I guess there won't be as much disparity in TV monies any longer...

The Charleston Gazette Wrote:WVU, Big East quietly secure millions
By Mitch Vingle
Sports Editor
May 7, 2008

THE BIG EAST'S eight football schools quietly locked up a boatload of money last week.

And almost no one noticed.

"It was," said West Virginia athletic director Ed Pastilong, "monumental."

Perhaps appropriately, Pastilong spoke while attending a Fiesta Bowl function in Phoenix. That's the same city in which, four years earlier, the Bowl Championship Series handlers announced a three-pronged evaluation would be applied to member leagues after the 2007 season.

Because of the then-crippled Big East.

Last week, however, without fanfare, BCS officials reaffirmed the participation of the six leagues currently involved through the end of the 2013 season. That includes the Big East.

The reinvention of the league since the 2003 purge is complete. And one can now call it a complete success.

The reason is simple: no one noticed the news. No one questioned the Big East's place at the adult table. The reaffirmation wasn't even a note in BCS meeting coverage.

"It was quiet,'' Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said Tuesday. "The way I like it."

It was both quiet and satisfying.

Just like the unreported numbers-crunching that led to the reaffirmation.

"We had a formal [evaluation] process in December," Tranghese said. "No one made much of it. All of us [BCS officials] elected not to make a big deal of it.''

That's how Tranghese promised the process would be handled right after details of the three-pronged evaluation process were announced a few years back.

"We've been careful not to discuss specifics too much because we don't want the media to speculate," said the commissioner.

Mission accomplished.

"It's a complicated formula," Tranghese said Tuesday. "It's an analysis we agreed not to talk about. But it has to do with the performance in bowls, Top 25 teams, the conference rankings ... It's all football related. You have to reach particular levels."

The prongs as explained after the 2004 Phoenix meetings: a four-year average of each league's highest ranked team, the number of each league's Top 25 teams and the average BCS ranking of all members.

"Exactly," Tranghese said. "Everything has weighted values."

And these days the Big East is a heavyweight. So the weight has been lifted from those like the commissioner and Pastilong.

"[BCS membership] means security for the future," Pastilong said. "It means being in a position to vie for a national championship. It's very important."

Especially for his state of mind. Neither he nor Tranghese forget the directive issued by a BCS committee that said "beginning with the 1999 regular season, each BCS conference is subject to review and possible loss of automatic selection by the BCS should the conference champion not have an average ranking of 12 or higher over a four-year period." It was tabbed the "Big East rule."

Then came 2003, when the Atlantic Coast Conference raided the league. First Miami and Virginia Tech left. Then Boston College.

"There was anxiety," Pastilong remembers. "There was anxiety in regard to our conference, which trickled to us. That trickled to our followers. This [BCS membership] affects so much. It affects the overall strength of a conference and how a program is looked at."

The Big East landed a reprieve in 2004, after the breakup, when the BCS granted a stay through 2007. But the media heat remained and the committee felt compelled to release details of the standards.

"It was a very difficult period," Tranghese said. "All I said at the time was there's no sense fussing about it. Just put your nose to work and win games."

"Things are significantly better now.''

The commissioner pointed to the league's three straight BCS bowl victories. He pointed to "two incredibly great seasons."

And he pointed to the beautiful sound of silence when the Big East was again included among the BCS partners.

"Now," he said, "no one even discusses it."

To contact sports editor Mitch Vingle, send e-mail to mitchvingle@wvgazette.com or call (304) 348-4827.

It's about time...

Best article I've read all year.

Great job Big East Teams and especially the new ones UL, UC and USF! Wow what a last couple seasons it has been for the new three! The Big East is back and next year looks as strong as the last few have been. Pitt is ready to move up!

Bearcat T Wrote:Great job Big East Teams and especially the new ones UL, UC and USF! Wow what a last couple seasons it has been for the new three! The Big East is back and next year looks as strong as the last few have been. Pitt is ready to move up!

Bearcat T Wrote:Great job Big East Teams and especially the new ones UL, UC and USF! Wow what a last couple seasons it has been for the new three! The Big East is back and next year looks as strong as the last few have been. Pitt is ready to move up!

The only problem here is that this is noticed in West Virginia. Has anyone else noticed?

amazing story

Excellent article. We all said that we would know that the Big East is back when no one is talking about the Big East's credibility. We don't hear people questioning that Big East having 3 or 4 ranked teams, having a BCS spot, a great television package, etc. The Big East is just assumed to be on par with the Big Ten and Pac-10 and Big 12 and SEC.

Bearcat T Wrote:Great job Big East Teams and especially the new ones UL, UC and USF! Wow what a last couple seasons it has been for the new three! The Big East is back and next year looks as strong as the last few have been. Pitt is ready to move up!

We knew that the old school Big East schools would do their thing (all of them went to a bowl at least once during this period adding to the strength of the conference's balance question), but it was up to the new guys to step up and prove that we weren't just given a free ride and dragging down the conference. And all of us responded with bowl game appearances and Top 25 rankings.

CatsClaw Wrote:

Bearcat T Wrote:Great job Big East Teams and especially the new ones UL, UC and USF! Wow what a last couple seasons it has been for the new three! The Big East is back and next year looks as strong as the last few have been. Pitt is ready to move up!

We knew that the old school Big East schools would do their thing (all of them went to a bowl at least once during this period adding to the strength of the conference's balance question), but it was up to the new guys to step up and prove that we weren't just given a free ride and dragging down the conference. And all of us responded with bowl game appearances and Top 25 rankings.

I'm anxious for Syracuse to return to bowl games (even minor ones) again, hopefully before the decade is out. But in the meantime, I've got to say the newbies (UConn included in that) and Rutgers have stepped up to the plate.

But, as everyone knows, the gold star goes to the Eers.

Cheers,
Neil

BE on the rise:
wvu : exploding, 4 straight nyd bowls, had no. 1 ranking (usa today)
louis: exploding, bowl games in 9 of last 10 yrs, exp stadium to 60+
rutg: on the rise, sold out all 8 hm games last yr, exp stadium to 50+
usf: on the rise, avg over 50+k for home games , final bcs ranking
uconn: on the rise, co BE champs, final bcs ranking, sold allot for bowl
cincy: on the rise, final bcs,ap ranking, 10k for spring game
pitt,cuse: two ancient programs with national champ

omnicarrier Wrote:I'm anxious for Syracuse to return to bowl games (even minor ones) again, hopefully before the decade is out.

Ain't we all, Neil? Ain't we all?

Wow! I hope the ACC posters don't see this article

Screw 'em if they do.