The Big Five Conferences are going to break away

[nelsonmuntz]

Jim Delany has now weighed in on the topic as well. It is starting to sound like the P5 commisioners had a private meeting to discuss this topic. They have all made the topic of NCAA reform an important point at the conference meetings. Also, it is interesting to note that they have all said very, very similar things and have even used the same key words when describing the topic of NCAA reform and gave a similar time frame for implementing the new NCAA reform. A second interesting point is that they have not given any indication as to which conferences or schools will be included, or what guidelines will be used to create a new division. I think it will be very interesting to see the the AAC has to say about this topic during conference meetings next week and hopefully we will have a better understanding of the changes to come.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...mmisioner-jim-delany-pitches-ncaa-reform-plan

Thank you for your interest in UConn football.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

We'll have to agree to disagree about this. You're phrasing it as "rooting for the demise" of non-power schools, but what I see is indifference. Believe me: the average sports fan in the State of Michigan will absolutely let EMU/CMU/WMU wallow in obscurity if it means more national championships for Michigan in football and Michigan State in basketball. They already know that the MAC schools won't ever compete with the Big Ten schools (and people in the South know that C-USA will never compete with the SEC and ACC schools), so it's doubtful that they'd see any purpose of taxing their own home public universities where that money is going to be spent in Washington as opposed to Ann Arbor or East Lansing.

This leads to the other point: it's not as if though taxing the Alabamas of the world suddenly means that money gets shifted from Bama to UAB. If that were the case, then there *might* be some populist support for government taxation of university athletic departments, but that is clearly NOT what would happen. Instead, that money is getting shifted from Bama to those "evil tax and spend liberals that keep infringing upon states' rights" in Washington, DC. Outside of the Northeast (which generally doesn't care about college sports except for certain pockets), I'm not seeing any viable political support for that position. I think you greatly overestimating politicians' aptitude to allow for a single penny of taxes assessed upon state institutions so that it can get transferred out of their own home states to Washington, regardless of whether we're talking about public university sports or, even better, university-run medical centers that actually generate way more revenue than even the largest athletic departments. (Take a step back and think about that one - how many universities are going to be willing to open *that* Pandora's box regarding medical center revenue? The UABs of the world that don't have big athletic departments but take in hundreds of millions of dollars in medical center revenue that generate immense paper profits aren't exactly going to be in a rush to start distinguishing what are "for profit" ventures at non-profit universities for tax purposes.) At the same time, I think that you're greatly underestimating just how much more popular the power schools are within their home states in every region outside of the Northeast - there's just no comparison. Taking money away from SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12 schools to send it to Washington would certainly be political suicide for any politician from those states.

We're not even getting into the logistical fact that this Congress can't get even widely popular bills passed these days due to partisanship and special interests. Good luck trying to find a filibuster-proof majority (as getting 50% plus 1 vote means nothing in Washington since those types of bills don't get to floor no matter which party is in charge) to support a measure that's going to be inherently unpopular with a group with a LOT more power, influence and passion (the power conferences and their respective home states) versus a group that have a lot fewer supporters with a lot less passion by comparison (the non-power schools in general). The NRA leverages a lot smaller group based on passion alone to shoot down what are otherwise widely popular bills (as the problem is that the popularity is with people that are a lot less passionate about the issue and they don't have any centralized lobbying power... unlike, say, hmmm... the Association of American Universities that the Big Ten kind of thinks is important and a majority of its members are power conference members).

Trying to argue that power conference schools should be taxed is an even worse false hope for non-power schools than the misguided wish for an antitrust lawsuit. Anyone in the non-power realm right now should only concentrate on rising up to meet the new standards that are going to get put into place. If the last two decades of the Bowl Alliance and BCS should have taught anyone anything, it's that outside help isn't coming (and anyone that waits around for outside help is going to get steamrolled into irrelevance).

This is a concern troll anthem right here.

