Out of the 8 FB schools,who screwed this up?

[SAMCRO]

Not that it matters anymore, I was just wondering where and when everyone thinks this all went wrong. A few months (shoot, weeks) ago we were all talking about the next huge TV contract that would dwarf the ACC's. Everyone was going to get paid, TCU was joining, things were looking good. So, aside from BE management, the BB schools, ESPN, and the second shooter on the grassy knoll, who among the 8 FB schools mucked this up?

Was it the divided support among the 8 of supporting Nova's move?
Was it WVU's apparent open flirtation with the SEC?
Was it RU's whoring themselves to the B10 last year?
Was it Edsall?
Was it DGross who made it clear 5 years ago that he wanted to get SU out of the BE and into the ACC?
Was it something else?
Was it a closed door conversation discussing a potential split of the 8 that couldn't get hammered out, and some how went horribly wrong?

Something real went down within the 8 FB schools that led to this break. SU was ready to go at any time, but something spooked Pitt. We were close to being in a position to significantly better all of our financial situations if we stuck together. Even if it wasn't as much as some were reporting, there was no doubt it would've been more than the ACC deal. So what happened?

 

[ZooCougar]

You can't point to one single factor. Clearly the Villanova and TCU issues were major friction points. SU was gone at the first opportunity as you stated. Also, with realignment in the air, some schools see opportunity in chaos.

It also has to do with the fact that the Big East is run stupidly. The 8 football schools are bigger stakeholders than the 8 basketball schools. We have more at risk, we are the conference's center of gravity. The conference should have always deferred to us. But even then the football schools were never of one mind.

Basically, this thing was doomed to fail. It was a drawer full of mismatched socks.

 

[willie99]

adding Nova and not some other school like C Fla or E Car to increase our stability and marketability

I think the direction we chose concerned Pitt & Cuse about our future

 

[CTMike]

After the first ACC raid... we've essentially been holding fingers in the dam. Big East did what they needed to do to survive at the time, made a helluva basketball conference... but that too is part of the problem. There was no way to manage all the disparate interests between the football schools and non football schools. Everyone could have stayed together and potentially gotten paid next year... but you still have a league with a lot of band-aids.

 

[businesslawyer]

adding Nova and not some other school like C Fla or E Car to increase our stability and marketability

I think the direction we chose concerned Pitt & Cuse about our future

I call BS. Nova could not join the football conference without the approval of the football schools. So either (i) Pitt and Cuse were having a disagreement with UConn and others about the direction of the football conference, or (ii) more likely, this is just an excuse to justify bailing out.

 

[uconndogs]

Big East Football president let Swofford eat their lunch for a second time. There was neither the leadership nor the vision to do what needed to be done. Very disappointing......

 

[CTMike]

Big East Football president let Swofford eat their lunch for a second time. There was neither the leadership nor the vision to do what needed to be done. Very disappointing......

Not trying to be snide uconndogs, but what could have/should have been done? There weren't many (if any) "magic bullets" that would have brought stability to the Big East. Once football started driving the money train... I think the Big East's hands were tied.

 

[freescooter]

Big East Football president let Swofford eat their lunch for a second time. There was neither the leadership nor the vision to do what needed to be done. Very disappointing......

I am sorry to say that that must be laid at the feet of the commissioner. Heck, it was the President of the conference who was making the deal with the ACC. And Marianatto seems to have had no clue. Way to be on top of things, commissioner.

 

[HuskyBarker]

I blame shifting Demographics. period.

 

[businesslawyer]

I am sorry to say that that must be laid at the feet of the commissioner. Heck, it was the President of the conference who was making the deal with the ACC. And Marianatto seems to have had no clue. Way to be on top of things, commissioner.

I think at this point you are hearing a concensus leaking out of the schools that Marianatto was not a Mike Tranghese or a Dave Gavitt. My two points on that are:

1. Everyone here was so busy badmouthing Tranghese that there was no ability to discern whether the schools were less confident in Marianatto (the boy who cried wolf).

