RE: Did Pitt and Cuse sabotage the Big East?
This is an easy one.
Pitt, West Virginia and Rutgers were against signing ESPN's original contract offer and it is a good thing for the Big East that it worked out the way it did. Had the league agreed to that pact it would be stuck with by far the lowest media rights deal of all BCS leagues and it would have no hope of attracting Boise State, BYU, etc.
As for their defections, I know for a fact that they happened quickly. You have to understand that the B12 approached Pitt first and was VERY aggressive. They wanted an answer and they wanted it NOW! They were trying to get Pitt, Notre Dame and Arkansas. ND and ARK quickly said no but Pitt - who knew that the BE was messed up beyond words - said, "We're not sure. Tell us more." After the two spoke and exchanged info for 2-3 weeks, Pitt began to try to negotiate regional partners to come along with them - West Virginia and Louisville. The B12 was on board with that pending their media consultant's report.
During that period, the ACC - fearing that it was about to be shut out of PA, the NE's second most populated state, forever - then decided to make an offer to Syracuse and Pitt. Not coincidentally, New York is the NE's most populous state.
The ACC approached Pitt on like a Tuesday and about 11 days later the news leaked to ESPN that Pitt and Syracuse were leaving. As some of the others said, when Pitt decided to leave it wasn't a painless decision - we have a lot of great relationships in the Big East and a proud history there - however neither was it a difficult decision. The ACC just offered us more stability in a time when stability was/is king. Let's face it, in football the ACC has been just as average as the BE over the past several years and has received nowhere near the same level of scorn. Also, the SEC could swoop in and take any two ACC teams and that league is still going to be one of the big boys and have attractive bowl tie-ins. Conversely, even if the BE adds the non-AQ all-stars, it's always going to be scratching and clawing to garner any amount of respect. And even when their deeds merit respect there are still going to be great numbers of fans and media nationally who will refuse to grant them any respect based on inherent biases against the league and the Northeast in general. I've seen it here myself over the past few months and it will never change.
Finally, I want to address the basketball schools' role in this. I am not at all a hater of the basketball schools. Truthfully, once basketball season rolled around I always LOVED the Catholic aspect of the league. It felt like home to this Irish Catholic kid from Pittsburgh. Also, I agree with the assertion that most of the problems with the football schools are the fault of the football schools and nobody else.
However if the basketball schools hadn't been so damn strident about pushing Villanova I'm not sure that things would have unraveled as quickly as they did. Don't get me wrong, if the ACC had come calling we were gone no matter what. What alternative did we have? Had we stayed true to the Catholics, UConn or Rutgers would have happily taken our place in the ACC before you could say, "Holy Cross."
I just think - know actually - that Pitt and some others felt like the Catholics were ramming Nova down our throats even though it was obvious that they had absolutely no viable stadium or practice facilities plan and they were giving every indication that even if they did move up they would be doing so strictly to protect their men's basketball program. As such they would put the bare minimum of resources into D1-A football. Hell, VU came right out and said as much in their presentation to donors. They were calling it the "Duke plan." That scared the hell out of Pitt, Rutgers, West Virginia, etc., because it confirmed all kinds of fears those schools had regarding that school's candidacy and the Big East's commitment to playing big time football. Unfortunately the reaction we received from most of the others was basically, "So what? If you don't like it, leave."
So we did....without as much as one scintilla of regret. I still love the Big East and I'll be cheering for your teams when they aren't playing mine, but the Big East as a whole is responsible for the the league's apparent instability, not any one or two members.
Incidentally don't you find it peculiar/instructive that Villanova - which was allegedly an incredible candidate for expansion when the BE stood at nine teams - is now apparently off the table even though the league desperately needs qualified candidates? I find that to be amazingly revealing about the Wildcats' preparedness to play at this level and the other league schools' true feeling towards the Wildcats' candidacy.
Villanova football to the BE was, is, and always will be a HORRENDOUS idea. I'm not sure that it necessarily pushed the defecting schools out the door, per se but it certainly didn't help. No college football league can afford a Duke without also having a Florida State to counterbalance it. Vanderbilts are nice, but it is the LSUs that pay the bills.
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