You claim to be a lawyer, but I can't imagine what area you studied. The tax exemption is not something anyone has to vote on. It is already a law, and the P5 are way over the line on it. I am surprised the IRS has not moved yet. I don't think it helps UConn any, but it is going to happen eventually. I have no idea what point you are making about UAB. It has nothing to do with this situation, since tax exempt status won't impact UAB because its athletic department likely loses money hand over fist.

If you think the senate is going to crush an anti-trust action or lawsuit against the P5, you really have no idea what you are talking about. First of all, the action would most likely be a civil suit, so unless you think the Senate is going to retroactively revoke the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and every other related law and regulatory rule related to it over the last 100 years because of college football, I don't see a way for Congress to even intervene in this situation. I welcome BLawyer to chime in, but I believe either a private entity or the Department of Justice can bring an action under Anti Trust law. If it is a private entity, then it just becomes a judge and jury's interpretation of the law, which is pretty clear cut against the P5. There is a reason sports leagues lose so much in court.

As for your last paragraph, let me say this as clearly as possible:

WE ALL GET THAT UCONN IS SCREWED. YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP TELLING US!!!!!!!!

We don't need another 2000 word essay on how we are screwed, unless you have something really original to say, which you don't.

 

[BCINGYA]

I'm O.K. with an Eagle that gets it. Unless B.C. is in a region that develops some worthwhile football competition it will become marginalized in the ACC. It already has been in many respects. Other than hockey, B.C. has been uniformly not competitive in sports. Unfortunately, the ACC doesn't have a hockey conference let alone care one iota about it.

The real and only issue for P-5 consideration is football --- it drives the financial bus of inter-collegiate sports. Let's face it the northeast is going to struggle against the south and the southwest for football notoriety as it is. We don't need to be divisive among ourselves, but let's be real about the current P-5 members from the northeast for a moment. Do you think that B.C. will ever consistently thrive in the ACC competing against FSU, Clemson, VT etc. in the long term, if it remains an isolated outpost of D-1 football in New England? What are the chances that B.C.'s position will be enhanced by the presence of Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers in the northeast? You'll see that Syracuse brings good hoops to the ACC (they were second to UConn in the BE for years.) In football - not so much, heck the upstart Huskies beat them 5 straight years (2007-2011) by average score of 35-15! Pitt? A genuine national champion in football --- 37 years ago! And not much of anything since. Rutgers --- well, enough said!

The biggest problem the northeast D-1 schools are going to have in the future is maintaining relevance in the national conversation about football. BB will be fine and the ACC will be the best hoops conference in the country (until the B1G takes UConn), but I don't think hoops matters a lot. If it did, UConn would have been the first one poached from the old BE. It's football, football, football! Until the schools in the northeast, as a group, become more competitive then northeast football will languish. (I don't care what conference you're in.) For that purpose all D-1 schools from the northeast should support the development of region-wide competence in football. Only then will recruiting become easier and the schools will be more attractive to kids from the football rich south and southwest. The recruiting numbers don't lie. In all of New England, approx. 15,000,000 people, there were 21 D-1 scholarship kids. 10 from CT and MA each and 1 from RI. That's it! Add NY, PA, and NJ (population of approx. 41,000,000) you add 146 for a total of 167 D-1 players from the northeast (56,000,000 population base). Compare that to the numbers from TX, Fla, GA -=- 346, 332 and 184 respectively - total of 862 D-1 players from a population of roughly the same - 56,000,000.

You say enough with numbers. However, you can see that you have to convince kids from the south to come to school in the north to have any shot of developing northeast football at an elite level. The only way to do that is to have a thriving, competitive regional presence and an exciting brand of football. This will help create a national buzz about the sport in the northeast and that will attract athletes. Daunting task? You bet it is! But how the hell did Nebraska do it? A state that loves football, but works off a population base of 1,500,000 with only 5 D-1 recruits state-wide this year. It gets players from other football rich regions.

It will take awhile, but I think it can be done. The only question is whether the effete northeast fan base can embrace college football like it has been elsewhere. It did before --- this is where college football got its start.

