BCS Status Pleases Pastilong
July 25, 2003 01:52 PM | General
July 25, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University Director of Athletics Ed Pastilong was pleased to hear that the Big East Conference will keep its status in the Bowl Championship Series for the remaining three years of the present contract.
The announcement was made recently by the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, of which WVU president David C. Hardesty Jr. is a member of.
“We suspected that that was going to take place and it’s gratifying to hear it come from the committee,” Pastilong said earlier this week on Metro News. “The Bowl Championship Series is something that is very, very important to WVU and to our conference.”
There was some speculation in the media that the panel might reconsider the Big East’s status after the departure of Miami and Virginia Tech to the Atlantic Coast Conference last month.
Now that the BCS spot is secured for the next three years, Pastilong believes the remaining Big East football schools are going to have to produce to keep themselves in the mix.
“West Virginia University, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Boston College needs to win some football games and we’ve been doing that and we’re confident that we will continue to do that,” he said. “It comes right down to being competitive.”
In an effort to map its future, Pastilong says Big East athletic directors have been meeting frequently to discuss all issues related to the conference.
“It’s important that we have good, upfront, frank dialogue from the 12 schools in the Big East and to have frank dialogue among the six football playing schools to determine what is the best for the 12 of us,” he said.
In the meetings that have already taken place, Pastilong believes the schools are making progress in determining their direction. However, he cautions that there are still many details that have to be worked out.
“Time is important to us but we do have some time on our hands,” he noted. “We’re moving as rapidly as we possibly can but we’re also doing assessments, making sure that we address all of the issues, and making sure that we position ourselves for the future as best as we possibly can.
“We’d like to come out of this fall with some confirmation on the direction we’re going in but we have not established a time table,” he added.
Because the Northeast is so heavily populated and the core schools in the Big East Conference have such great tradition, Pastilong is confident that West Virginia University will continue to be in a viable athletic league.
“The Northeast has a large population base with great fans and West Virginia has enjoyed being in the Big East,” he said. “We need to continue to look toward the future and we need to make sure that our conference continues to be strong. We also need to make sure that WVU is positioned in a strong conference.”
Pastilong says the last four months have been interesting, to say the least.
“There were schools that considered departing the Big East and then the unusual twist that occurred toward the end with the two schools departing, one of which wasn’t even in the original discussions,” he said. “The final announcement being made on June 30th really put us in an awkward position with regards to our conference and in reality backed up any movement for an additional year because we in the Big East want to make sure that if we do realign our conference we want to be considerate of other conferences and other schools.”
Because Miami and Virginia Tech have decided to leave the Big East immediately after the 2003-04 academic year, Pastilong says that has forced West Virginia to make some adjustments to its 2004 football schedule.
“In ’04 there are two openings with Virginia Tech and Miami,” he noted. “In ’05, ’06, ’07, and ’08 our schedules are full so it makes for an unusual situation for us next year. We have a good series going with Maryland and we’re planning to continue that. We’ve had discussions with regard to whether or not we will continue the Virginia Tech series and what we’re doing right now is to see just what the alignment of the Big East is going to be and then we will establish who we will continue football relationships with.
“It’s very important that we somehow schedule two football games in ’04 and that’s an awful short period of time to look for football games because all of us know that football schedules are contracted years in advance,” he added.
