(10-20-2011 12:48 AM)BigEastHomer Wrote: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That contradicts what most insiders are saying, which is that UH, UCF, SMU, and BSU, are committed regardless..
My guess is that it's somewhere in the middle. I highly doubt Houston is waiting on the Big 12. The reason being is simply that the others haven't announced yet and they aren't Big 12 considerations.
There is a greater Big East agenda at work here that will tie it all together at a certain time.. I think the support that we're hearing from Notre Dame lately is part of the mechanism that's been part of that process, and once everything else is lined up (with the academies, etc) then it'll start to hit the fan.
I think you have a good handle on things. But Houston is making a big political push right now. It's fairly under the radar, but it's there. The Houston Alumni association started a coordinated campaign for the BCS last week with the help of UH Alum Jim Nantz.
The Big East invite was leaked to Mark Berman and Sam Khan. Berman is the most respected sports journalist in Houston. All stories from UH seem to break with Berman because he has a very good relationship with the ADs office. Khan is the UH beat writer for the Houston Chronicle. Since Berman and Khan broke the story, my belief is that it was an intentional leak on the part of Houston.
It is an effort to put political pressure on Texas. There are 2 reasons for this...first, to let the Big 12 schools know that they will have even more recruiting competition from an AQ school in Houston. This attempt to get added to the Big 12 is a long shot.
Second, but more importantly, they are trying to put political pressure on Texas NOT to raid the BE. It's one thing for Texas not to invite Houston and claim we don't add anything. It's a completely different thing for them to destroy the AQ conference we just got an invite to. Out of every Texas university, Houston has the second highest number of state legislators as alumni presently...second only to UT. If we get an invite to the Big East and Texas immediately destroys the conference, it will get ugly. Our people may not have the power to actually do anything, but it will draw a lot of negative attention. The Aggies are already up in arms at Texas right now for their refusal to continue the rivalry game...so Texas can hardly afford to make bad political decisions at this time. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a coordinated effort from some factions of the Big East to thwart a raid. But maybe I'm giving the BE too much credit here.
As long as Houston has some assurance of BE stability, it's a no brainer to join. They have scheduled a special Board of Regents meeting tomorrow. There will most certainly be some discussion in the executive session. I don't know if they can take action or not, since they didn't list conference realignment on the agenda. We'll see what happens.