I would like to see all three New England programs grow and thrive, as well as North Eastern football in general. Your right it has been done, and it can be done again. That was a very insightful, well thought out piece of writing! Hats off to you. We had our chance in the early days of the BIG EAST, if it would have been a YEA instead of a NEY to Penn St., and then went after Maryland, just imagine ....the Great North East Conf.

 

[junglehusky]

WE ALL GET THAT UCONN IS SCREWED. YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP TELLING US!!!!!!!!

We don't need another 2000 word essay on how we are screwed, unless you have something really original to say, which you don't.

Out of all the people on the boneyard, Mr. "UConn should jettison football to the MAC and suck up to Providence and Seton Hall to play basketball in the Catholic league instead of being the big fish in the AAC" is the one to post this????? Jesus, Muhammed and Buddha. Right now we have a non-zero chance of joining Division 4 / Super FBS but if Herbst decided to take waylon's advice we'd have absolute zero.

 

[whaler11]

This really is a bad long term idea. It generates no new fans, alienates the 10-15% of fans who are loyal to the Gang of Five, and will turn off a population that dislikes the idea of paying players.

They are only going to play each other? Are Wake, Wazzu and Iowa State going to play 12 road games? How can dozens of schools sustain 8 game home slates?

Fans of schools that win 9-10 games like clockwork are going to be fun to watch adjusting to 6-7 wins.

The dregs who go 5-7 beating FCS and MAC teams are going to be real popular with 2 and 3 win seasons.

Most of our old Big East friends will die in that world: Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College... They would be lucky to get bowl eligible 1 year out of 3 if they only play within the Big 5.

 

[junglehusky]

This really is a bad long term idea. It generates no new fans, alienates the 10-15% of fans who are loyal to the Gang of Five, and will turn off a population that dislikes the idea of paying players.

They are only going to play each other? Are Wake, Wazzu and Iowa State going to play 12 road games? How can dozens of schools sustain 8 game home slates?

Fans of schools that win 9-10 games like clockwork are going to be fun to watch adjusting to 6-7 wins.

The dregs who go 5-7 beating FCS and MAC teams are going to be real popular with 2 and 3 win seasons.

Most of our old Big East friends will die in that world: Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College... They would be lucky to get bowl eligible 1 year out of 3 if they only play within the Big 5.

Well at least they'll die rich. I'd love for UConn to be able to wipe its tears with 20 million a year.

 

[cardsfan123]

This really is a bad long term idea. It generates no new fans, alienates the 10-15% of fans who are loyal to the Gang of Five, and will turn off a population that dislikes the idea of paying players.

They are only going to play each other? Are Wake, Wazzu and Iowa State going to play 12 road games? How can dozens of schools sustain 8 game home slates?

Fans of schools that win 9-10 games like clockwork are going to be fun to watch adjusting to 6-7 wins.

The dregs who go 5-7 beating FCS and MAC teams are going to be real popular with 2 and 3 win seasons.

Most of our old Big East friends will die in that world: Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College... They would be lucky to get bowl eligible 1 year out of 3 if they only play within the Big 5.

I think the idea is to create a separate division so that only power 5 schools can compete in the postseason playoff/bowls and don't have to split revenue with the mid major conferences. The current mid major conferences will either stay where they are and form their own playoff/bowl structure or drop down to FCS or drop football completely. Teams will still schedule non power teams out of conference similar to how current FBS schools schedule FCS schools, and there will probably be rules on how many of those teams each power 5 team can schedule per season.

The current powers that be absolutely hate seeing teams like Northern Illinois and Hawaii and even Boise State getting into BCS games because they generally don't bring as many fans and don't attract as many casual viewers as a highly ranked power 5 school would. If the Orange Bowl last year featured FSU vs. Oklahoma or Florida the ratings would've been substantially higher than FSU vs. NIU. The only solution is completely shutting out these teams from making the big bowls.

