Anyone have any ideas? I know they will be announcing a new commish but 'Direction of the Conference' seems to infer more.


Source: Big East to promote Marinatto to commish
By RALPH D. RUSSO, AP Sports Writer
13 hours, 26 minutes ago

Buzz Up PrintNEW YORK (AP)—The Big East will promote senior associate commissioner John Marinatto to replace Mike Tranghese, who is retiring after 19 years leading the conference.

A person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Marinatto would be introduced Wednesday as the Big East’s third commissioner. The person requested anonymity because the official announcement had yet to be made.

The 64-year-old Tranghese became commissioner in 1990, replacing Dave Gavitt. Tranghese announced in June he would step down in a year.

The Big East has scheduled an 11 a.m. teleconference “to make a significant announcement concerning the direction of the conference.”

Marinatto, who oversees the conference’s finances, has been with Big East for seven seasons, serving as Tranghese’s second-in-command. Before moving to the Big East, Marinatto was athletic director at Providence College.

Among those strongly considered for the job was former Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg.

Tranghese leaves the Big East in good health, with 16 basketball teams and eight football teams.

The league added five schools in 2005 following the high-profile defections of football powers Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Tranghese has said the conference’s ability to absorb those losses and remain intact was his proudest memory as commissioner.

Louisville, South Florida and Cincinnati were brought on to fill out the football side of the Big East, and the league added Marquette and DePaul on the basketball side.

Haha, I literally posted this like 10 seconds ago in the other thread.

Probably announcing a split

You would think that if the football schools were unhappy and had decided to split, some tibits would have leaked out by now. Given that there have been zero articles, rumors, etc in the media about a split, I'd say that scenario is unlikely. Just my opinion but I doubt something like the split of a major conference would stay quiet all these months.

The "significant announcement" will most likely be the naming of our new commisioner. Given that MT was commish from 1990 to 2009, I'd say any change at the commish position would be a significant change in direction. I'd be suprised if this was anything more than trying to drum up excitement for the press conference.

UofL07 Wrote:The "significant announcement" will most likely be the naming of our new commisioner.

That would be my guess as well. Only 35 more min to go.....

I guess I'm overly hopeful that 'direction' means more than another basketball guy from within the conference. This football season has really emphasized the need to focus on football issues and shoring up the conference.

L-yes Wrote:This football season has really emphasized the need to focus on football issues and shoring up the conference.

There is nothing wrong with the BE football schools that:

- maybe scoring a few points vs. Kentucky
- not allowing 50 or so vs. Oklahoma
- beating Colorado (one of the worst teams in the BCS conferences)
- beating a MAC team
- a coach's ability to develop an adequate backup QB to replace one prone to INTs
- jettisoning a coach with a .200 winning percentage, instead of forever waiting

won’t fix. This league’s on the field performance has little to do with the league’s leadership.

and the big news is?

Bluesox I saw your name and time (11:07) and figured you posted the news. So, I opened the thread.

Jose_Jalapeno_on_a_Stick Wrote:

L-yes Wrote:This football season has really emphasized the need to focus on football issues and shoring up the conference.

There is nothing wrong with the BE football schools that:

- maybe scoring a few points vs. Kentucky
- not allowing 50 or so vs. Oklahoma
- beating Colorado (one of the worst teams in the BCS conferences)
- beating a MAC team
- a coach's ability to develop an adequate backup QB to replace one prone to INTs
- jettisoning a coach with a .200 winning percentage, instead of forever waiting

won’t fix. This league’s on the field performance has little to do with the league’s leadership.

On the field performance means our league is tied to the fate of 8 teams that are collectively overshadowed by larger, more powerful conferences. We have to focus more on our football programs and add a few members that would by addition alone statistically lessen the chance that we all suck in the same season and add scheduling stability to an unbalanced conference.

Surely you also realize that if a school were to be poached to another conference that the BCS bid would be a moot point because at the moment of departure the Big East would cease to exist as a division 1-A football conference. We are at the bare minimum for members now. If the Big Ten wanted to do what the ACC failed to do in the last go round they could do it in a blink of an eye.

Exactly L-Yes

As a minimum we need to add 1 more FB school...if you must add one more BB only to balance the league.

Call it expansion insurance.

I guess this thread is close to getting moved.

With only 8 teams the Big East has little to no margin for error.

Fortunately WU and UofL have won the last 3 BCS games the Big East has played in. Someone (hopefully UC) will get a chance to do it again later this season.

And - we see what having only 8 teams does to cause scheduling problems.

The Big East needs one more "football only" member. The basketball league is too large as it is.

L-yes Wrote:

Jose_Jalapeno_on_a_Stick Wrote:

L-yes Wrote:This football season has really emphasized the need to focus on football issues and shoring up the conference.

There is nothing wrong with the BE football schools that:

- maybe scoring a few points vs. Kentucky
- not allowing 50 or so vs. Oklahoma
- beating Colorado (one of the worst teams in the BCS conferences)
- beating a MAC team
- a coach's ability to develop an adequate backup QB to replace one prone to INTs
- jettisoning a coach with a .200 winning percentage, instead of forever waiting

won’t fix. This league’s on the field performance has little to do with the league’s leadership.