2. I still am not sure that there is anything a Scott or Swofford could have done in Marianatto's shoes that would have kept this from happening. If there is, I haven't heard it here yet. I've only heard "what ifs" that would not have stopped Syracuse or Pitt from taking the ACC's offer.

 

[willie99]

I call BS. Nova could not join the football conference without the approval of the football schools. So either (i) Pitt and Cuse were having a disagreement with UConn and others about the direction of the football conference, or (ii) more likely, this is just an excuse to justify bailing out.

maybe, maybe not

I'm sure we can both think of reasons why not growing football more aggressively is a plausible explanation for heightened concerns

at the end of the day, I think both Pitt and Cuse took the easy and safer path. Everything else is more risky, and the BEAST didn't do a lot to mitigate those risks

 

[IMind]

There's nothing anyone could have done at this point in time. IF the conference could have held out until the next TV contract and it came in above the ACC per school... AND the Big 12 imploded and the Big East added Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State.... they MIGHT have been able to hold this all together... but that's a lot of IFs and at this point in time the ACC is a sure thing... not some hypothetical set of maybes.

Something else that hasn't been touched on: There's been an ongoing PR war waged against the Big East. Now I think it was mainly for recruiting purposes... but when you hear constantly that the Big East is in danger of losing it's BCS bid... no matter how false it maybe... no matter that The Big East has performed better on the field than the ACC... it does damage. You never hear that talk about the ACC. ESPN has been undermining the Big East for years... and one of the results is a conference who's schools will bolt at the first offer.

That being said the Big 12 was in no better condition... all it took to rip them apart was some Texas conversations with the Big 10 and an offer from the PAC-10. The Big 12 was just as weak, maybe even weaker, than the Big East LONG before the LHN.

 

[uconndogs]

Not trying to be snide uconndogs, but what could have/should have been done? There weren't many (if any) "magic bullets" that would have brought stability to the Big East. Once football started driving the money train... I think the Big East's hands were tied.

UCONN, Cuse, Pitt and Rutgers stick together and you've got a nice block of the northeast covered. Would have been a complicated deal to cut and would have taken huge balls by those presidents. But, they would have had a level of collective control in the futures that they do not have now. Pitt is damn lucky in this and there is no doubt in my mind they were working this thing behind the scenes for a while and talking out of both sides of their mouth.

 

[Vowelguy]

adding Nova and not some other school like C Fla or E Car to increase our stability and marketability

I think the direction we chose concerned Pitt & Cuse about our future

I second Biz's call of BS on this. East Carolina? Please.
If Cuse & Pitt left because we didn't add frickin East Carolina, then obviously they're being run by deranged lunatics.

 

[businesslawyer]

UCONN, Cuse, Pitt and Rutgers stick together and you've got a nice block of the northeast covered. Would have been a complicated deal to cut and would have taken huge balls by those presidents. But, they would have had a level of collective control in the futures that they do not have now. Pitt is damn lucky in this and there is no doubt in my mind they were working this thing behind the scenes for a while and talking out of both sides of their mouth.

I share that hunch. Frankly, I'm wondering if Pitt didn't shoot down the ESPN renewal because they were afraid that leaving after the contract would have exposed them to the type of damages that the SEC was worried the Aggies were exposed to. But, to be fair, that is nothing more than wild speculation on my part.

 

[jpm25]

I think the two events are the Villanova flirtation and maintaining the hybrid structure. The first is obvious and has been stated in the past few days several times in post-mortem pieces, the second lead to a greater instability.

 

[jpm25]

There's nothing anyone could have done at this point in time. IF the conference could have held out until the next TV contract and it came in above the ACC per school... AND the Big 12 imploded and the Big East added Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State.... they MIGHT have been able to hold this all together... but that's a lot of IFs and at this point in time the ACC is a sure thing... not some hypothetical set of maybes.