 

[TRest]

Jim Delany has now weighed in on the topic as well. It is starting to sound like the P5 commisioners had a private meeting to discuss this topic. They have all made the topic of NCAA reform an important point at the conference meetings. Also, it is interesting to note that they have all said very, very similar things and have even used the same key words when describing the topic of NCAA reform and gave a similar time frame for implementing the new NCAA reform. A second interesting point is that they have not given any indication as to which conferences or schools will be included, or what guidelines will be used to create a new division. I think it will be very interesting to see the the AAC has to say about this topic during conference meetings next week and hopefully we will have a better understanding of the changes to come.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...mmisioner-jim-delany-pitches-ncaa-reform-plan

Aresco has made it clear that he is not a party to these conversations and would like to be BFF's with Delaney and Slive.

 

[whaler11]

Well at least they'll die rich. I'd love for UConn to be able to wipe its tears with 20 million a year.

They are all locked into television contracts. So they can generate money selling an 8 game playoff? It's like sitting in meetings at a Fortune 100 company watching decisions get made for the next quarter's earnings versus long term viability.

If you turn College Football into NFL lite you lose the differentiation.

The regular season games are way less interesting once you are taking 2 and maybe 3 loss teams to a playoff.

The NCAA destroyed the college basketball regular season. This is a big step towards destroying the college football regular season.

 

[whaler11]

I think the idea is to create a separate division so that only power 5 schools can compete in the postseason playoff/bowls and don't have to split revenue with the mid major conferences. The current mid major conferences will either stay where they are and form their own playoff/bowl structure or drop down to FCS or drop football completely. Teams will still schedule non power teams out of conference similar to how current FBS schools schedule FCS schools, and there will probably be rules on how many of those teams each power 5 team can schedule per season.

The current powers that be absolutely hate seeing teams like Northern Illinois and Hawaii and even Boise State getting into BCS games because they generally don't bring as many fans and don't attract as many casual viewers as a highly ranked power 5 school would. If the Orange Bowl last year featured FSU vs. Oklahoma or Florida the ratings would've been substantially higher than FSU vs. NIU. The only solution is completely shutting out these teams from making the big bowls.

According to Dodd's article playing amongst only themselves is on the table.

And yes I understand that OU and FSU outrates NIU and FSU, but if 15-20% of the fans walk away because you pay the players and castrated 60 schools without creating any new fans you lose in the long run.

 

[businesslawyer]

Well at least they'll die rich. I'd love for UConn to be able to wipe its tears with 20 million a year.

What good is the money if you can't compete with who you play. You don't get to pay the money out to shareholders. It only matters if it helps you be more competitive.

 

[Exit 4]

This really is a bad long term idea. It generates no new fans, alienates the 10-15% of fans who are loyal to the Gang of Five, and will turn off a population that dislikes the idea of paying players.

They are only going to play each other? Are Wake, Wazzu and Iowa State going to play 12 road games? How can dozens of schools sustain 8 game home slates?

Fans of schools that win 9-10 games like clockwork are going to be fun to watch adjusting to 6-7 wins.

The dregs who go 5-7 beating FCS and MAC teams are going to be real popular with 2 and 3 win seasons.

Most of our old Big East friends will die in that world: Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College... They would be lucky to get bowl eligible 1 year out of 3 if they only play within the Big 5.

Couldn't agree more with your assessment.... If P5 plays only p5 or limits non P5 games to one a year, many schools accustom to 9, 10, 11 win seasons will have to learn to live with 6, 7 and 8 win seasons or less, perhaps way less. While I understand it, I personally don't care for where this is seemingly headed. This approach might make the P5 more money in the short term, but not so certain it will grow interest and revenues in the long term. A pool of 60 to 70 "have" teams is too small, it needs to be bigger with the opportunities for P5 partial independent status for schools like Boise and UConn.

 

[junglehusky]

What good is the money if you can't compete with who you play. You don't get to pay the money out to shareholders. It only matters if it helps you be more competitive.

If it were us instead of Cuse or Pitt or Louisville in the ACC, with the budget they'll get from the ACC TV deal, you don't think we'd be as competitive as those schools? BC made the ACC championship game - don't you think UConn could manage that at least once a decade or so?

