Good News for the Big East
March 02, 2004 01:32 PM | General
Tuesday, March 2, 2004
The Big East Football Conference securing its position in the Bowl Championship Series for the next six years is great, great news for the beleaguered conference.
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| Football coach Rich Rodriguez and WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr. pictured here in in Jacksonville, Fla. Both are happy with the Big East's position within the Bowl Championship Series. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
In all of the tribulation that followed the announcements that Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College were leaving the conference, the biggest loss was not the individual schools leaving the league but rather the danger that the Big East was going to be cast outside the BCS umbrella.
Personally, I always believed West Virginia University and the Big East Conference were going to be included in any type of a new BCS format because of the geography the league covers. Therefore, logically West Virginia University and the Big East wouldn’t be left out but there was always the possibility that a lack of logic would prevail.
This announcement is monumental because it allows the Big East Conference to maintain its status as a major football league and it permits conference schools to continue to recruit on the highest level. It will also neutralize some of the negative recruiting that was occurring with schools from surrounding conferences like the ACC and SEC.
The world of the BCS was shaken as a result of ACC expansion. The fact that there were Congressional hearings taking place and the fact that there was an organized effort by the have-nots led by Tulane president Scott Cowen were parts of a bigger equation. I think the founding fathers of the BCS realized that either they expand and/or compromise or there was a very real possibility that they may have been forced out of business. I think they made a wise decision and I believe this in the best interest of college athletics overall as long as the BCS is going to continue to be the means of determining a national champion in football.
And while the news of the Big East retaining its BCS status is significant, it has fallen under the radar screen in some areas. Neither Pittsburgh paper carried a story about it Tuesday despite the positive impact it has on the Pitt football program. The reason is probably because the decision took place on a Sunday and it didn’t come out until Sunday night. It was also a little stealth-like because no one really knew in advance that this was the time that the BCS was going to determine its future plans.
In the end, this decision puts closure on the ACC-Big East raid that took place last year. I said from the very first day when all of this ACC expansion talk began that the biggest issue was not going to be which schools left but rather whether or not West Virginia would still be able to compete in the BCS. That is the most important thing to West Virginia University. Now that the Big East’s position in the BCS has been validated, the conference has to move forward.
What does the future hold for the Big East Football Conference? That will be determined over the next six years. And while six years seems like a long time, in football years it is really not. Six years equals roughly 66 regular season games per school over that time period. That means the remaining Big East schools and the new schools coming in have to get their houses in order fairly quickly.
Connecticut has beefed up its schedule, it appears Louisville is ready to make a move, South Florida is positioned in one of the most fertile recruiting areas in the country and Cincinnati hired Ohio State’s defensive coordinator to run its program.
The infrastructure is in place at the remaining Big East schools to have consistent winners.
Regardless of all of that, six years from now and even 16 years from now the Big East will still take up 25 percent of the United States so the league will always have that in its favor.
The bottom line is the Big East is going to have to schedule and win its share of games against other BCS conferences to stay at the table. If they can’t then it’s their own fault. They’ve got to be proactive in scheduling and prove they belong among the nation’s top conferences.
Stay well.