Something else that hasn't been touched on: There's been an ongoing PR war waged against the Big East. Now I think it was mainly for recruiting purposes... but when you hear constantly that the Big East is in danger of losing it's BCS bid... no matter how false it maybe... no matter that The Big East has performed better on the field than the ACC... it does damage. You never hear that talk about the ACC. ESPN has been undermining the Big East for years... and one of the results is a conference who's schools will bolt at the first offer.

That being said the Big 12 was in no better condition... all it took to rip them apart was some Texas conversations with the Big 10 and an offer from the PAC-10. The Big 12 was just as weak, maybe even weaker, than the Big East LONG before the LHN.

The BCS bid criteria is a pre-determined formula to gauge conference strength. It has very little qualitative influence, other than if you think that a current AQ school will be under-rated for the sake of a non-AQ school being over-weighted. The criteria are: 1. the ranking of the highest-ranked team from a conference in the final BCS standings, 2. the final regular-season computer rankings of all the teams in a conference and 3. the number of teams from a conference in the top 25 in the final BCS standings.

 

[IMind]

I'm aware of the criteria, that still didn't stop everyone and everyone from saying that the Big East is in danger, should lose, will lose, it's BCS bid, etc. Perception becomes reality.

 

[ZooCougar]

You fight bad PR with action, facts and your own PR. Marinate and Tranghese spent their days waiting for hoop season to start.

Read and LISTEN to what Tranghese has said about football. He was contemptuous of football. These gentlemen were the wrong people to be in charge.

 

[freescooter]

I think at this point you are hearing a concensus leaking out of the schools that Marianatto was not a Mike Tranghese or a Dave Gavitt. My two points on that are:

1. Everyone here was so busy badmouthing Tranghese that there was no ability to discern whether the schools were less confident in Marianatto (the boy who cried wolf).

2. I still am not sure that there is anything a Scott or Swofford could have done in Marianatto's shoes that would have kept this from happening. If there is, I haven't heard it here yet. I've only heard "what ifs" that would not have stopped Syracuse or Pitt from taking the ACC's offer.

I don't disagree entirely, but had Marinatto had a clue, I htink he could/should have called Pitt & Syracuse out weeks ago, then worked out a deal with the big 12/ACC. Look, I don't think there was any chance to save the Big East. I've thought it was on life support for several years now. Only the possibility of a big media deal was keeping it together. You and I disagreee on the Commissioner's role in the past, but it is pretty clear to me that at a minimum he needs to be keeping up with what is going on with his members. Pitt didn't decide to go to the ACC on Saturday afternoon. this has been in the works for a while now. Had to be. A modestly competent commissioner would have had some inkling, particularly given that the league A. had been down this road before; B. there were all sorts of rumors; C. it was clear that Pitt was dissatisfied with the way the league was going; and D. the conference world was heading into upheaval yet again. Seems to me that part of your responsibility to the members, if you can't keep them, is to be sure everyone knows what is going on, and you help them put a backup plan in place. If it wasn't, it should have been the purpose of his meeting with Swofford and the the B-12 guy.

 

[jpm25]

I'm aware of the criteria, that still didn't stop everyone and everyone from saying that the Big East is in danger, should lose, will lose, it's BCS bid, etc. Perception becomes reality.

No, it doesn't. Not with a pre-determined formula.

 

[IMind]

No, it doesn't. Not with a pre-determined formula.

It does when your conference dissolves around you.

 

[jpm25]

It does when your conference dissolves around you.

I don't think Pitt and SU were motivated by sports writers hunting clicks

 

[coachcap]

Not extending an invitation to FSU at the same time that Tranghese was wooing Miami. Allowing FSU to sign with the ACC invited this mess from the Start. Miami was an outlier, much as BCU was to the ACC until the new carpetbagging by Pitt & syracuse. With FSU in the fold, Miami would have had a "travel partner".

 

[ZooCougar]

Miami didn't need a travel partner. But what they needed was their rival in the same conference.