credits are split more ways. Also now expansion with MWC teams or BYU is difficult.

 

[freescooter]

My view on Aresco is that he is the commissioner the Big East needed when they decided to keep the Providence line alive with Marrinatto. He ahd all the skills we needed at that time. Not so sure he has the skills to build a league from scratch, but I'm not sure anyone does. I seriously doubt he will be as bad as Marrinatto was though. He was the George DeLeone of conference commissioners. Aresco is doing what he needs to do despite having a terrible hand to do it with.

 

[Marty Jackson]

I generally agree that Mike Aresco seems to be getting overrated by a lot of AAC fans lately for his populist anti-P5 bluster when there were some tangible things that he could have done previously.

Most prominently for me is that he failed to secure the one thing that could have distinguished the AAC from the rest of the G5: create a true coast-to-coast football conference. Marinatto was certainly a disaster overall, but he was onto something by inviting Boise State and San Diego State as football-only members. Who knows whether it would have worked in the long-term, but it was a legitimate bet to shake up the system as opposed to falling into the safe and staid regionalism that firmly cemented the AAC's "meh" place within the G5. At the very least, the MWC wouldn't have had any claim whatsoever to be an AAC peer.

Yet, when Aresco came in, he chased the ghost of BYU (who anyone with a rudimentary understanding of that school's mentality should have known that they were NEVER going to join) instead of raiding the MWC of its other assets when the then-Big East had the chance. Aresco had the chance to have a legit western flank to have a national conference that would have at least been the clear #6 football conference and a legit power in basketball (imagine a hoops league with UConn combined with the programs and fan bases of SDSU, UNLV and New Mexico to the west compared to the AAC now) and BLEW IT. STRAIGHT UP BLEW IT. In the meantime, the MWC reinforced itself and got CBS and ESPN to open back up their TV contracts to get Boise State (and in turn, San Diego State) back. This is despite the fact that the whole reason why Aresco was hired by the then-Big East was BECAUSE of this experience at CBS and ESPN.

Aresco was never going to prevent any Big East member from leaving for one of the P5 and the Catholic 7 were destined to break off once Syracuse, Pitt and Notre Dame decided to leave. I can't blame him for that. However, messing up the coast-to-coast conference proposal was ENTIRELY on him. That was the one chance for the AAC to actually present something different to the marketplace and he blew it.

On the other hand, I completely disagree with the characterization of Tulane (who seems to take a lot of criticism around here). They are an AAU school in a good TV market, GREAT football recruiting territory and will have new facilities. From a university president standpoint, they hit a TON of metrics that have proven to be critical in conference realignment. If they can become merely competent in football, they can actually zoom up the list of the most likely schools to get poached from the AAC if the Big 12 or ACC ever expand.

I've seen a lot of people underrate private schools in conference realignment discussions simply based upon their enrollment sizes. That's a BIG mistake. P5 university presidents may prefer large flagships with big enrollments with all things being equal, but they'd generally take private schools over less academically-inclined directional or "city" public schools that might be much larger. There aren't any directional public schools in the P5 and the only "city" public school in the P5 is Louisville (and it took top tier athletic revenue and budget numbers for them to get in... and they were literally the *last* school that got in).

Frank. Are you forgetting Pitt?

 

[clmssun]

Frank. Are you forgetting Pitt?

I had a similar question, but Pitt's academic quality is clearly above those of most "city schools" (or, similarly, "directional schools") full of commuters, part-timers, and night-schoolers, so I will *assume* that Pitt's demographics are different than said "city schools". Going by name, Auburn and Clemson would be "city schools", yet they are the state land grant institutions and the second-largest public universities in their states.