NY Daily News:Big East courts Boise State, but Broncos in no hurry to make decision

[Rumrunner]

BY DICK WEISS
"Big East Conference commissioner John Marinatto and assistant commissioner Nick Carparelli visited Boise State Thursday, giving university's president Bob Kustra a heads up on its plans to add more teams by this time next week.
While Kustra said he appreciated the visit, he emphasized his school, which is now a member of the Mountain West, was in no hurry to make a decision about future conference membership for its fifth ranked football team."


http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/we...ion?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The Marinatto Mystery Tour continues.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

By most accounts Boise is ready to go as long as there is any Big East to join. I think they just don't want to pay a departure fee and then have to go back. I think if there was just USF left, all these schools would still join. There is really no reason not to.

 

[uconNYC]

If UL and WVU leave, hope Big East dissolves/evolves into a new football only league with the top non-AQ's out there. Keep Big East basketball and Olympic sports as it is.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

If UL and WVU leave, hope Big East dissolves/evolves into a new football only league with the top non-AQ's out there. Keep Big East basketball and Olympic sports as it is.

Yes because giving football second rate status has served this conference so well to date.

 

[uconNYC]

Yes because giving football second rate status has served this conference so well to date.

So you want to leave the basketball schools for CUSA+?

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I've been consistent on this since 2004. There is a reason no other major conference offers partial (non football) membership. We can be in every bit as good of a conference without the catholic schools (and have room in our non-conference schedule to play any we wish to continue a series with) as we would be if we do remain with them.

The hybrid conference destroyed many rivalries (there were some schools we should have played home and home every year regardless) and made it impossible to act quickly (which was necessary a few times over the past eighteen months) when doing so was necessary to save the football conference.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

If the BE turns into a conference where football is basically its own entity (with the handful of BE members who do play football being part of an almagam with CUSA and MWC schools fighting for one BCS bid if the BCS Bowqls will even allow it in a few years), our basketball program will be at the mercy of the non football majority (while doing more to support the conference than any three non-football members) and we will be destined for Colonial plus. I have no concerns at all that our men's hoops program can stand (and flourish) without the catholics. I don't know if our football program has a shot unless we are no longer playing it in a conference that views it as a necessary evil.

 

[uconNYC]

I actually feel an independent football conference has its advantages. First off, once it's off and running, no one needs to leave their conference and their Olympic sports can play in a league that makes geographic and competitive sense. BYU could stay in the WCC, Air Force in the MVC/WAC, Boise in the Big West/WAC, Army & Navy in the Patriot League, etc., etc.

The conference would have a lot of flexibility in bringing in schools and would not be on 'death watch' every time a school left. From a branding perspective - the Big Least/Big East-West jokes would also stop. People will basically look at it as a union of the strongest independent schools.