It'll be interesting to see if the SEC is actually on board with cutting out the FCS / Sun Belt type guarantee games. It seems like the other leagues are moving in the direction of more conference games... I'm not sure what that means for MWC / AAC schools making the cutoff for the super-FBS but I have my doubts about whaler's argument that the breakaway wind up being a total backfire for the whole enterprise. Fans love their schools, the schools will continue to have students that turn into alumni, networks will probably continue to pay lots of money to broadcast football games whether the regular season games are de-facto playoffs (as some people say they have been before the 4 team playoff) or if the value of regular season games is de-emphasized (as you could argue the NFL does with a 16 game schedule and the availability of the wild card).

 

[whaler11]

If it were us instead of Cuse or Pitt or Louisville in the ACC, with the budget they'll get from the ACC TV deal, you don't think we'd be as competitive as those schools? BC made the ACC championship game - don't you think UConn could manage that at least once a decade or so?

It'll be interesting to see if the SEC is actually on board with cutting out the FCS / Sun Belt type guarantee games. It seems like the other leagues are moving in the direction of more conference games... I'm not sure what that means for MWC / AAC schools making the cutoff for the super-FBS but I have my doubts about whaler's argument that the breakaway wind up being a total backfire for the whole enterprise. Fans love their schools, the schools will continue to have students that turn into alumni, networks will probably continue to pay lots of money to broadcast football games whether the regular season games are de-facto playoffs (as some people say they have been before the 4 team playoff) or if the value of regular season games is de-emphasized (as you could argue the NFL does with a 16 game schedule and the availability of the wild card).

They have a really good thing going. I could be wrong, the change could get them another 5, 10, 15 million each. Since they will just spend it in an arms race it doesn't net out as a positive - so why take the risk it's less successful?

 

[junglehusky]

They have a really good thing going. I could be wrong, the change could get them another 5, 10, 15 million each. Since they will just spend it in an arms race it doesn't net out as a positive - so why take the risk it's less successful?

Heheh...if our company increases sales, we're just going to re-invest it back into new employees and enter new markets where we might not be successful, shouldn't we just keep selling the same amount of products and stay the same size? And if I get a raise I'm only going to spend all it on luxury items that I want, shouldn't I avoid the risk of pissing off my boss and not ask for a raise?

 

[whaler11]

Heheh...if our company increases sales, we're just going to re-invest it back into new employees and enter new markets where we might not be successful, shouldn't we just keep selling the same amount of products and stay the same size? And if I get a raise I'm only going to spend all it on luxury items that I want, shouldn't I avoid the risk of pissing off my boss and not ask for a raise?

The difference of course being that college football doesn't have a direct competitor.

This plan clearly loses fans. It does not generate any new fans that wouldn't have been generated in the current state.

We saw plenty of UConn fans who boycotted the NCAA tourney because of a one year ban. If you and the P5 think it's a good idea to have fans of 60 schools react in the same fashion to a permanent college football ban I question your sanity - we'll probably find out who is right.

 

[noeynox]

The difference of course being that college football doesn't have a direct competitor.

This plan clearly loses fans. It does not generate any new fans that wouldn't have been generated in the current state.

We saw plenty of UConn fans who boycotted the NCAA tourney because of a one year ban. If you and the P5 think it's a good idea to have fans of 60 schools react in the same fashion to a permanent college football ban I question your sanity - we'll probably find out who is right.

I agree. If UConn isn't playing at the highest level, why am I going to bother with College football? Don't get me wrong I love college football (even before I followed UConn football) but if the team I root for is excluded from competing I'm not watching. Similar to how I would always watch whatever Big East football game was on SNY, often bypassing more exciting games on other channels. I will not watch another Pitt, SU, RU or Ville game again unless they're either playing UConn or are in the same conference in the future. I'm not hating, I just always enjoyed watching the teams in our conference. I will now watch games involving Houston, ECU etc as we begin to compete against them regularly. If in the future we are back to some FCS type level, I'll follow UConn as long as I can but overall, I'll just focus on the pro sports.

