he has direct access to the UCONN AD jeff Hathaway and president ,he has covered the Hartford Courant for decades.


Big East Must Move Quickly To Add TCU
Jeff Jacobs

E-mail | Recent columns 3
Share 0diggsdigg
Related
Welcome To The Big East?
Topics
BlacklistFields
Football
Basketball
See more topics »
XCollege Football
Big East Conference
Roman Catholicism
Christianity
Colleges and Universities
Television
Defense
Armed Forces
ESPN
University of Connecticut
Parochial Schools
University of Notre Dame
Headaches
CBS Corp.
National Collegiate Athletic Association Jeff Jacobs

November 7, 2010
E-mail Print Share Text Size hc-jacobs-big-east-football-column-1120101107

Add Texas Christian to the Big East Conference.

Now. Not later.

Figure out the rest later.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Sample Our Free Husky Hoopla Newsletters]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


While it is heartening to see the Big East stop playing football victim, the announcement the conference unanimously decided to expand to 10 teams came as no surprise. What would have been a shock was if the Big East announced what its long range plans are.

Is the Big East adding two teams so it will be in position to absorb the loss of a school or two when the inevitable raid comes from the Big Ten or another conference? In other words, is this addition, in anticipation of contraction, so the status quo can be maintained?

Or are the Big East leaders making a firm, bold step toward a 12-team football league? And in doing so, have they already begun a blueprint for breaking into two conferences? Or, conversely, are they committed to the long-held, hybrid plan to keep a conference that already has unwieldy 16 basketball teams — with more coming — afloat?

I don't know the answer. And, more than that, I don't believe the Big East has come to absolute answers.

Last summer, everybody watched as Almighty Texas, the Pac-10 and the Big Ten made seismic noises before the ground settled much more quietly with Nebraska joining the Big Ten, while Colorado and Utah opted for the Pac-10. Everybody awaits the next Big Ten move, and who knows what happens from there?

Any combination of Rutgers, Pittsburgh or Syracuse could be on the move with one phone call from the Big Ten. What if the SEC decided it wanted West Virginia? Do you really think UConn would hang up the phone if the ACC called? The days of absolute conference loyalty died in these parts when the ACC raided the Big East in 2004.

There has to be a degree of pragmatism. It's great that a lot of folks have a 12-team New Big East on their drawing board. It's great other folks dream of a 20-team, two-division Super ACC. There should be long-range goals. But without knowing what the landscape will look like even a year from now, there is nothing wrong with proceeding one piece at a time.

Clearly, the most expedient thing for the Big East would be for Villanova to say yes to an upgrade to major college football and for TCU to agree to enter as a football-only school. You would get football to 10 teams while keeping hoops at 16. Along with the Big 12, the Big East could then muster support for the NCAA to approve a conference championship game for 10-team leagues.

There are hints Villanova is leaning toward a yes. In the end, the school may conclude the same thing we did in Connecticut: I-AA football is a money pit, and the future of a great basketball program is best protected by major college football. Besides, it would open the door for Temple to bump them if 'Nova says no. It also would take a few years to get the Wildcats up to speed. If only Villanova is added and a school or two was raided, Big East football would face immediate extinction.

That's why you don't miss out on TCU. Do it. And do it quickly.

Here's the rub.

If TCU can't find another conference — say, the WAC — for the rest of its teams and tells the Big East that it won't join if it can't bring all its sports, the Big East must relent. Good grief, how could you allow Notre Dame to remain in the conference without its football program, yet spit in the face of TCU football? How could you say, we want Seton Hall basketball and not TCU football? At that point, the Big East would expose itself as too beholden to basketball and the Catholic schools.

If commissioner John Marinatto misses on a national football power like TCU because of an ill-advised attempt to keep its basketball Yugoslavia together — wow — the Big East schools that share a common academic mission and the common pursuit of football and basketball excellence need to stand up and say enough is enough. At that point, they must take control of the league or get out.

Incremental steps are fine as long as they are steps toward a split between the football and basketball schools. Either an absolute, thanks-for-everything breakup into two conferences … or as two distinct divisions, with agreed upon funding differences, etc., under one corporate umbrella. The latter arrangement surely would be complicated, but if better television money is there, it mustn't be dismissed out of hand.

You add a 17th and 18th team, of course, and you've got hoops headaches. Right now basketball plays 18 conference games, 15 opponents once and three twice. Ostensibly, each team that's added to the basketball league means one fewer repeat game. As Andy Katz of ESPN pointed out, where it gets dicey financially is when you start eliminating the juiciest repeat rivalry games that currently are split by CBS and ESPN.

And then there always is the complex machination of the Big East tournament, which is a column in itself.

Yes, losing Georgetown basketball would bother me, but the truth is the seven/eight (depending on Villanova) Big East Catholic schools could join a couple of others to form a terrific basketball conference. UConn could still schedule G-town or St. John's nonconference.

Granted, from geography to TV market size, all the schools debated for expansion — even TCU — have pros and cons. Memphis, Army, Navy, Marshall don't move me. If USF is game, Central Florida has real possibilities. If TCU joins, Houston has possibilities, too. East Carolina wants in so passionately, well, you've got to respect that.

I'll be honest. I have no idea what this all will look like when the bottle stops spinning in five years.

I do know No. 3 TCU beat the tar out of No. 5 Utah Saturday and, among tons of televised games, I couldn't fine it anywhere on my cable system. I do know the Big East can give TCU great exposure and an automatic BCS bid.

Over six seasons in the Big East's current configuration (we'll include this year's rankings for the sake of argument), the Big East has had 13 teams total in the final Top 25 BCS rankings. Non-BCS teams have had 19, including four by TCU. Big East football needs to improve. TCU is improvement. TCU also would bring a huge college football-hungry TV market — something I'm not sure Philly does bring — and introduce a fertile recruiting area.

It is about 1,500 miles from Storrs to Fort Worth and about 1,350 from Syracuse to Fort Worth. The distance from Storrs to Providence College? The distance from the Syracuse Orange to the Seton Hall Pirates in South Orange? It's light years.

That much we know for damn sure.

agreed and agree with THIS statement especially:

"Good grief, how could you allow Notre Dame to remain in the conference without its football program, yet spit in the face of TCU football? How could you say, we want Seton Hall basketball and not TCU football? At that point, the Big East would expose itself as too beholden to basketball and the Catholic schools."

this is SPOT ON

Basketball Yugoslavia! Hahaha LMAO! That's good