On the field performance means our league is tied to the fate of 8 teams that are collectively overshadowed by larger, more powerful conferences. We have to focus more on our football programs and add a few members that would by addition alone statistically lessen the chance that we all suck in the same season and add scheduling stability to an unbalanced conference.

Surely you also realize that if a school were to be poached to another conference that the BCS bid would be a moot point because at the moment of departure the Big East would cease to exist as a division 1-A football conference. We are at the bare minimum for members now. If the Big Ten wanted to do what the ACC failed to do in the last go round they could do it in a blink of an eye.

You make a good point. When looking at the numbers of an 8-team league with 7 conference game, and 5 OOC. There is less of an opportunity to hide your league in down years. For example, How good is Ohio State? They played a pretty weak OOC except for USC. They went 3-1 OOC. They will probably end up 7-1 in-conference as they don't play MSU. 10-2 and the name Ohio State U is good enough to be ranked in the top 10 any year. If they get lucky in a bowl they'll be 11-2.
Compare that to a random BE team(WVU?) that has a couple OOC rivals and plays 5 OOC. Let's say they go 3-2 OOC, and 6-1 to win the conference. A 9-3 BE team would be top 20 go to the Orange Bowl to play Texas/Oklahoma.
Let's just say the BE added 2 teams and played 9 conference games. They can load 3 OOC with creampuffs, then charge through 9 games going 8-1 or 9-0. No more at Oklahoma or UNC.

Ohio State already beat MSU. They don't play Indiana this year.

Suppose the league had picked Temple and UCF (popular choices of most of the old-BE crowd). We would have two additional teams which are doing as badly as Syracuse. It wouldn’t have changed how the other schools had tripped up, unless, for example, WVU’s two extra conference games (I admit 9 conf-games would be a good idea) had replaced both ECU and Colorado. And, that’s pretty unlikely.

In this example, the conference is even more bottom-heavy than before, and that definitely gets noticed more so than the current situation.

Just which expansion candidate is doing amazing this year?

ECU and Memphis would prosper in the Big East with a BCS label.

BYUcoog Wrote:ECU and Memphis would prosper in the Big East with a BCS label.

I think this is the point. You have no idea where those teams would be this year if they were added 3 years ago. Memphis and UCF are geographically positioned to step up major in recruiting. ECU has the resources to get there as well.

L-yes Wrote:

Jose_Jalapeno_on_a_Stick Wrote:

L-yes Wrote:This football season has really emphasized the need to focus on football issues and shoring up the conference.

There is nothing wrong with the BE football schools that:

- maybe scoring a few points vs. Kentucky
- not allowing 50 or so vs. Oklahoma
- beating Colorado (one of the worst teams in the BCS conferences)
- beating a MAC team
- a coach's ability to develop an adequate backup QB to replace one prone to INTs
- jettisoning a coach with a .200 winning percentage, instead of forever waiting

won’t fix. This league’s on the field performance has little to do with the league’s leadership.

On the field performance means our league is tied to the fate of 8 teams that are collectively overshadowed by larger, more powerful conferences. We have to focus more on our football programs and add a few members that would by addition alone statistically lessen the chance that we all suck in the same season and add scheduling stability to an unbalanced conference.

Surely you also realize that if a school were to be poached to another conference that the BCS bid would be a moot point because at the moment of departure the Big East would cease to exist as a division 1-A football conference. We are at the bare minimum for members now. If the Big Ten wanted to do what the ACC failed to do in the last go round they could do it in a blink of an eye.

I'm sure if the B10 lured a team away, the BE would do the same within the hour. ECU and Memphis would both be willing to replace whatever team left for the B10, thus keeping the BCS status

gosports1 Wrote:

L-yes Wrote:

Jose_Jalapeno_on_a_Stick Wrote:

L-yes Wrote:This football season has really emphasized the need to focus on football issues and shoring up the conference.

There is nothing wrong with the BE football schools that:

- maybe scoring a few points vs. Kentucky
- not allowing 50 or so vs. Oklahoma
- beating Colorado (one of the worst teams in the BCS conferences)
- beating a MAC team
- a coach's ability to develop an adequate backup QB to replace one prone to INTs
- jettisoning a coach with a .200 winning percentage, instead of forever waiting

won’t fix. This league’s on the field performance has little to do with the league’s leadership.

On the field performance means our league is tied to the fate of 8 teams that are collectively overshadowed by larger, more powerful conferences. We have to focus more on our football programs and add a few members that would by addition alone statistically lessen the chance that we all suck in the same season and add scheduling stability to an unbalanced conference.

Surely you also realize that if a school were to be poached to another conference that the BCS bid would be a moot point because at the moment of departure the Big East would cease to exist as a division 1-A football conference. We are at the bare minimum for members now. If the Big Ten wanted to do what the ACC failed to do in the last go round they could do it in a blink of an eye.

I'm sure if the B10 lured a team away, the BE would do the same within the hour. ECU and Memphis would both be willing to replace whatever team left for the B10, thus keeping the BCS status

I don't think that would cut it on many levels. I don't know what the ramifications are of 'not playing together' for so many years are but I'd assume it would really, really weaken our position as a BCS founding conference and a coherent league. We can't be a revolving door and expect to hold our seat at the Big Boy's table when there are leagues like the Mountain West who have shown that they take football seriously enough to have it drive the bus. We seem content to hang onto the BCS seat by the skin of our teeth.