 

[junglehusky]

noey, I think whaler is saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that fans of mid to bottom pack teams in power5 conferences will be less interested in college football in general, including their own teams and conferences, even though their schools will keep raking in the dough and competing, because they will no longer play the Southwest Central Louisiana Mud Dawgs and will beat each other up with their more competitive schedules, which will eventually lead to contraction of the fanbase. Now... maybe that could happen but to me it won't be because nobody's playing SWCLU anymore, or because players are getting $10,000 stipdends. It might happen if the concussion lawsuits do start to snowball like Big Tobacco and the rules of football have to be radically changed. But I don't think Texas and Alabama and USC are going to base their decisions about the future subdivision based on schools like Indiana or Kentucky going from 3 win seasons to 1 win seasons.

Fans of teams oustide the power 5 are another question. If the AAC is not in the highest level, yeah it'll be really tough to get fans to keep supporting the program if the biggest game is going to be USF and we know everybody we play is a rung below the top tier of football. If we're in the top tier but there's still a disadvantage of money, I think things will continue similarly for schools like UConn, Cincy, Boise - as long as we can win and knock off some of the power five teams, show we can compete, then I think fans will support the team.

 

[noeynox]

Thanks, I misunderstood, but I agree with his overall point. CFB will lose fans if they marginalize certain teams and don't come up with a criteria that can be met for teams/programs seeking to move up. In basketball, not only did we compete at the highest level but we dominated. In football we competed well and won our share as an upstart. If allowed to continue to compete on a somewhat even playing field I think football can rise even higher. I like this talk of a new division, more than I like waiting for us to get invited to a P5 conference.

 

[Exit 4]

And one of the attractive qualities of college BB is the ability to have small or new programs burst on the scene and challenge the goliaths..... Its fun to see if the shooting star school can burn bright beyond a single season and its fun to see if the goliaths can remain as such over the short and long term. Div 4 is certainly an effort to end the possibility of disruptive upstarts for college FB. When its all said and done we'll know if the P5 meant to block the UConn, Hawaii and Boise St's of the past decade or just the East Carolina, Georgia St, and occasional MAC school.

 

[Sea Goat]

I would like to see all three New England programs grow and thrive, as well as North Eastern football in general. Your right it has been done, and it can be done again. That was a very insightful, well thought out piece of writing! Hats off to you. We had our chance in the early days of the BIG EAST, if it would have been a YEA instead of a NEY to Penn St., and then went after Maryland, just imagine ....the Great North East Conf.

Yea, the PSU rejection was critical! But it was predictable. For 33 years, the old BE was run by ex-Providence College AD's until Aresco took over last summer. PC doesn't have football (or baseball for that matter) and the BE powers at the time were blind to the ascendency of football as the most important college sport. In addition, the Catholic members, with the exception of BC, didn't have D-1 football and could not have cared less about it. BC saw the exit opportunity early and should have and did take it. As an aside, the fact that Aresco has kept the AAC's offices in Providence remains one of the best jokes of CR.

 

[BCINGYA]

Yea, the PSU rejection was critical! But it was predictable. For 33 years, the old BE was run by ex-Providence College AD's until Aresco took over last summer. PC doesn't have football (or baseball for that matter) and the BE powers at the time were blind to the ascendency of football as the most important college sport. In addition, the Catholic members, with the exception of BC, didn't have D-1 football and could not have cared less about it. BC saw the exit opportunity early and should have and did take it. As an aside, the fact that Aresco has kept the AAC's offices in Providence remains one of the best jokes of CR.

The small bb schools destroyed the BE. They held a lot of power as a voting block and were able to keep the football schools in line so to speak. What a shame the football playing schools didn't have the foresight to leave then. Miami, V.T., B.C., U Conn, Pitt, Syracuse, W.V., Rutgers, and you have a solid core of membership. Then go ahead and accept Penn State, pry Maryland away, re-admit temple down the road perhaps recruit Navy and you have a solid 12 team North Eastern Conference. Penn State, Miami, and V.T. would have made a great cornerstone. What could have been.....

