Tranghese pleased with bowl moves
Andrew J. Beckner
Sportswriter
Friday July 15, 2005
The Big East Conference's four-year arrangement with the Gator and Sun bowls is the right step for the league's future and will allow the Big East to continue its stance as one of college football's top conferences, according to Commissioner Mike Tranghese.
"We've agreed this is the deal we wanted to make," he said Thursday, adding that final details have yet to be put on paper.
"At some point we're just going to sit down and we're going to dot all the i's and cross all the t's."
The conference made the official announcement Thursday that beginning with the 2006-2007 bowl season, the Big East, Big 12 and Notre Dame will begin a four-year deal to determine participants in the Gator and Sun.
That means that the Vitalis Sun Bowl on Dec. 31, 2006 and the Toyota Gator Bowl on Jan. 1, 2007 could feature either a team from the Big East, the Big 12 or Notre Dame.
The Gator or Sun will have the first pick of a Big East team after the conference's Bowl Championship Series representative is determined.
Which conference gets what bowl in a given year hasn't been determined, according to Tranghese. He said it was important that the Big East get word out that the deal was done, even if there are no specifics to report.
The pending four-year contract will run through the 2010 bowl season.
The Atlantic Coast Conference will continue its affiliation with the Gator Bowl and the Sun Bowl will feature either the Big 12 or the Big East (or Notre Dame) against a team from the Pacific 10.
The announcement comes amid a continued shakeup of the Big East's bowl tie-ins.
This year, in addition to the Big East's BCSeries berth and its deal with the Gator Bowl, the conference has ties to the Insight Bowl and the Meineke Car Care Bowl (formerly the Continental Tire Bowl) in Charlotte, N.C.
Media reports Thursday have the Insight moving from Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix to Sun Devil Stadium in suburban Tempe, Ariz., already the site of the Fiesta Bowl (which runs the Insight game).
The Fiesta also is moving, however, shifting to the new Arizona Cardinals' stadium in Glendale beginning in 2006.
After this season, however, the Big East no longer will be affiliated with the Insight Bowl, which is moving to a Big 12-Big Ten matchup.
Big East officials are looking at potential replacements. Tranghese said they are close to announcing which bowls will replace the Insight in the Big East's postseason schedule.
"We're talking to a lot of (bowl officials)," Tranghese said. "You name it, we've talked to them. We're pretty confident that we'll create five (bowl) opportunities for our eight members, plus Notre Dame."
Notre Dame's loose affiliation with the Big East has been a source of controversy for years.
Tranghese said, however, that such worries are not warranted. He said in the eight years that the Big East has been aligned with the Gator Bowl, for example, Notre Dame has replaced a conference team in that game only twice.
Not only that, but having Notre Dame affiliated with the conference has, in Tranghese's words "given us some leverage," when negotiating future postseason arrangements.
There are built-in safeguards as well.
"We have a one-win rule in place," Tranghese said. "If, for example, West Virginia is 9-2 this year and Notre Dame is 7-4, West Virginia cannot be bypassed for the Gator Bowl."
The Sun Bowl, which is played in El Paso, Texas, is the second-oldest bowl game in college football behind the Rose Bowl.
The Mountaineers have played in that game three times, the most recent a 35-33 loss to Oklahoma State on Christmas Day of 1987.
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