tigersharktwo Wrote:A working bcs conference is better than a mistake offering nothing of significant value..Thats the policy of BE as expressed by MT,not by me.

You're talking about the same Mike Tranghese who was in his office twittling his thumbs while the rest of the Big East schools were negotiating with Louisville and Cincinnati? Because Cincinnati and Louisville negotiated their Big East invitation with Big East institutes NOT the Big East commissioner.

If Coach Holland were to sway CUSA to only play divisional games until the CUSA Championship it would give ECU 7 out of conference games to schedule. ECU could team up with Navy to provide a scheduling alliance with the Big East. I'm sure ECU would love the opportunity to play in the Charlotte Bowl.

Brick City Pirate Wrote:If Coach Holland were to sway CUSA to only play divisional games until the CUSA Championship it would give ECU 7 out of conference games to schedule. ECU could team up with Navy to provide a scheduling alliance with the Big East. I'm sure ECU would love the opportunity to play in the Charlotte Bowl.

As I said on the CUSA board, I think TH floating the idea of CUSA only playing 5 conference games is goofy and would be voted down 11-1. You agreed with me, if not on the exact vote, that it would be shot down.

Plus, why does the Big East want to give up slots in the Charlotte Bowl to ECU and Navy? Navy moved in for 2006 only due to Trainedgeese's stupidity in the matter of bowl order for the conference. It's Big East only for 2007-2009.

Claw, MT is still the BE commissiner.What ever you may say about what he has done or not done(from your point of view),the BE must still be behind him or he would be fired.

Brick City Pirate Wrote:If Coach Holland were to sway CUSA to only play divisional games until the CUSA Championship it would give ECU 7 out of conference games to schedule. ECU could team up with Navy to provide a scheduling alliance with the Big East. I'm sure ECU would love the opportunity to play in the Charlotte Bowl.

If the reports are true that it was Army that sunk the scheduling arrangement and not Navy, this could very well be the impetus for TH's suggestion.

I agree with both you and College Card that the idea of only 5 conference games would be voted down by C-USA. So a Navy/ECU scheduling arrangement with the Big East isn't likely to get off the ground.

Still, even though it isn't going to fly on the C-USA end, the idea had some intriguing possibilities. Navy and ECU would strengthen the BE's 'pull' in traditional northeastern corridor markets of Baltimore and DC. It would have added 'reach' into the Raleigh and Charlotte markets.

This shows that TH is indeed, thinking-out-of-the-box. Hopefully some Big East minds are doing so as well.

Cheers,
Neil

(singing softly in the background) :band:
And the beat goes on,
and the beat goes on...

bitcruncher Wrote:(singing softly in the background) :band:
And the beat goes on,
and the beat goes on...

La de da de de
La de da de da

USFFan

I like leaders trying to improve situations through creative solutions. In this case though, if I were a CUSA fan I wouldn't approve of this specific measure. Who wants a 12 team conference with only 5 games, and where you could literally go a decade without seeing 50% of the conference teams, assuming the league stayed together and you didn't see that team in the title game.

Now, if it was shockingly passed by CUSA, it became clear the 16 team Big East was sticking together, and no favorable 9th football only was available for 8 games, a Navy/ECU combo could be looked it. The chances of CUSA passing that are so slim however that it isn't worth serious consideration until they approve it.

Even a 7 team conference wou;d play 6 games!

Football only is just dumb. Next move should be add 1 football only and 1 bball only and let it stick for another five years if they don't want to split come 2010. Another point regarding the 9 football/12 bball hybrid with ND,gtown, and nova going with 9 football school's...the concept also works fine with UMass, Temple, and URI instead of nd,gtown, and nova, so just remember football school's have the ruby slippers, the ? is do they ever want to use them.

CollegeCard Wrote:I like leaders trying to improve situations through creative solutions. In this case though, if I were a CUSA fan I wouldn't approve of this specific measure. Who wants a 12 team conference with only 5 games, and where you could literally go a decade without seeing 50% of the conference teams, assuming the league stayed together and you didn't see that team in the title game.

Now, if it was shockingly passed by CUSA, it became clear the 16 team Big East was sticking together, and no favorable 9th football only was available for 8 games, a Navy/ECU combo could be looked it. The chances of CUSA passing that are so slim however that it isn't worth serious consideration until they approve it.

Oh, I agree. But if my assumption is correct and that this initiative from TH sprang from the possibility of it being a Navy/ECU scheduling thing with the BE - which, I realize is a BIG IF - then if the football schools were thinking out of the box, they could counterpropose a 3-3-2 scheduling arrangement of ND-Navy-ECU.

ND would always be three and Navy and ECU could switch-up sometimes being 3 and sometimes being 2 dependent upon their scheduling needs.

Or, perhaps Army didn't want to do 4, but would be willing to do 2.

This could free up ND to have 1 of its 3 games always against Pitt (which is likely to happen anyway), and then have ND for 2, Navy for 2, Army for 2 and ECU for 2.

No bowl affiliations would need to be looked at for such a minimal scheduling arrangement with Army and Navy. ECU wouldn't need bowl affiliation since they are in C-USA with their own bowl arrangements.

This would solve the scheduling problem short term and give ECU a chance to either grow into an acceptable candidate or not by 2015 or so. It solves ECU's problem of not having to worry about where to put all of its other sports in a BE football-only situation while still giving BE institutions an idea of what their value might be. And even with an 8-game C-USA schedule, I think ECU could perhaps find room for 2 BE teams for its 4 OOC games.

And that's just out-of-the-box thinking for this one example.

There is other out-of-the-box thinking that involves other potential candidates that might be taking place, if the minds were willing.

Cheers,
Neil

No one will take a football only membership to the Big East before July 1, 2009. They will wait and see if we split first.

Waiting to see if the conference splits is what we will all be doing. Until then...

(singing softly in the background) :band:
And the beat goes on,
and the beat goes on...

Wilkie01 Wrote:No one will take a football only membership to the Big East before July 1, 2009. They will wait and see if we split first.

Wrong.

Why army and navy vs ecu and navy?Army and navy do not want entry into the BE for all sports.If ecu wants to schedule ooc games with BE football members,thats up to the individual schools.The same is true for army and navy.Both army and navy are likely to play at least 2 ooc games per year with BE schools.

Blue Sox is right. Picked the three perfect schools too. That is, if one looks to the future.