 

[junglehusky]

The small bb schools destroyed the BE. They held a lot of power as a voting block and were able to keep the football schools in line so to speak. What a shame the football playing schools didn't have the foresight to leave then. Miami, V.T., B.C., U Conn, Pitt, Syracuse, W.V., Rutgers, and you have a solid core of membership. Then go ahead and accept Penn State, pry Maryland away, re-admit temple down the road perhaps recruit Navy and you have a solid 12 team North Eastern Conference. Penn State, Miami, and V.T. would have made a great cornerstone. What could have been.....

Yeah I wonder about that alternate history too. The "Eastern league" would have had to come together way in the early days of the BE, or even before the the formation of the BE. It would have needed college football having more of a head start in the east coast than basketball, so the EL could be founded as an all sports league. Then the catholic schools form their basketball conference. The question for UConn in this alternate universe is - would they get an invite to the Catholic league, or would they stay in the Yankee conference until they decide to upgrade to the EL? Would they have the success in MBB and WBB to facilitate that upgrade in the 80s or 90s? And then would Miami, BC, Cuse etc. still be targets of the ACC in the late 90's onwards?

 

[BCINGYA]

Yeah I wonder about that alternate history too. The "Eastern league" would have had to come together way in the early days of the BE, or even before the the formation of the BE. It would have needed college football having more of a head start in the east coast than basketball, so the EL could be founded as an all sports league. Then the catholic schools form their basketball conference. The question for UConn in this alternate universe is - would they get an invite to the Catholic league, or would they stay in the Yankee conference until they decide to upgrade to the EL? Would they have the success in MBB and WBB to facilitate that upgrade in the 80s or 90s? And then would Miami, BC, Cuse etc. still be targets of the ACC in the late 90's onwards?

I think U Conn would have held out for inclusion in a new North Eastern Conference. I say this because I think they would have preferred (most schools do) an all sports conference as opposed to splitting the bb program and placing it into a small Catholic league. Granted it would have not been the best bb conference out there, but it certainly would have held it's own.

 

[UPitt]

The small bb schools destroyed the BE. They held a lot of power as a voting block and were able to keep the football schools in line so to speak. What a shame the football playing schools didn't have the foresight to leave then. Miami, V.T., B.C., U Conn, Pitt, Syracuse, W.V., Rutgers, and you have a solid core of membership. Then go ahead and accept Penn State, pry Maryland away, re-admit temple down the road perhaps recruit Navy and you have a solid 12 team North Eastern Conference. Penn State, Miami, and V.T. would have made a great cornerstone. What could have been.....

That would make for a nice conference, but the timing would have never worked out. PSU was denied in the 80,s. Then chose the Big 10 and would not have come back. Without PSU, Maryland was not joining. Miami was added to fill a football void and was only added because PSU was not. VT was added a few years after Miami, but did not have the clout to be in a football first league at the time. And more importantly than all of that, Uconn did not have a D-1 football team until 1999 and did not play in BE until 2003.

Basically, if a football league formed in the 80's it would have PSU and Maryland, but no Uconn, Miami, or VT. If the league formed in the 90's it would have Miami and VT (possibly), but no Uconn, PSU, or Maryland.

It's fun to play the what if game, but in reality one moment defined the Big East more than any others. The Big East turned down PSU and has forever paid the price. Each of the Major conferences have "blue blood" or "cornerstone" Universities. The Pac has USC, UCLA, Stanford. The B1G has Mich, OSU, PSU. The B12 has Texas, OK. The SEC has Bama, Florida, Georgia, Tenn, Vand, etc. The ACC has UNC, DUKE (BB), FSU, Virginia. The Big East had Miami, Pitt, WVU, Cuse. With 4 localized private schools leading the charge, the Big East was never in a position to compete with the other conferences. PSU and Maryland would have provided additional regional and national support.